After such a great first season, it was hard to not have high expectations for the second. And the second luckily does deliver in pretty much exactly the same way the first did, apart from the inferior quality of the spy camera animals in my humble opinion. So it was like the three year gap between the seasons didn't ever exist (meaning this in a good way), with the execution of Season 2 feeling so fresh. Something that one doesn't expect seeing as three years is a long gap.
Season 2 started off excellently with "The Tropics". The high quality, consistent throughout the whole of 'Spy in the Wild's' run, continues in its second episode "The North". While still having a problem with the look of the spy animals at times, all the brilliant qualities of all the previous episodes are here. It also boasts some truly unlike anything seen before sights and contains some of the best character interaction between the spy animals and the real ones of the series.
"The North", as said, does have a few of the spy animals looking a bit robotic and unintentionally creepy. Especially the macaque one.
Mostly though, the spy animals are very well used. Really liked their interaction with the real life counterparts, how they filmed such behaviour more intimately (without being claustrophobic) than any other documentary in existence and how they weren't too much of an overused gimmick.
Did find myself admiring the bravery of some of them too. Poor Spy Salmon! The scenery is quite enchanting, haven't seen mountains this majestic in a while. The photography as to be expected is wonderful and adds so much to the impact of many gems. Particularly the quite spell-binding ray Mexican wave, can't recall ever seeing that before anywhere or at least not in this way, and in the beaver character interaction. The latter being the standout of all the episode's different character interactions. Have also never seen monarch butterflies behave the way they do here and the way they are shot makes for some very memorable imagery.
Narration is fun and one learns a lot from it, it is never too simple while being very easy to follow and it never patronises. Everything with the beavers was great, would like to see more beavers featured in documentaries. David Tennant narrates to perfection for reasons summed up already in my reviews for the other episodes. The music is not too jaunty or intrusive.
Summing up, terrific. 9/10