Planet Earth (2006 TV series)

This article is about the TV series. For the 2007 film based on the series, see Earth (2007 film). For the 2010 film with highlights from this series, see Planet Earth Live.

Planet Earth
Series title card from UK broadcast
Genre	Nature documentary
Narrated by	David Attenborough (BBC version) Sigourney Weaver (Discovery Channel version)
Composer	George Fenton
Country of origin	United Kingdom United States Japan Canada
Original language	English
No. of episodes	11
Production
Executive producer	Alastair Fothergill
Running time	50 minutes
Production companies	BBC Natural History Unit Discovery Channel NHK CBC
Original release
Network	BBC One and BBC HD
Release	5 March (2006-03-05) – 10 December 2006 (2006-12-10)
Related
The Blue Planet

Planet Earth is a 2006 television series produced by the BBC Natural History Unit. Five years in the making, it was the most expensive nature documentary series ever commissioned by the BBC, and also the first to be filmed in high definition. The series was co-produced by the Discovery Channel and NHK in association with CBC, and was described by its makers as "the definitive look at the diversity of our planet".

Planet Earth was first broadcast in the United Kingdom on BBC One in March 2006, and premiered one year later in the USA on the Discovery Channel. By June 2007, it had been shown in 130 countries worldwide. The original BBC version was narrated by David Attenborough and produced by Alastair Fothergill. For Discovery, the executive producer was Maureen Lemire, with Sigourney Weaver's voiceover replacing Attenborough.

The series comprises eleven episodes, each of which features a global overview of a different biome or habitat on Earth. At the end of each fifty-minute episode, a ten-minute featurette takes a behind-the-scenes look at the challenges of filming the series.

Background

In 2001 the BBC broadcast The Blue Planet, a landmark series on the natural history of the world's oceans. It received critical acclaim, high viewing figures and audience appreciation ratings and a string of awards. It also became a hugely profitable global brand, eventually being sold to 150 countries worldwide. Feedback showed that audiences particularly liked the epic scale, the scenes of new and unusual species and the cinematic quality of the series. Programme commissioners were keen for a follow-up, so Alastair Fothergill decided that the Natural History Unit should repeat the formula with a series looking at the whole planet. The idea for Planet Earth was born, and the series was commissioned by Lorraine Heggessey, then Controller of BBC One, in January 2002.

A feature film version of Planet Earth was commissioned alongside the television series, repeating the successful model established with The Blue Planet and its companion film, Deep Blue. Earth was released around the world from 2007 to 2009. There was also another accompanying television series, Planet Earth: The Future, which looked at the environmental problems facing some of the species and habitats featured in the main series in more detail.

Production

Production team

With a budget of £16 million, Planet Earth is the most expensive documentary series the BBC has ever made. The corporation signed a co-financing deal with the Discovery Channel and NHK (Japan’s state broadcaster), its production partners on The Blue Planet, to spread the cost of the ambitious project. Under the terms of the deal, Discovery retained the US rights and NHK the Japanese rights, while BBC Worldwide retained the rights for the rest of the world. Together, the Discovery and NHK financing amounted to 60–70% of the cost of the series, which paid for the upgrade to the high-definition format. BBC Worldwide also funded the additional £7.4 million budget of Earth, the feature film.

The production duties were handled by the BBC Natural History Unit under the leadership of executive producer Alastair Fothergill. The individual episodes were overseen by six producers: Vanessa Berlowitz, Mark Brownlow, Andy Byatt, Huw Cordey, Jonny Keeling and Mark Linfield. They directed the film crews in the field, backed up by a team of production co-ordinators and researchers at the Natural History Unit's offices in Bristol, England. In addition, the supporting team of scientists, guides, fixers, pilots, drivers and field assistants numbered in the hundreds or even thousands.

Post-production was carried out using BBC Resources' facilities in Bristol. Investment in new technology enabled the series to be edited and delivered without using videotapes. Planet Earth's distinctive use of satellite imagery and time-lapse effects were provided by design company Burrell Durrant Hifle, using NASA photography. The original score was composed and conducted by George Fenton, a veteran of previous BBC natural history documentaries, and performed by the BBC Concert Orchestra. The script was written by the producers with input from David Attenborough, though the US episodes feature different narration and are slightly shorter in length.

Filming

Production began in 2002 and was completed in autumn 2006, shortly before the final six episodes went to air. The first year after commissioning was spent on researching and planning the shoots. To capture all the footage required by the producers, 71 camera operators filmed in 204 locations in 62 countries on all seven continents, spending more than 2000 days in the field.

The decision to film Planet Earth in high definition (HD) was initially regarded by the BBC as a risk. In 2002, the technology was still largely untested in the field, and Fothergill was concerned about the difficulties of adapting to the new cameras. Despite the reservations, the HD cameras proved to be reliable and even out-performed traditional film cameras in certain situations. Their high sensitivity allowed the team to film at lower light levels than film cameras, in dark rainforests for example. Because tape stock is smaller, lighter, and cheaper than film, the lengths of shoots were limited primarily by the capacity of batteries. This improved the chances of capturing interesting behaviour, and enabled longer aerial shoots.

Panasonic VariCam HD cameras were used for land-based footage and Sony HD cameras for aerial sequences. The latter, a distinctive feature of Planet Earth, were shot using a technique borrowed from Hollywood action films. Michael Kelem, the aerial cameraman, had previously worked on Mission: Impossible III and Black Hawk Down. The camera was mounted in a device called a Cineflex (Heligimbal), a gyroscopically-stabilised housing attached to the underside of a helicopter and controlled by joystick from inside the cockpit. The unit was lightweight, enabling lenses with a longer reach to be attached (up to 40x magnification). This enabled him to capture steady images of individual creatures from a height which prevented the noise of the helicopter from disturbing them.

TV firsts

One of the producers' aims was to build as much unique footage into Planet Earth as possible, and the crews succeeded in filming a number of species, locations and events from the natural world which had never before been shown on television, including:

• Wild Bactrian camels filmed eating snow in the Gobi desert
• An Amur leopard mother and cub in the forests of eastern Russia
• A sequence showing a snow leopard attempting to hunt a markhor in north-west Pakistan
• Arctic wolf and African wild dog hunts filmed from the air
• The highest-ever aerial footage of Mount Everest and the Karakoram
• Desperate lions hunting and killing an elephant at night
• A piranha feeding frenzy filmed in the water with the fish
• Unprecedented access to the dramatic Lechuguilla Cave in New Mexico
• The oceanic whitetip shark, a rare ocean wanderer

Broadcast details

British television

The episodes are each an hour in length, comprising the main programme and a 10-minute featurette called Planet Earth Diaries which details the filming of a particular event. In the UK, Planet Earth was split into two parts, broadcast in spring and autumn 2006. The first five episodes premiered on BBC One at 9:00pm on Sundays, beginning on 5 March 2006. The programmes were repeated the following Saturday in an early evening slot on BBC Two. Along with its 2005 dramatisation of Bleak House, the BBC selected Planet Earth for its trial of high-definition broadcasts. The opening episode was its first-ever scheduled programme in the format, shown 27 May 2006 on the BBC HD channel.

The first episode in the autumn series, "Great Plains", received its first public showing at the Edinburgh International Television Festival on 26 August 2006. It was shown on a giant screen in Conference Square. The remaining episodes were broadcast from 5 November 2006 in the same primetime BBC One slot, following a further repeat run of the spring programmes on BBC Four. The autumn episodes were broadcast simultaneously on BBC HD and were repeated on BBC Four the following week.

Besides being BBC One's featured "One to Watch" programme of the day, Planet Earth was heavily trailed on the BBC's television and radio channels both before and during its run. The music that was featured in the BBC trailers for the series is the track "Hoppípolla" from the album Takk... by Icelandic post-rock band Sigur Rós. Following the advertisements, interest was so widespread that the single was re-released. In the USA, the series was promoted using "The Time Has Come" from Epic Score, composed by Gabriel Shadid and Tobias Marberger. The Australian trailers initially used "Jupiter: The Bringer of Jollity" from Gustav Holst's orchestral suite The Planets, but later reverted to "Hoppípolla".

US television

On 25 March 2007, the series began its run on American television on the Discovery network, premiering on the Discovery Channel and Discovery HD Theater. There were a number of revisions to the original British programmes. Actress and conservationist Sigourney Weaver was brought in to replace David Attenborough as narrator, as it was thought her familiarity to American audiences would attract more viewers. The Discovery programmes also used a different script to the British original. The series was broadcast on Sundays in one 3-hour block followed by four 2-hour blocks, with the episodes shown in a different running order to the UK broadcast. The Planet Earth Diaries segments were not shown immediately after each episode, but collectively in Planet Earth: The Filmmakers' Story, a two-hour special which was broadcast after the series had finished its initial network run. Edited versions were later broadcast on The Science Channel and Animal Planet.

Other countries

The BBC pre-sold the series to several overseas broadcasters, including the Australian Broadcasting Corporation, the Canadian Broadcasting Corporation, China Central Television, Germany's WDR, the Indian Discovery Channel, New Zealand's Prime Television and C1R in Russia. The series was eventually sold to 130 countries.

In Canada, the series did not air on the Canadian Discovery Channel, as it is owned by CTV and the Canadian rights were exclusively sold to CBC.

Episodes

"A hundred years ago, there were one and a half billion people on Earth. Now, over six billion crowd our fragile planet. But even so, there are still places barely touched by humanity. This series will take you to the last wildernesses and show you the planet and its wildlife as you have never seen them before."

— David Attenborough's opening narration

1. "Pole to Pole"

UK broadcast 5 March 2006, 9.41 million viewers (34% audience share); US broadcast 25 March 2007

The first episode illustrates a 'journey' around the globe and reveals the effect of gradual climatic change and seasonal transitions en route. During Antarctica's winter, emperor penguins endure four months of darkness, with no food, in temperatures of −70 °C (−94 °F). Meanwhile, as spring arrives in the Arctic, polar bear cubs take their first steps into a world of rapidly thawing ice. In northern Canada, the longest overland migration of any animal — over 3,200 kilometres (2,000 mi) — is that of three million caribou, which are hunted by wolves, and one such pursuit is shown. The forests of eastern Russia are home to the Amur leopard; with a population of just 40 individuals in the wild, it is now the world's rarest cat. This is primarily because of the destruction of its habitat, and Attenborough states that it "symbolises the fragility of our natural heritage." However, in the tropics, the jungle that covers 3% of the planet's surface supports 50% of its species. Other species shown include New Guinea's birds of paradise, African hunting dogs in their efficient pursuit of impala, elephants in Africa migrating towards the waters of the Okavango Delta, a seasonal bloom of life in the otherwise arid Kalahari Desert, and 300,000 migrating Baikal teal, containing the world's entire population of the species in one flock. The Planet Earth Diaries segment shows how the wild dog hunt was filmed unobtrusively with the aid of the Heligimbal, a powerful, gyro-stabilised camera mounted beneath a helicopter.

2. "Mountains"

The Baltoro Glacier in the Karakoram

UK broadcast 12 March 2006, 8.57 million viewers (30% audience share); US broadcast 25 March 2007

The second instalment focuses on the mountains. All the main ranges are explored with extensive aerial photography. Ethiopia's Erta Ale is the longest continually erupting volcano — for over 100 years. On the nearby highlands, geladas (the only primate whose diet is almost entirely of grass) inhabit precipitous slopes nearly five kilometres (3 mi) up, in troops that are 800-strong: the most numerous of their kind. Alongside them live the critically endangered walia ibex, and both species take turns to act as lookout for predatory Ethiopian wolves. The Andes have the most volatile weather and guanacos are shown enduring a flash blizzard, along with an exceptional group sighting of the normally solitary puma. The Alpine summits are always snow-covered, apart from that of the Matterhorn, which is too sheer to allow it to settle. Grizzly bear cubs emerge from their den for the first time in the Rockies, while Himalayan inhabitants include rutting markhor, golden eagles that hunt migrating demoiselle cranes, and the rare snow leopard. At the eastern end of the range, the giant panda cannot hibernate due to its poor nutriment of bamboo and one of them cradles its week-old cub. Also shown is the Earth's biggest mountain glacier: the Baltoro in Pakistan, which is 70 kilometres (43 mi) long and visible from space. Planet Earth Diaries demonstrates the difficulty of obtaining the first ever close-up footage of the snow leopards: a process which took over three years.

3. "Fresh Water"

UK broadcast 19 March 2006, 8.83 million viewers (32% audience share); US broadcast 15 April 2007

The fresh water programme describes the course taken by rivers and some of the species that take advantage of such a habitat. Only 3% of the world's water is fresh, yet all life on land is ultimately dependent on it. Its journey begins as a stream in the mountains, illustrated by Venezuela's Tepui, where there is a tropical downpour almost every day. It then travels hundreds of kilometres before forming rapids. With the aid of some expansive helicopter photography, one sequence demonstrates the vastness of Angel Falls, the world's highest free-flowing waterfall. Its waters drop unbroken for nearly 1,000 metres (3,000 feet) and are blown away as a mist before they reach the bottom. In Japan, the water is inhabited by the biggest amphibian, the two-metre long giant salamander, while in the northern hemisphere, salmon undertake the largest freshwater migration, and are hunted en route by grizzly bears. The erosive nature of rivers is shown by the Grand Canyon, created over five million years by the Colorado River. Also featured are smooth coated otters repelling mugger crocodiles and the latter's Nile cousin ambushing wildebeest as they cross the Mara River. Roseate spoonbills are numerous in the Pantanal and are prey to spectacled caiman. In addition, there are cichlids, piranhas, river dolphins and swimming crab-eating macaques. Planet Earth Diaries shows how a camera crew filmed a piranha feeding frenzy in Brazil — after a two-week search for the opportunity.

The Lechuguilla Cave

4. "Caves"

UK broadcast 26 March 2006, 8.98 million viewers (33% audience share); US broadcast 22 April 2007

This episode explores "Planet Earth's final frontier": caves. At a depth of 400 metres (1,300 ft), Mexico's Cave of Swallows is Earth's deepest pit cave freefall drop, allowing entry by BASE jumpers. Its volume could contain New York City's Empire State Building. Equally as impressive, we explore the otherworldly cenotes of the Yucatán Peninsula. Divers appeared to be flying in water as clear as in air, as they give us a glimpse of the hundreds of kilometers of these caves which have already been mapped. Also featured is Borneo's Deer Cave and Gomantong Cave. Inhabitants of the former include three million wrinkle-lipped bats, which have deposited guano on to an enormous mound. In Gomantong Cave, guano is many metres high and is blanketed with hundreds of thousands of cockroaches and other invertebrates. Also depicted are eyeless, subterranean creatures, such as the Texas blind salamander and ("bizarrely") a species of crab. Carlsbad Caverns National Park is featured with its calcite formations. Mexico's Cueva de Villa Luz is also featured, with its flowing stream of sulphuric acid and snottite formations made of living bacteria. A fish species, the shortfin molly, has adapted to this habitat. The programme ends in New Mexico's Lechuguilla Cave (discovered in 1986) where sulphuric acid has produced unusually ornate, gypsum crystal formations. Planet Earth Diaries reveals how a camera team spent a month among the cockroaches on the guano mound in Gomantong Cave and describes the logistics required to photograph Lechuguilla. Permission for the latter took two years and local authorities are unlikely to allow another visit.

5. "Deserts"

UK broadcast 2 April 2006, 9.23 million viewers (34% audience share); US broadcast 1 April 2007

This instalment features the harsh environment that covers one third of the Earth: the deserts. Due to Siberian winds, Mongolia's Gobi Desert reaches extremes of temperature like no other, ranging from -40°C to +50°C (-40°F to 122°F). It is home to the rare Bactrian camel, which eats snow to maintain its fluid level and must limit itself to 10 liters (2.6 U.S. gal; 2.2 imp gal) a day if it is not to prove fatal. Africa's Sahara is the size of the USA, and just one of its severe dust storms could cover the whole of Great Britain. While some creatures, such as the dromedary, take them in their stride, for others the only escape from such bombardments is to bury themselves in the sand. Few rocks can resist them either and the outcrops shown in Egypt's White Desert are being inexorably eroded. The biggest dunes (300 m or 1,000 ft high) are to be found in Namibia, while other deserts featured are Death Valley in California and Nevada, the Sonoran in Arizona, the deserts of Utah, all in the United States, the Atacama in Chile, and areas of the Australian outback. Animals are shown searching for food and surviving in such an unforgiving habitat: African elephants that walk up to 80 kilometres (50 mi) per day to find food; lions (hunting oryx); red kangaroos (which moisten their forelegs with saliva to keep cool); nocturnal fennec foxes, acrobatic flat lizards feeding on black flies, and duelling Nubian ibex. The final sequence illustrates one of nature's most fearsome spectacles: a billion-strong plague of desert locusts, destroying all vegetation in its path. Planet Earth Diaries explains how the hunt for the elusive Bactrian camels necessitated a two-month trek in Mongolia.

6. "Ice Worlds"

The aurora borealis in Alaska

UK broadcast 5 November 2006, 6.37 million viewers (24% audience share); US broadcast 1 April 2007

The sixth programme looks at the regions of the Arctic and Antarctica. The latter contains 90% of the world's ice, and stays largely deserted until the spring, when visitors arrive to harvest its waters. Snow petrels take their place on nunataks and begin to court, but are preyed on by South Polar skuas. During summer, a pod of humpback whales hunt krill by creating a spiralling net of bubbles. The onset of winter sees the journey of emperor penguins to their breeding grounds, 160 kilometres (99 mi) inland. Their eggs transferred to the males for safekeeping, the females return to the ocean while their partners huddle into large groups to endure the extreme cold. At the northern end of the planet, Arctic residents include musk oxen, who are hunted by Arctic foxes and wolves. A female polar bear and her two cubs head off across the ice to look for food. As the sun melts the ice, a glimpse of the Earth's potential future reveals a male polar bear that is unable to find a firm footing anywhere and has to resort to swimming — which it cannot do indefinitely. Its desperate need to eat brings it to a colony of walrus. Although it attacks repeatedly, the herd is successful in evading it by returning to the sea. Wounded and unable to feed, the bear will not survive. Meanwhile, back in Antarctica, the eggs of the emperor penguins finally hatch. Planet Earth Diaries tells of the battle with the elements to obtain the penguin footage and of unwelcome visits from polar bears.

7. "Great Plains"

UK broadcast 12 November 2006, 6.72 million viewers (24% audience share); US broadcast 8 April 2007

This episode deals with savanna, steppe, tundra, prairie, and looks at the importance and resilience of grasses in such treeless ecosystems. Their vast expanses contain the largest concentration of animal life. Over Africa's savanna, a swarm of 1.5 billion Red-billed Queleas are caught on camera, the largest flock of birds ever depicted. In Outer Mongolia, a herd of Mongolian gazelle flee a bush fire and has to move on to new grazing, but grass can repair itself rapidly and soon reappears. On the Arctic tundra during spring, millions of migratory snow geese arrive to breed and their young are preyed on by Arctic foxes. Meanwhile, time-lapse photography depicts moving herds of caribou as a calf is brought down by a chasing wolf. On the North American prairie, bison engage in the ritual to establish the dominant males. The Tibetan Plateau is the highest of the plains and despite its relative lack of grass, animals do survive there, including yak and wild ass. However, the area's most numerous resident is the pika, whose nemesis is the Tibetan fox. In tropical India, the tall grasses hide some of the largest creatures and also the smallest, such as the pygmy hog. The final sequence depicts African bush elephants that are forced to share a waterhole with a pride of thirty lions. The insufficient water makes it an uneasy alliance and the latter gain the upper hand during the night when their hunger drives them to hunt and eventually kill one of the pachyderms. Planet Earth Diaries explains how the lion hunt was filmed in darkness using infrared light.

8. "Jungles"

A Costa Rican tree frog

UK broadcast 19 November 2006, 7.04 million viewers (26% audience share); US broadcast 15 April 2007

This episode examines jungles and tropical rainforests. These environments occupy only 3% of the land yet are home to over half of the world's species. New Guinea is inhabited by almost 40 kinds of birds of paradise, which avoid conflict with each other by living in different parts of the island. Some of their elaborate courtship displays are shown. Within the dense forest canopy, sunlight is prized, and the death of a tree triggers a race by saplings to fill the vacant space. Figs are a widespread and popular food, and as many as 44 types of bird and monkey have been observed picking from a single tree. The sounds of the jungle throughout the day are explored, from the early morning calls of siamangs and orangutans to the nocturnal cacophony of courting tree frogs. The importance of fungi to the rainforest is illustrated by a sequence of them fruiting, including a parasite called cordyceps. The mutual benefits of the relationship between carnivorous pitcher plants and red crab spiders is also discussed. In the Congo, roaming forest elephants are shown reaching a clearing to feed on essential clay minerals within the mud. Finally, chimpanzees are one of the few jungle animals able to traverse both the forest floor and the canopy in search of food. In Uganda, members of a 150-strong community of the primates mount a raid into neighbouring territory in order to gain control of it. Planet Earth Diaries looks at filming displaying birds of paradise, focusing mainly on the filming of the six-plumed bird of paradise.

9. "Shallow Seas"

UK broadcast 26 November 2006, 7.32 million viewers (28% audience share); US broadcast 8 April 2007

This programme is devoted to the shallow seas that fringe the world's continents. Although they constitute 8% of the oceans, they contain most marine life. As humpback whales return to breeding grounds in the tropics, a mother and its calf are followed. While the latter takes in up to 500 litres of milk a day, its parent will starve until it travels back to the poles to feed — and it must do this while it still has sufficient energy left for the journey. The coral reefs of Indonesia are home to the biggest variety of ocean dwellers. Examples include banded sea kraits, which ally themselves with goatfish and trevally in order to hunt. In Western Australia, dolphins 'hydroplane' in the shallowest waters to catch a meal, while in Bahrain, 100,000 Socotra cormorants rely on shamals that blow sand grains into the nearby Persian Gulf, transforming it into a rich fishing ground. The appearance of algae in the spring starts a food chain that leads to an abundant harvest, and sea lions and dusky dolphins are among those taking advantage of it. In Southern Africa, as chokka squid are preyed on by short-tail stingray, the Cape fur seals that share the waters are hunted by the world's largest predatory fish: the great white shark. On Marion Island in the Indian Ocean, a group of king penguins must cross a beach occupied by fur seals that do not hesitate to attack them. Planet Earth Diaries shows the difficulties of filming the one-second strike of a great white shark, filmed by Simon King. This was also in 4-D.

10. "Seasonal Forests"

A stand of giant redwoods

UK broadcast 3 December 2006, 7.42 million viewers (29% audience share); US broadcast 22 April 2007

The penultimate episode surveys the coniferous and deciduous seasonal woodland habitats — the most extensive forests on Earth. Conifers begin sparsely in the subarctic but soon dominate the land, and the taiga circles the globe, containing a third of all the Earth's trees. Few creatures can survive the Arctic climate all year round, but the moose and wolverine are exceptions. 1,600 kilometres (990 mi) to the south, on the Pacific coast of North America, conifers have reached their full potential. These include some of the world's tallest trees: the redwoods. Here, a pine marten is shown stalking a squirrel, and great grey owl chicks take their first flight. Further south still, in the Valdivian forests of Chile, a population of smaller animals exist, including the pudú and the kodkod. During spring in a European broad-leafed forest, a mandarin duck leads its day-old family to leap from its tree trunk nest to the leaf litter below. Bialowieza Forest typifies the habitat that characterised Europe around 6000 years ago: only a fragment remains in Poland and Belarus. On a summer night on North America's east coast, periodical cicadas emerge en masse to mate — an event that occurs every seventeen years. After revisiting Russia's Amur leopards in winter, a timelapse sequence illustrates the effect of the ensuing spring on the deciduous forest floor. In India's teak forests, a langur monkey strays too far from the chital that act as its sentinels and falls prey to a tiger. In Madagascar, mouse lemurs feed on the nectar of flowering baobab trees. Planet Earth Diaries explains how aerial shots of the baobab were achieved by the use of a cinebulle, an adapted hot air balloon.

11. "Ocean Deep"

UK broadcast 10 December 2006, 6.02 million viewers (22% audience share); US broadcast 25 March 2007

The final instalment concentrates on the most unexplored area of the planet: the deep ocean. It begins with a whale shark used as a shield by a shoal of bait fish to protect themselves from yellowfin tuna. Also shown is an oceanic whitetip shark trailing rainbow runners. Meanwhile, a 500-strong school of dolphins head for the Azores, where they work together to feast on scad mackerel along with a shearwater flock. Down in the ocean's furthest reaches, some creatures defy classification. On the sea floor, scavengers such as the spider crab bide their time, awaiting carrion from above. The volcanic mountain chain at the bottom of the Atlantic Ocean also sustains life through the bacteria that surround its sulphide vents. There are thought to be around 30,000 undersea volcanoes, some of them taller than Mount Everest. Their sheer cliffs provide anchorage for several corals and sponges. Nearer the surface, the currents that surround these seamounts force nutrients up from below and thus marine life around them is abundant. Ascension Island is a nesting ground for frigatebirds and green turtles. Off the Mexican coast, a large group of sailfish feed on another shoal of bait fish, changing colour to signal their intentions to each other, allowing them to coordinate their attack. The last sequence depicts the largest animal on Earth: the blue whale, of which 300,000 once roamed the world's oceans. Now fewer than 3% remain. Planet Earth Diaries shows the search in the Bahamas for oceanic whitetip sharks.

"Our planet is still full of wonders. As we explore them, so we gain not only understanding, but power. It's not just the future of the whale that today lies in our hands: it's the survival of the natural world in all parts of the living planet. We can now destroy or we can cherish. The choice is ours."

— David Attenborough, in closing

Planet Earth: The Future

Main article: Planet Earth: The Future

The latter episodes were supplemented by Planet Earth: The Future, a series of three 60-minute films that highlight the conservation issues surrounding some of the featured species and environments. The programmes are narrated by Simon Poland and the series producer was Fergus Beeley. The series began transmission on BBC Four after the ninth episode, "Shallow Seas".

Feature film

Main article: Earth (2007 film)

Alongside the commissioning of the television series, BBC Worldwide and Greenlight Media secured financing for a US$15 million film version of Planet Earth. This followed the earlier success of Deep Blue, the BBC's 2003 theatrical nature documentary which used re-edited footage from The Blue Planet. The film was co-directed by Alastair Fothergill and Mark Linfield and produced by Alix Tidmarsh and Sophokles Tasioulis. Only 30% of the footage shown in Earth is new, with the remainder being reworked from the television series to suit the narrative of the film. David Attenborough was replaced as narrator by high-profile actors: Patrick Stewart for the UK market and James Earl Jones for the US.

Earth had its worldwide premiere at the San Sebastián International Film Festival in September 2007. Lionsgate released the film in several international markets over the following year. In the USA, it became the first film to be released by Disneynature, the newly-formed nature documentary arm of the Disney Corporation. When released on Earth Day 2009 it set the record for the highest opening weekend gross for a nature documentary, and went on to become the third highest grossing documentary of all time. It has grossed more than $108 million worldwide; in the nature documentary genre, only March of the Penguins has achieved greater success at the box office.

Reception

Critical reception

Time magazine's James Poniewozik named it one of the Top 10 New TV Series of 2007, ranking it at #4.

Awards

Planet Earth won the Science or Natural History award at the Royal Television Society Programme Awards in 2007. The RTS also awarded it a Judge's Award and a Photography Award at its Craft and Design Awards. The series picked up two awards from the Broadcasting Press Guild for Best Documentary Series and Innovation in Broadcasting, and won Best Documentary Series at the 2007 Broadcast Awards. At the 2007 BAFTA Television Awards, Planet Earth was nominated in the Specialist Factual and Pioneer Audience Award categories, but lost out to Nuremberg: Goering's Last Stand and Life on Mars respectively. It received three nominations at the BAFTA Television Craft Awards later the same year. George Fenton's original score won him Soundtrack Composer of the Year at the 2007 Classical BRIT Awards.

Planet Earth was recognised by the American television industry, collecting the award for Nonfiction Series at the 59th Primetime Emmy Awards in September 2007 and winning a further three prizes in technical categories at the Creative Arts Emmy Awards. It also collected two awards from the Television Critics Association in Los Angeles in July 2007 and a Peabody Award in April 2008.

The series was also fêted at wildlife film festivals around the globe, collected multiple prizes at the Wildscreen Festival 2006, the International Wildlife Film Festival 2007 and the Jackson Hole Wildlife Film Festival 2007.

Audience response

The credentials of the filmmakers, the size of the production, a high-profile marketing campaign and a primetime BBC One timeslot all resulted in Planet Earth attracting large audiences when it debuted in the UK in March 2006. The first episode, "From Pole to Pole", was watched by more people than any natural history programme since Attenborough and Fothergill's previous series, The Blue Planet in 2001. The first five episodes drew an average audience of 11.4 million viewers, including the early evening repeats, outperforming even The Blue Planet. When the series returned to British screens after a six-month break, it remained popular but viewing figures did not reach the same levels. The final six episodes attracted an average audience of 6.8 million viewers, appreciably lower than the spring episodes, but still higher than BBC One's average for the timeslot. The BBC's 2007 Annual Report revealed that the series "received the highest audience appreciation score of any British programme on TV this year."

In the USA, Planet Earth drew equally impressive ratings when it premiered on Discovery and Discovery HD Theater on 25 March 2007. The first three episodes (screened back to back) averaged 5.72 million viewers with a peak of 6.07 million viewers, giving the network its third highest audience ever. It was also the most watched Discovery programme since The Flight That Fought Back in 2005. Planet Earth went on to break more records during its American broadcast run, reaching more than 100 million viewers in total and becoming "the most watched cable event of all time".

Merchandise

File:Planetearthdvd.jpg

Planet Earth DVD cover

The popularity of the television series around the world translated into strong sales of associated Planet Earth merchandise. In the USA, it became the fastest and best selling documentary DVD in the Discovery Channel's history, and the high-definition (HD) discs generated US$3.2 million in sales in just two months. By the end of 2007, US sales had topped 3 million units, making it the highest grossing HD title and one of the top ten DVD titles of the year.

In addition, the brand was licensed to other companies to produce children's books, calendars, a board game, jigsaws, stationery, cards and more.

DVD

A five-disc DVD box set of the complete series (BBCDVD1883) was released in the UK for Regions 2 and 4 (PAL) on 27 November 2006 by 2 entertain. It is presented in 5.1-channel Dolby Digital surround sound and 16:9 widescreen video. The bonus features include Planet Earth Diaries (presented immediately after each episode as for the original TV broadcast) and Planet Earth: The Future. In the USA, two versions of the same five-disc set were released as a Region 1 (NTSC) DVD on 24 April 2007. The BBC Warner release retained David Attenborough's narration from the original British television broadcasts, but the Discovery Channel edition used the alternative Sigourney Weaver voiceover.

HD DVD and Blu-Ray

Except for a small amount of extremely hard-to-obtain footage, Planet Earth was filmed entirely in high-definition, and consequently became one of the first television series to take advantage of the new HD disc formats.

The series was released in both Blu-Ray and HD DVD formats as a five-disc Region B box set on 12 November 2007. On the fifth disc, the bonus features from the standard-definition DVD set were replaced by two episodes from the BBC's Natural World series, "Desert Lions" and "Snow Leopard: Beyond the Myth", both also presented in high-definition.

In the USA, the series was released as a four-disc set in both high-definition formats, the Blu-Ray version on single-layer BD-25 discs and the HD DVD set on dual-layer HD DVD-30 discs. The US high-definition releases omit the extra disc of bonus features from the standard-definition boxed set.

Books

Four official tie-in volumes were published by BBC Books in 2006 and 2007:

• Planet Earth: As You've Never Seen It Before, written by Alastair Fothergill with a foreword by David Attenborough, was published in hardback on 5 October 2006 (ISBN 978-0563522126).
• The paperback title Planet Earth: The Future was also published on 5 October 2006 (ISBN 978-0563539056). It was edited by Fergus Beeley and Rosamund Kidman Cox with a foreword by Jonathon Porritt.
• A second paperback volume revealed some of the tales from the field during filming expeditions. Planet Earth: The Making of an Epic Series was written by David Nicholson-Lord and published on 9 March 2006 (ISBN 978-0563493587).
• A collection of still images from the series was published in a hardcover volume as Planet Earth: The Photographs on 7 October 2007 (ISBN 978-1846073465).

Soundtrack album

Main article: Planet Earth (soundtrack)

On 20 November 2006, a two-disc soundtrack CD was released with a compilation of the incidental music specially commissioned for Planet Earth. The award-winning score was composed by George Fenton and performed by the BBC Concert Orchestra.

Further reading

• Alastair Fothergill discusses Planet Earth in The Times.
• Text at Universal Library discussing the Planet Earth series and the technological background.

External links

• Planet Earth at BBC Online
• Planet Earth at BBC Online
• Discovery Channel website
• Human Planet BBC on DVD and Blu-ray
• Planet Earth at IMDb