Nile (TV series)


Nile is a 2004 BBC Television documentary that tells the history and natural history of the Nile.

Production

The series was produced by the BBC Natural History Unit in co-production with the Discovery Channel.
Episode three includes footage from the 1971 BBC Television mini-series The Search for the Nile.

Reception

Reviews

The Times calls it an, enlightening BBC series, that, uses stunning photography and restrained dramatisations to pay homage to the longest river on Earth.
The reviewer concludes, never mind the cardboard dramatisations — this is an heroic story.

Ratings

Episode one: ''Crocodiles and Kings''

Since the dawn of history the miraculous annual floodwaters have risen to transform the desert into a fertile paradise where the great civilisation of Ancient Egypt grew, but their existence was on a knife-edge held hostage by the river and the Pharaoh maintained the balance by appeasing the gods to ensure the gifts of the river.
The New Kingdom of Rameses and Tutankhamun began 3,500 years ago with the province of Thebes at its heart, and farmers, fishermen and temple builders thrive with the blessings of the rivers. At dawn hamadryas baboon climb to the top of the temples to great the sun god Ra who rides across the sky in his chariot, a sharp-eyed peregrine falcon bursts from the sun as a manifestation of the all-seeing Horus, and a feared cobra hunts in the fields its poisonous venom manifesting the suns burning rays. The scarab beetle embodies the sun's daily journey, born from the ground it sculpts a sphere of dung to feed its young which emerge again in perfect continuity, while a Nile catfish feeling its way with long whiskers guides the sun back to the east for its rebirth.
The Old Kingdom of the Pyramids had been destroyed by a 20-year drought that starved much of the population; now as the waters dry up the people turn for protection to the Pharaoh who is the son of Osiris. Osiris taught the people cultivation but was murdered by his brother Seth and scattered across the land only to re-emerge as a symbol of fertility while Seth was banished to the desert from where he threatens to return with famine and death. Female Hippos, fighting to defend their young, are worshipped as Tort; Crocodiles, welcoming the heat that maintains their body temperature, are worshipped as Sobek; and flocks of sacred Ibis, signalling the arrival of the flood, are worshipped as Thoth. The land is transformed into a flooded plain while the Pharaoh oversees the construction of dams and channels to tame the floods.
The receding waters leave behind thick fertile silt from which frogs and toads are born as symbols of the land's resurrection. The farmers sow their seeds as memorial to Osiris who in reborn again in the harvest crops only to be devoured by a swarm of locusts that poison whatever is left with their droppings. Wild dogs and jackals, scavenging the overflowing cemeteries, are worshipped as Anubis. The pharaoh death leaves the country in chaos as the body is mummified with a scarab amulet placed on the heart. As the drought approaches, with no pharaoh to intercede with the gods, Egyptian vultures flock over the river as a symbol of death. The Pharaoh, buried with precious provisions for his final journey, enters the Hall of Judgment where his heart is weighed against a feather by the gods.
The pharaoh is found worthy earning his place among the gods and the Nile rises again to revitalise the valley and sustain a civilisation that would inspire all those that followed.

Cast

The annual flooding of the Nile brought the water and fertile volcanic soil that made the Ancient Egyptian civilisation possible, but impassable rapids made it impossible for them to discover the source of this bounty they attributed to the gods. The river stretches into Sudan through a forbidding desert known as the Belly of Stones that was home to the Black Pharaohs of the Nubian kingdom of Kush who once ruled over their Egyptian neighbours. The Blue and White Niles merge in the Longest Kiss in History at the crossroad city of Khartoum.
The White Nile flows through the impenetrable swamps of the Sudd where shifting islands of papyrus buoyed by air-sacks in the steams long prevented further exploration. White-eared kob form one of Earth's greatest concentrations of large animals as they graze the neighbouring grasslands during the dry season. The native Dinka cowherds rely on their cattle for a diet of milk and blood supplemented only by fish when possible. The Dinka and kob are forced on the move as rains swell the swamp, bursting its banks and doubling its size. A lungfish emerges from its cocoon of mud and mucus and uses its primitive lungs to breathe air while it reaches for the nearest pool only to be caught in the oversized beak of the giant shoebill stalk, while family groups of speckle-throated otter and the powerful Nile monitor also hunt the waters. The Dinka and kob return and a stranded catfish crawls to safety as the waters evaporate in the sun but this is not the source of the Great Flood.
The Blue Nile flows through dry savannah from a deep barren gorge on the fringe of the Ethiopian highlands where the lammergeier vulture seeks out those who succumb to the drought. A volcanic plug that rose up 30 million years ago has left the region with Africa's highest mountains, where the hippos of Lake Tana live in the continent's highest body of water. The dry highland dome above is home to earth's highest density of rodents and the Egyptian wolf which digs them up. The indigenous gelada baboons feed exclusively on grass using their massive teeth only for the intimidation of rivals. Moisture-laden clouds from the Congo basin bring annual rains to Africa’s Water Tower that transforms the rodent's world with lush vegetation for food and cover from predators like the auger buzzard. Night time freezing breaks up the topsoil of one of the oldest areas of cultivated land in Africa and it is washed downstream to the lake where pelicans gather to feed and weaver birds build papyrus nests. The Christian highland farmers beg the pagan river spirit Guion for mercy at times of great flood.
Ancient Egyptians had heard rumours of Lake Tana but had no idea how important the Blue Nile that flows over the Smoking Fire Falls with its fertile volcanic soil was to their civilisation.

Crew

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