 | ON: Content is age-appropriate for kids this age. |
 | PAUSE: Know your child; some content may not be right for some kids. |
 | OFF: Not age-appropriate for kids this age. |
 | NOT FOR KIDS: Not appropriate for kids any age. |
Dark Days in Monkey City
- Animal Planet
- Genre: Reality TV
Common Sense Media says
Docuseries veers more toward frightening than informative.
Parents say
Kids say
What parents need to know
Parents need to know that this isn't a warm, fuzzy Animal Planet series. The featured primates aren't nice, happy little monkeys -- they're seriously mean, and the narration's tendency to give them personalities and motivations makes them seem even meaner. They fight constantly, sometimes to the death -- it's all natural behavior, but it can gert pretty intense (sometimes even bloody). Animated graphics also include blood "splatters." Bottom line? Teens and mature tweens should be able to handle this look at the darker side of nature, but it's too intense and scary for little kids.
What's the story?
What Animal Planet did for meerkats and lemurs, they're now trying with toque macaque monkeys in the Sri Lankan jungle. Edited together using footage from the Smithsonian Primate Project, DARK DAYS IN MONKEY CITY is basically a soap opera -- stylistically presented as a graphic novel/comic book -- revolving around the relentless power struggles within and among four monkey tribes.
Is it any good?
The show's comic-book style is enormously effective in creating a dark, brooding atmosphere, and actor John Rhys-Davies (Gimli from the Lord of the Rings movies) delivers the overwrought, heavily anthropomorphized narration with such gusto that he sounds like William Shatner with a British accent. You get the sense that these monkeys really are mean little beasties -- from their abusive caste system to constant infighting.
But the narration doesn't quite get around to mentioning that when things like this happen in nature, it's because they evolved that way as a survival mechanism. Overall, like many live-action reality series, conflict is emphasized over information -- and there's lots and lots of conflict.
What families can talk about
Families can talk about what they think this series is trying to accomplish. Is it trying to educate and inform or shock and entertain? Or both? Does editing the monkey footage together in a way that creates a narrative help viewers understand the animals or make it harder? Why? Families can also discuss using animation as part of a documentary. Does it help tell the story more accurately or obscure what's going on?
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| TV rating: | TV-14 |
| Network: | Animal Planet |
| Cast: | John Rhys-Davies |
| Genre: | Reality TV |
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