spy in the ocean
Gods of Tennis
The creepiest movie ever made isn’t The Exorcist or some splatter fest of over-hormonal teens getting ripped open with chainsaws.
It’s a Christmas movie featuring a computer-generated golem that sounds like Tom Hanks and looks like his reanimated corpse.
Few actors are less creepy than the real-life Hanks, but 2004’s celebratory atrocity The Polar Express is frightening because the CGI figure of the train’s merry conductor isn’t quite human. Psychologists call this the “uncanny valley” effect.
One of the many fascinating insights revealed by Spy In The Ocean (BBC1) is that animals are not affected by the ‘uncanny valley’. Veteran wildlife filmmaker John Downer and his team send robot puffers, sea lions, crabs and octopuses on survey missions – and the real animals are never frightened.
A female sperm whale got all over the mother when a ten-foot spy baby was sent to her. To the human eye, the electronic model with cameras in its head may seem utterly convincing.
One of the many fascinating insights revealed by Spy In The Ocean (BBC1) is that animals are not affected by the ‘uncanny valley’
A coconut octopus (pictured), a cute cephalopod that rolls on the sea floor with four of its long arms coiled into wheels, spotted a spy and wrapped two spare arms around it as if to dance
Veteran wildlife filmmaker John Downer and his team send robot puffers, sea lions, crabs and octopuses on survey missions – and the real animals are never frightened
But the female cannot be fooled for long. For example, this robot didn’t respond to her curious barrage of clicks and whistles. Yet she never seemed alarmed, only interested.
A coconut octopus, an adorable cephalopod that rolls along the sea floor with four of its long arms coiled into wheels, was even more intrigued. It saw a spy and wrapped two spare arms around it as if it wanted to dance.
Sea lions hunting mackerel not only accepted a spy in their midst, but also pitied it. When they had had enough, one of them threw a stray fish at the robot. It seemed to say, “Please – it’s not much use to you, but I don’t like to see you go hungry.”
Swimming so close allowed the spycams to take pictures of natural behavior that a diver could not. This technology is part of a new generation of underwater film equipment that is revolutionizing the way we see the world beneath the waves.
Natural history documentary filmmaker Huw Cordey told me when I interviewed him last month that breathing apparatus is now so advanced that divers can park on the ocean floor for four or five hours at a time, set up tripods and film from skins as they would on land. That was not possible with ordinary aqualongs.
A celebration of Wimbledon in the 1970s, Gods Of Tennis (BBC2) recalled challenging women’s champion Billie Jean King to a match designed to prove that men were inherently superior athletes
The most impressive segment in this episode, the first of a four-part series, featured a fish that seemed inconspicuous at first glance. The male pufferfish, a rather dull male, attracts a mate by drawing intricate geometric designs in the sand of the sea floor. Brushing with its fins and tail, it creates a perfectly symmetrical circular pattern, which it decorates with shells.
Seen from above, this looked more like a crop circle from the 1990s. Everyone blamed aliens at the time, but I now suspect they were made by puffer fish.
Tennis player Bobby Riggs was a bit of a pufferfish himself – an uninteresting little man with a knack for blowing himself up to three times his actual size. A celebration of Wimbledon in the 1970s, Gods Of Tennis (BBC2) recalled challenging women’s champion Billie Jean King to a match designed to prove that men were inherently superior athletes.
Riggs supporters wore T-shirts that proudly read, “I’m a male chauvinist pig.” How satisfying to see Billie Jean trump him in straight sets.
Highlights also included the 1975 final between Jimmy Connors and Arthur Ashe, the first black champion of Wimbledon.
Ashe, gleefully admitting to being a bit chauvinistic herself, prepared by spending the night before the game at the Playboy Club. It seemed to work.