Saturday, November 03, 2012

The other Amazon

I don't often write about television on here, but Michael Palin is back with another one of his travel documentaries, only this time he's exploring Brazil, host of the 2014 FIFA World Cup and the 2016 Summer Olympic Games, and purportedly one of the havens for Nazi war criminals wanting to evade justice.

If memory serves me correctly, his last series was 2007's Michael Palin's New Europe, in which he visited Turkey, many of the former Iron Curtain nations in Eastern Europe, and the Baltic states. The series is worth watching and is quite easy to track down on DVD. Most of it is interesting, and his narration includes subtle in-jokes for fans of his previous work.

Aside from seeing possibly the world's prettiest army at a military parade in Transdniester, the one thing that lets it down is that for some reason Palin spends a lot of time on his mobile phone talking to his service provider quibbling over international roaming charges or something.

Part one of Michael Palin's Brazil airs from November 11 on ABC TV at 7.30 pm.

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