“Savage Kingdom,” a three-part nature documentary that begins Friday on Nat Geo Wild, is hard to watch and even harder to listen to.
It’s an effort to capitalize on “Game of Thrones” by imposing a human narrative onto wild animals in Botswana, in southern Africa. A “Game of Thrones” star, Charles Dance (who plays Tywin Lannister in that HBO series), reads a ponderous narration in a sonorous voice that is supposed to be ominously intriguing but is too often just nap-inducing. It doesn’t help that the default speed of the six-hour mini-series seems to be slow motion. The combination of voice and slow motion is only slightly more stimulating than a television yule log.
.......
The cliché-heavy narration Mr. Dance is saddled with is full of references to defending the border and military-style strategy worthy of MacArthur. In this overwrought world, female hyenas aren’t merely tending their young. “The sisterhood is raising an army,” Mr. Dance intones.
........
