Meerkat Manor is a British
television programme produced by Oxford Scientific Films for
Animal Planet International. Blending more traditional animal
documentary style footage with
dramatic narration, the series tells the story of the Whiskers, one of over a dozen families of
meerkats in the
Kalahari Desert being studied as part of the
Kalahari Meerkat Project, a long-term
field study into the ecological causes and evolutionary consequences of the cooperative nature of meerkats. The original programme is narrated by
Bill Nighy, with the narration redubbed by
Mike Goldman for the
Australian airings and
Sean Astin for the American broadcasts. Although the show faced criticism from viewers for not intervening when a meerkat was injured and faced death, as a whole
Meerkat Manor has enjoyed considerable success and is now Animal Planet's top series, both on the cable channel and through its video-on-demand service. The show's experimental format broke new ground in animal documentary filming techniques and allowed viewers a long term, intimate look into the lives of its meerkat stars, breaking the traditional wall between viewer and subject found with most documentaries.