Matthew Macfadyen narrates “24 Hours on Earth”

BBC America launches a new night of Earth-centric programming on March 11 with an encore of “The Blue Planet” followed by the U.S. premiere of “24 Hours on Earth.” Narrated by Matthew McFadyen, the breathtakingly beautiful nature documentary divides the day in half, the first installment focusing on daylight hours, the March 18 episode set at night.

Why was Matthew MacFadyen the perfect choice to narrate?
We wanted someone who could convey the wonder and awe of our planet and give gravity to the power of the sun but also bring the different characters to life. It’s a lot to ask, but Matthew is a wonderful storyteller, so it was the perfect choice.

The jury is still out on narrator Matthew Macfadyen (TV's Little Dorrit). His plu-plummy accent makes him sound like one of those Englishmen who have spent too much time out in the midday sun.

In the role of celebrity narrator, Matthew Macfadyen tends to be as earnestly serviceable as the whole—but when the script allows, he can also be sublimely grim. In one of the magic moments before nightfall, bats pour out of a cave to hunt. But in the day’s closing minutes, “Eyesight still wins,” Macfadyen purrs, as a hawk snatches a bat from the sky. He also delivers a respectful salute to a dung beetle that uses the stars as navigational tools while pushing poop across the desert sands. But his most sublime narration happens when he becomes romantically invested (which is remarkably often). “He needs open water to woo his exquisite female,” Macfadyen assures us with odd over-investment in seadragons, “but he can’t rush her; she won’t give up her eggs until he’s proved he’s Mr. Right. He needs to stay cool, turn on the charm, and impress her… fortunately, she likes what she sees.” Matthew Macfadyen, wingman to marine life everywhere.

That said, there are also moments of tonal dissonance that feel either over-edited or flat out callous. Under the Northern Lights, humpback whales lose their way because of the disruption to Earth’s magnetic fields, increasing the whales’ chances of getting stranded on the beach. “But soon it will be morning,” Macfadyen assures us, as if sunlight might allow any beached whales to grow enough legs to drag them back into the water.

And though it’s nearly impossible to make any documentary about the wonders of nature without a message about ecological preservation amid the effects of human occupation on a delicate planet, 24 Hours On Earth bizarrely tries its hardest to avoid it. Macfadyen says of the critically endangered kakapo during the midnight hours, “There are less than 150 left in the wild, which can make finding a mate unusually difficult,” with a delivery that suggests other kakapos have moved to the suburbs to avoid the full moon, rather than having suffered under human encroachment and hunting. It’s a disingenuous sour note in a documentary that’s ostensibly focused on the crucial and complicated balance of life in a series of fragile ecosystems.

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Executive producer: James Honeyborne
Narrated by: Matthew Macfadyen
Airs: Tuesday at 9 p.m. Eastern on BBC America
Format: Two-part nature miniseries
Two episodes watched for review

Meet the narrator

On graduating from RADA, Matthew Macfadyen joined the innovative Cheek by Jowl theatre company which toured to the USA. He also performed with the Royal Shakespeare Company (RSC).

Matthew early films included Maybe Baby, with Hugh Laurie and Joely Richardson; Enigma; The Reckoning; and Brad McGann’s In My Father’s Den. The latter attracted attention from the worldwide film industry, earning him the New Zealand Screen Award and a British Independent Film Award (BIFA) nomination for Best Actor.

In addition to his acclaimed portrayal of Oblonsky in Anna Karenina, Matthew previously starred opposite Keira Knightley in the celebrated Pride & Prejudice, for which he received a London Critics’ Circle Film Award nomination.

He is also well-known to audiences worldwide for his portrayal of government agent Tom Quinn in the first three seasons of the long-running hit series Spooks.

Matthew was nominated for a Royal Television Society Award for his first television starring role, in Peter Kosminsky’s BAFTA Award-winning BBC drama Warriors. He won a Bafta for his role in Criminal Justice.