Octopus! is a two-part docuseries, directed by Niharika Desai and narrated by Phoebe Waller-Bridge (who is also an executive producer), that takes a look at how octopuses (octopi?) live, reproduce and survive with a fair amount of lightheartedness. Not only do we get to see the lifecycle of the cephalopod, but we also are introduced to people who are dedicated to studying these fascinating eight-legged creatures — including Tracy Morgan.
OCTOPUS!: STREAM IT OR SKIP IT?
Opening Shot: Scenes from a 2010 World Cup match between Spain and Germany. What’s significant about it is that the outcome had been predicted by an octopus named Paul.
The Gist: Yes, we mentioned Tracy Morgan above. The comedian is one of the people interviewed for Octopus! because he has an aquarium in his home, with huge expensive tanks carrying all sorts of sea life, and he learns all about the species he has in his home. He’s particularly fascinated by octopuses, which he also used to have — “They taught me how to live in an environment that could be sometimes hostile.” He stopped housing them due to their 1-5 year life spans: “I got tired of being sad.”
Also interviewed Dr. Jenny Hoffmeister, an octopus expert for California Fish and Wildlife who also quilts, and Piero Amodio, a researcher at the Stazione Zoologica Anton Dohrn in Naples. Piero hopes to see a colony of Pacific striped octopus, one of the few species who actually work and live together instead of alone, like other Giant Pacific Octopuses.
Via animated sequences, we also follow the life of a Giant Pacific Octopus named “Doris”, from the time she’s one of thousands of tiny hatchlings from her mother — where only 1% survive to adulthood — to when she finds a suitable place to live. She then mates with a male octopus named “Mike.” She then chooses when the sperm she stores moves on to fertilize her eggs. Finally, after she lays the eggs and makes sure they hatch, she reaches the end of her life.
What Shows Will It Remind You Of? Octopus! is definitely a lighter take on the nature docuseries, more like Penguin Town than anything narrated by David Attenborough, for instance. For more cephalopod adventures, be sure and check out the award-winning documentary My Octopus Teacher (Netflix) or the Disney+ docuseries Secrets Of The Octopus.
Our Take: Octopus! isn’t trying to sell us with sweeping vistas or the fact that it has never-before-seen footage of how octopuses live. While much of the footage is of octopuses changing their shape and color to hide from predators, pictures of the “beak” they have on their undersides, and other fascinating octopus traits, Desai keeps things relatively simple.
She does so by limiting the interviews to only a handful of people, and making sure that one of them was Tracy Morgan. Morgan, as you’d expect, is entertaining as hell, but he also shows how deep his knowledge of sea life is, and how emotional he gets about how these creatures have taught him a lot of life lessons.
But Jenny, the quilting marine biologist, Piero, the Italian researcher, and Girogos Livanos, an octopus fisherman from Greece, are all interesting to listen to. There are lots of discussions about the octopus’ place as a predator and prey, and there is no condemnation of people like Girogos, who fish them to make a living. We also get a lot of discussion about how humans anthropomorphize animals, and how interpreting octopuses’ thought process in human terms is an understandable mistake.
What we appreciated the most, though, was the animation that followed the life cycle of “Doris”. Instead of naming a random octopus and following it (or ones that looked like it) around, as we see in other nature films, the animation did a good job of connecting the audience to how a Giant Pacific Octopus exists, and pairs well with Waller-Bridge’s reverent but knowingly wise-acre narration.
Sex and Skin: Animated octopus sex is shown.
Parting Shot: Doris meets Mike and her life changes.
Sleeper Star: We’ll give this to Jenny Hoffmeister, for semi-joking at the end of the second episode that octopuses will eventually become our overlords.
Most Pilot-y Line: We spent the entire 78-minute runtime of the series trying to figure out what in the heck Tracy Morgan was wearing. Was that a vintage woman’s sleeveless blouse from the ’70s? Or was it something else?
Our Call: STREAM IT. Octopus! is watchable not only because it doesn’t take itself too seriously but because it ditches a lot of the conventions that make nature documentaries all feel the same after awhile.
Joel Keller (@joelkeller) writes about food, entertainment, parenting and tech, but he doesn’t kid himself: he’s a TV junkie. His writing has appeared in the New York Times, Slate, Salon, RollingStone.com, VanityFair.com, Fast Company and elsewhere.
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