A TV production triumph of 2011, BBC nature documentary Frozen Planet has had critics grasping around for animal-punning superlatives and audiences actually tuning in to watch – something not to be sniffed at in this era of bittily fragmented viewing habits. However a stake has just been driven through the heart of FP – a fake stake driven through the heart of truth, if you believe the tabloids – in the form of accusations that viewers were misled over scenes shot in a nature enclosure.

UK TV production in general and the BBC in particular have been bedevilled by a string of fakery rows in recent years, including a supposed Blue Peter competition-winner actually turning out to be a studio visitor, and a trailer for a documentary about the Queen being misleadingly edited so as to make it look like her Maj had smashed celebrity snapper Annie Leibovitz’s face through a table (or something).     

The compulsory aspect of the BBC license fee has got certain quadrants of British society especially frothy in these times of scrimping and saving, a kind of “I’m paying more at the pumps so why can’t they spend every last penny of my fee exactly as I’d like them to” non-logic which spews up such storm-in-teacup kerfuffles as that presently afflicting Frozen Planet.    

To recap: Frozen Planet stands accused of having intercut scenes of polar bears in their natural Arctic environment with footage of a polar bear mum caring for her new-born cubs which was shot in a European nature enclosure.

Now, the origin of this latter footage was apparently clearly marked on the show’s webpage, but not during the programme itself, thereby causing certain numbskulls to moan about feeling betrayed and violated, as if the Beeb had just taken Rudolph the Reindeer out behind Television Centre and put two slugs into the back of his pointy-tipped skull.   

It is a row into which now has waded the voice of Frozen Planet himself, national treasure Sir David Attenborough, with Sir Dave making the to-these-ears entirely reasonable point that flashing up a ‘WARNING: SHOT IN A NATURE RESERVE’ sign over the ‘offending’ scene might have detracted from the overall atmosphere to a teensy-weensy extent. Still, despite such interjections of sanity, expect this one to run and run… and run, and then run some more.  

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