One for the Road: Is this real life?

The other day, while watching a pride of panting lionesses finally tear lumps out of a big wildebeest they’d been relentlessly pursuing around my TV screen for the previous five minutes, I fired the remote across the floor in outrage.

“Rubbish!” I roared, as neatly clipped images of claws and entrails and blood-soaked smiles and still-kicking hindlegs flashed across the screen.

“How does the BBC expect us to believe Fiona Bruce when we can’t even trust David Attenborough anymore?”

But let’s rewind a wee bit.

Slightly hungover, lying recumbent on the sofa, I searched our TV’s manifold on-demand services for something to sooth my fragile soul. After five minutes of flicking, I alighted on a one hour long programme by the godfather of nature documentaries and patron saint of hungover television himself, David Attenborough.

The show followed the usual pattern: Exciting start full of big cats and their soon-to-be prey; a more boring, bathos-bordering bird, bug and fish-filled middle section; then, to bring it home, a strong tooth and claw finish that involved a civil-looking four-legged mammal getting pulled apart by a group of not-so-civil-looking four-legged mammals.

Anyway, it began with Big Dave, in those lovely dulcet tones, introducing us to a pride of lions. The fellas, he explained, massive and well-maned, lay about all day, lounging, having the craic and generally acting the lads (usual enough lion fare).

Meanwhile, the women, a ferocious band of sisters and in-laws, divided their time equally between childcare and slaughtering whatever unfortunate creature happened to be passing by when the hunger kicked in.

After that, Big Dave, presumably to build intimacy between the audience and the animals, listed names, family ties, occupations, hobbies and interests, political affiliations, religious beliefs and all sorts of scandalous details about each lion’s love life, before finally dropping the bombshell that would serve as the dramatic engine that would keep us gripped to the show’s central plotline.

Yes, you guessed it: if the pride did not find food soon, they would surely all die.

“Ahh,” I protested, peeved by the excessive anthropomorphisation and predictable narrative yet again being imposed upon these wild animals.

“Every time!” I complained.

Then, I caught myself on.

“Documentary is also entertainment, lad,” I rationalised. “The narratives might be Disney, but the action, at least, is always real.”

Anyway, while the lions took a sojourn from the screen, I tried to remain vaguely interested as the ants, seagulls and science-fiction-looking fish enjoyed their moment in the limelight.

Then the orchestral music turned dark and heavy, a picture of a quivering Saharan sunset slowly materialised, then there they were again – the stars of the show, the kings of the jungle and queens of the planes.

“Deadly,” I said, taking a swig of tea and rearranging myself for maximum comfort.

About this time, a herd of wildebeest went walking by.

The camera followed the dopey-looking herd as they plodded past, completely oblivious to the threat that lurked.

Then we were shown the lionesses who, having spotted their opportunity, now arranged themselves in attack formation.

The camera quickly switched back-and-forth between hunter and prey: The lionesses creeping through the high grass; the wildebeests’ ears pricking as they detected a threat; the lionesses inching closer; the smart wildebeests scampering, the stupid ones stiffening in fear; the lionesses pouncing; the wildebeests bolting as every nerve in their bodies screamed for survival. Then one was singled out and the life and death chase ensured.

‘Frig the football, the F1 and the boxing,’ I thought. ‘This is what it is all about. This is true competition!’

But then I started to question things – things I had noticed before but repressed.

‘Why doesn’t any one shot last longer than a few seconds? And why is the cameramen so rarely able to get both a lioness and the wildebeest in the same frame?’ I asked. I continued to spiral.

I noticed that, while the sequence gave the impression that the footage was captured in same order as it was being presented, there was nothing to say that the chronology was not produced in the edit room.

‘Perhaps these shots were taken on different days?’ I thought. ‘Perhaps it was all stitched together after the fact? Maybe half these lionesses are frigging vegetarians?!’

Feeling confused, incensed and betrayed, the remote control went flying and I almost accused Big Dave of having the animal gunned down so that he could have an ending for his programme.

In reflection, in a world of deep fakes and AI, it was nothing more than an encounter with a relatively benign version of the quintessential 2025 problem: Telling fact from fiction.

Anyway, try to forget everything I said when you watch your next nature documentary. Believe me, it’s way better that way.