In reply to jonny2vests:
I think it does what it says on the tin. It is a live broadcast of a hard adventure first ascent. There are plenty of DVD's which will do 'edited highlights' and this set out to do something a bit different. I put it on and sat down to do some work at the same time with the volume turned down while they were resting, faffing with ropes, talking about climbing shoes or lobsters, etc. and for me what was interesting was watching the route progress over the course of the day where there can be extended sections when not very much happens. A bit like many other sports, I suppose, like watching the Tour de France live, the interest happens over a longer time scale.
If you didn't stick with it you missed out, IMHO, the finish was totally harrowing edge-of-seat viewing that I think would struggle to convey
the same level of tension if you only had a highlights version. I thought it was fascinating to watch, including the more mundane bits that are a reality of multipitch cragging for most of us - faffing with ropes, deciding which ropes to clip, getting gripped, shaking out for ages, falling off and being hauled past hard bits, spending ages trying to get gear out - stuff you could really identify with. Just doing it at an astronomically high level.
I thought it was great stuff and hope with the commentaries they managed to make it accessible to a non climbing audience.