A Behind-the-Scenes Look at NatGeo’s ‘Queens’ Ngorongoro Crater Episode

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If you're a nature show junkie (or honestly, even if you're just a TV junkie), National Geographic's Queens needs to be on your watch list. In a first for the genre, the show is shot entirely through the female lens, following the matriarchs and "queens" of the animal kingdom. And conveniently, it's narrated by a queen herself, Angela Bassett. The series shows how matriarchs guide their communities to safety, ward off other animal threats, and basically run their worlds. I think there's a Beyoncé lyric about that??

In another first in the natural history space, the show was also helmed by a female-led production team. So not only were the queens in front of the camera, but they were behind the camera too in an industry that is still male-dominated. "I'm more proud of this series for what it's done—the filming is beautiful, the animals are amazing—but the legacy, I'm more proud of that than anything I've done in my entire career. I think we all feel that way," series director of photography Sophie Darlington said. It's a show that'll have you saying "girl power!!!" in least cheesy way imaginable, and going behind-the-scenes on location in the Ngorongoro Crater only emphasized that.

Where Queens filmed:

The show's episodes cover all sorts of animals and were filmed all over the globe, but the "African Queens" episode was filmed in the Ngorongoro Crater, which is in Tanzania. The Ngorongoro Crater is the rim of an unbroken caldera, and if you didn't really excel in your Earth Science class (hello, me) that means it is the perfect place to film a nature show because the environment itself provides a natural amphitheater for animals. It's almost like a big fence of mountains, and it provides safety for animals because it keeps out the outside world (aka humans). It's estimated that 20,000 animals share the crater floor.

The bulk of the NatGeo episode follows a pack of hyenas and a pride of lions, both with female leaders. The story of the hyenas is one of a transfer of power from one matriarch to another. And the lions are in a fight for survival with a male lion who is trying to take their cubs. There's one sequence where three female lions take on a male and it will have you cheering, truly.

How to visit the crater:

I was able to visit with a group of journalists and folks from National Geographic, which was incredibly special. But as you can imagine, getting to a remote part of Tanzania was a real planes, trains, and automobiles situation. First, we flew into the Kilimanjaro International Airport. From there, we spent a few days in the Serengeti before getting on another plane to the airport closest to the crater, before hopping in cars and drivign another hour to our hotel, the Ngorongoro Crater Lodge. Only then we were able to descend into the crater itself in our safari vehicles.

What it's like to be there:

Simply put? Magical. I write words for a living and I still have trouble putting into words what it was like to be there. Instead, I'm going to drop some pictures so you can get a sense of what it's like.

This is from the top of the crater, and you can see why it'd be such a good place to film wildlife. It's a naturally enclosed area.

And it is majestic as hell. Truly a place you visit and think to yourself, Am I in a movie? While we were there, we saw lions, ostriches, endangered rhinos (!!?!?!), and more. Here is a small portion of the roughly 2,356 pictures I took while I was there.

We got to watch the "African Queens" episode of the show before we did our descent, and I caught myself looking for the animals featured in the episode as if I was looking for celebrities. Aka, my head was on a swivel. (I definitely wouldn't have recognized them even if I did see them, but a girl can dream.) The episode has truly incredible evening sequences too, and this National Geographic crew was the first to film through the night in the crater. They shot with special cameras so it almost looks like daytime.

Okay, here's how you can watch the show:

Now that I've talked up this show, you should exit out of this browser and go watch it. It premieres today on National Geographic, and it'll be available to stream tomorrow on Disney+.

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