Planet Earth (2006 TV series)

Background

In 2001 the BBC broadcast The Blue Planet, a series on the natural history of the world's oceans. It received critical acclaim, high viewing figures, audience appreciation ratings, and many 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_(2003_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.

Broadcast

Planet Earth premiered on BBC One on 5 March 2006 in the United Kingdom. On the same day or in the subsequent weeks or months, the series also began airing in several other countries.

International broadcasters carrying Planet Earth include Australia on ABC and GEM, Canada on CBC and CTV, New Zealand on Prime, the Philippines on GMA Network and GMA News TV, the U.S. on Discovery Channel, Velocity, Science, Animal Planet, Destination America and BBC America.

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 9:00 pm 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 United States, the series was promoted using "The Time Has Come" from trailer music company 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".

International

The BBC pre-sold the series to several overseas broadcasters, including the Discovery Channel for the United States, the Australian Broadcasting Corporation, the Canadian Broadcasting Corporation, China Central Television, WDR for Germany, Discovery Channel for India, Prime Television for New Zealand, and C1R for Russian broadcasts. The series was eventually sold to 130 countries.

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 programme. 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 slightly different script to the British original. The series was broadcast on Sundays in one 3-hour block followed by four 2-hour blocks. 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, Animal Planet, and Planet Green.

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 the CBC.

Episodes

The Planet Earth Diaries segment, Eye in the Sky, shows how the wild dog hunt was filmed unobtrusively with the aid of the Heligimbal, a powerful, gyro-stabilised camera mounted beneath a helicopter. 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 of Simien Mountains, geladas (the only primate whose diet is almost entirely 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, the two species take turns to act as a 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 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 km long and visible from space. The episode ends with the flock of Demoiselle cranes flying across the Himalayan mountain peak to avoid the hostile air currents and predatory Golden eagles that threaten their migration. Planet Earth Diaries: Snow Leopard Quest explains how difficult it was to get close-up footage of snow leopards; it was a three-year process and is the world's first-ever video footage of snow leopards. Planet Earth Diaries: Diving with Piranhas shows how a camera crew filmed a piranha feeding frenzy in Brazil—after a two-week search for the opportunity. 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. In this episode divers explore the otherworldly cenotes of the Yucatán Peninsula, appearing to be flying in water (because it is so clear), allowing viewers a glimpse of the hundreds of kilometers of caves that have already been mapped. The Waitomo Caves with the Arachnocampa luminosa is also shown. Also featured is Borneo's Deer Cave and Gomantong Cave. Inhabitants of the former include three million wrinkle-lipped free-tailed bat, 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: Into the Abyss 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. Planet Earth Diaries: Wild Camel Chase explains how the hunt for the elusive Bactrian camels necessitated a two-month trek in Mongolia. 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 km 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 he cannot do indefinitely. His desperate need to eat brings him to a colony of walrus. Although he attacks repeatedly, the herd is successful in evading him 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 while two adult Polar bear cubs from Arctic travels onward as they wander across vast track of frozen ocean independently from their mother. Planet Earth Diaries: Alive in the Freezer tells of the battle with the elements to obtain the penguin footage and of unwelcome visits from polar bears. Planet Earth Diaries: Shot in the Dark explains how the lion hunt was filmed in darkness using infrared light.

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 Amazon rainforest is illustrated by a sequence of them fruiting, including a parasite that infested insects, called cordyceps. In Borneo, nocturnal colugo is one of the rare species ever discovered and travels two miles while foraging for young leaves. 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: Trouble in Paradise looks at filming displaying birds of paradise, focusing mainly on the filming of the six-plumed bird of paradise. "Jungles" served as a major inspiration in developing the video game The Last of Us, which features a mutated strain of the cordyceps fungus infecting humans and almost destroying mankind. Planet Earth Diaries: Shark Quest shows the difficulties of filming the one-second strike of a great white shark, filmed by Simon King.

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 year round, but the moose, capercaillie, and wolverine are exceptions. 1600 km 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 Chile's Valdivian forests, 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. The Bialowieza Forest typifies the habitat that characterised Europe around 6,000 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 time-lapse 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: Forest Fliers explains how aerial shots of the baobab were achieved by the use of a cinebulle, an adapted hot air balloon. Planet Earth Diaries: Ocean Wanderers shows the search in the Bahamas for oceanic whitetip sharks.

''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 United States.

Earth had its worldwide premiere in September 2007 at the San Sebastián International Film Festival in San Sebastián, Spain, in Basque Country. Lionsgate released the film in several international markets over the following year. In the United States, it became the first film to be released by Disneynature, the Walt Disney Company's new nature documentary arm. 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 box-office success.

Reception

Critical reception

Planet Earth received widespread critical acclaim. On review aggregation website Rotten Tomatoes, the miniseries has an approval rating of 100% based on 21 reviews, with an average rating of 9.8/10. The critical consensus reads "Planet Earth weaves innovative camera techniques and patient observation to deliver viewers an astounding glimpse of the world's perils and wonders, capturing jaw-dropping scenery and animals on both an epic and intimate scale." Time magazine's James Poniewozik named it one of the Top 10 New TV Series of 2007, ranking it at No. 4. In 2019, Planet Earth and its sequel were ranked 72nd on *The Guardian'''s list of the 100 best TV shows of the 21st century. As of 2023, *Planet Earth'' is ranked third on IMDb's Top 250 TV Shows.

Accolades

Planet Earth: From Pole to Pole won the Science and 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 also nominated for the NTA for Most popular Factual program but lost to Top Gear (Supernanny and Bad Lad's Army: Officer Class were also nominated).

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.

Awards and nominations

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 United States, 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.

Sequel

Main article: Planet Earth II

In February 2016, the BBC announced a six-part sequel had been commissioned, titled Planet Earth II, for release in late 2016, with Sir David Attenborough returning as narrator and presenter. As with the 2006 series, the trailer features the track 'Hoppípolla' by Sigur Rós.

Merchandise

The popularity of the television series around the world translated into strong sales of associated Planet Earth merchandise. In the United States, it became the fastest and bestselling documentary DVD in 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, U.S. 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 United States, 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 voice-over. Even in the United States the Attenborough version was much the better for sales.

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 United States, 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 first U.S. high-definition releases omitted the extra disc of bonus features from the standard-definition boxed set, though these extras were included with new material in a special-edition Blu-ray released in 2011.

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 ().
• The paperback title Planet Earth: The Future was also published on 5 October 2006 (). 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 ().
• A collection of still images from the series was published in a hardcover volume as Planet Earth: The Photographs on 7 October 2007 ().

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 and has been performed during "Planet Earth Live" events in the United States and the United Kingdom.

References

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