Asia (BBC1)

Rating:

Is there anything more reassuring on a Sunday evening than the sight of Sir David Attenborough striding into shot, ready to introduce us to a new series?

It means that we are almost certainly in for an hour of the best that television has to offer.

Of all the wonderful places in the world,’ he said from a wood-panelled room at the Natural History Museum, ‘one continent holds more riches than any other. If you think you have seen the best the natural world has to offer, think again.’

He is now 98, yet there was still an unmistakable twinkle of excitement in his eye as he introduced his new series Asia.

There will be seven programmes, and we began beneath the waves with a colourful fish called the Moorish Idol.

These are decorated with stripes of brilliant yellow, white and black, which no doubt makes them highly alluring to underwater camera teams.

But it leaves them with one fatal disadvantage. They might as well be tattooed with a sign which says: ‘Luncheon is served.’

It wasn’t long before a hungry gang of sharks swam into view with a gleam in their collective eyes. 

When Sir David takes us under water, it is never long before the sharks arrive. They must have the best agent in the natural world.

The sharks made short work of the Moorish Idols. We were able to watch from above as a swarming yellow mass tried desperately to escape the relentless grey pursuit. 

Once the sharks’ work had been done, that mass of black, white and yellow had been reduced to just eight, rather forlorn Idols.

With that it was off to the island of Komodo and the manta ray, which looks like a cross between a Stealth bomber and a Hercules with the cargo door open. 

They glide, slack-jawed through the water, guzzling plankton. And when they’ve had their fill, they enjoy a trip to an undersea version of a spa.

Small butterfly fish nibble at the rays, eating plankton and dead fish. For the butterfly fish, it’s a square meal. For the rays, it’s a bit of a treat before feeding time comes around again.

Quite a bit of Asia’s undersea world looks like it’s been designed by a CGI wizard working under the influence of hallucinogenic drugs.

There’s a slug called the Sea Bunny because it looks like a toy rabbit, complete with black-tipped ears. And in the Sea of Japan there are firefly squids, whose tiny blue and green lights look like a Poundland Christmas tree decoration.

The photography, as usual with BBC natural history films, was outstanding. It’s easy to forget that, as the wonders of the deep get on with their daily lives — eating each other, reproducing, or just looking colourfully oddball — there is somebody in a wetsuit and a camera watching on.

Long may they continue.