I tend to think of 4K TVs the same way I think of yachts, or Apple Watches, or sending your kid to private school: Hey, that's great, and also, nobody needs that. We have HD TV now—we're good, right? Can we agree we're at a pretty good level of ultra-realistic resolution for our home entertainments? Do we really need 4K in our living room to watch fucking Daredevil?
BUT WAIT. For the first (and probably last) time in ever, a 4K TV sounds like it might be a pretty awesome thing to have, because Netflix is making a follow-up to the BBC's amazing Planet Earth. It'll be called Our Planet, and it's still four years away, with an expected streaming date of sometime in 2019, at which point your current Apple Watch (and your current kid) will be outdated relics that nobody pays attention to anymore. But if Our Planet is even half as good as Planet Earth, it'll be worth the wait. Via Entertainment Weekly:
The filmmakers plan to use cutting-edge 4K technology and “a range of specially produced storytelling for multi-media platforms.”Our Planet sounds like it’ll pick up where its predecessor left off, taking “viewers into never-before-filmed wilderness areas from the ice caps and deep ocean to deserts and remote forests, introducing them to the most precious species and places that must withstand the impact of humanity so generations to come can enjoy the bounties of the natural world.”(Via.)
If you haven't seen Planet Earth, I can't recommend it enough—it's one of the most visually astounding things I've ever seen, and even after watching it a bunch of times, it's not uncommon for me to throw on one of the Blu-rays and just space out. (In totally unrelated news, the Mercury's cannabis issue comes out today.) It's phenomenal filmmaking, and hearing that some of the same people will be making a follow-up? Excellent news.
And yes, it'll probably look so gorgeous that it'll make our eyes melt. Maybe by 2019, the idea of a 4K TV will seem a little less ridiculous. (But probably not.)