After two series comprising twenty six half hour programmes taking Mark as far afield as The Pilbara, Patagonia, and Papua New Guinea, O’Shea’s Big Adventure was about to get a little bit bigger. Twice as big in fact, as Mark was invited to embark on a series of one hour O’Shea specials.
South and South East Asia was his hunting ground, and it was to be an area which stretched the programme making abilities of the O’Shea production team to their limits.
First up, India, with Mark on the trail of the elusive King Cobra, the longest venomous snake in the world. After weeks of searching Mark came face to face with perhaps the most remarkable snake he has ever encountered. In one of the most spiritual moments of his life, he thinks he saw intelligence in the eyes of a snake for the first time.
Mark’s epic journeys continued, with a return to India, then onto Thailand, and finally a dangerous trip to Sri Lanka. They exceeded all expectations in terms of the beauty and variety of filming locations, and the remarkable attributes of the reptiles he came across.
In Sri Lanka he goes in search of the snake he considers the most dangerous snake in the world. The Sri Lankan Russell’s viper has a venom so complex that it has the capacity to kill in several different ways. For ordinary Sri Lankans it is the hidden menace in the fields during harvest time.
In Thailand he went in search of one of the world’s rarest crocodiles, one that could be said to be more ‘happy snappy’ than ‘snap-happy’. A quest triggered by a unique photograph on the internet, a photograph taken by the crocodile itself…
And when the team returned to India, Mark investigated the ultimate eating machines, pythons that can swallow whole deer and then fast for many months afterwards without ill effect. He is determined to find out what separates Indian rock pythons from their Burmese cousins. A question Mark has wanted to answer for ten years since he found three Burmese rock pythons in western Nepal.
Mark O’Shea believes these one hour specials have taken the series to new heights.
“Double length programmes have enabled us to spend more time on location, go into greater detail with the reptiles we find, and be more ambitious in terms of our aims and objectives. I think this has really helped us achieve something special. Hopefully you, the viewers, will agree!”