Critic Reviews

It’s hard to beat Phoebe Waller-Bridge in “Octopus!” for pure entertainment, quippery, and a voice that wraps around the brain like a tentacle. All educational TV should be so mellifluously amusing.

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.

An idiosyncratic nature show, full not just of breathtaking footage of the extraordinary creature and input from experts in the field, but of animated, stop-motion recreations of parts of its life cycle, interviews with celebrity fans and plentiful comic asides and fourth-wall breakings from the narrator, Waller-Bridge herself. .... How this sits with you is a matter of personal taste.