There aren’t many people in the world that have a job that they still want to be doing at the age of ninety, but that’s the case with David Attenborough, who will be back to his old animal tricks again in Planet Earth II later in 2016. It’s been ten years since the first ground-breaking outing back in 2006, but the presenter has been busy with everything from Life In Cold Blood (2008), Life (2009), Frozen Planet (2011) and Life Story (2014) since then. The followup show will be the must-see wildlife documentary of the year, pushing the boundaries of nature filmography to the extremes in a way that only the BBC know how to do.
Air date
As ever where Mother is concerned, they started out playing the transmission date close to their chest, leading to some speculation for an Easter air date, similarly to the previous series, which premiered on the 6th March 2006. However, that didn’t go on to be the case and we now know that Planet Earth II will open with Episode 1, Islands, airing on the 6th November 2016 at 8pm on BBC 1. The remaining five episodes of the series will be going out weekly at the same time.
Series details
In Planet Earth II, there will be six one hour episodes in total in what the BBC is describing as its “landmark natural history series for 2016”, which should give you a pretty good indication about how much might it will have put behind it. The last series focused on eleven different habitats on the planet, but the second series aims to go one further by showing the kind of incredible nature stories from around the world that we haven’t been able to film before.
Footage has will include some of the most dramatic habitats on the planet, including jungles, arctic tundra, deserts, mountains, islands, grasslands and even cities. The series will explore these unique environments to immerse us in the unique characteristics of each and to showcase how life has adapted to survive, thrive and dominate them. There will be plenty of in depth insight into animal behaviour, along with more than a few spectacular shots of incredibly rare moments in nature.
Production
Planet Earth II is being produced by the BBC’s Natural History Unit as a BBC, BBC America, ZDF and France Télévisions co-production, which will see it getting a global audience. Filming with David Attenborough on-location is taking place in the coming month or so, but the entire production has been in development and filming for the last three years in some of the most remote and hard-to-reach locations in the world.
As was the case in the first series, which aired as the first BBC nature documentary filmed in HD, II will also bring together the latest cutting edge technologies to ensure you’re left agog at the end of each episode. Filming is in ultra high definition, so you should clean your glasses, TV and irises to ensure you can take in the sheer detail that will be available. Combining some of the fanciest filming equipment, including cutting-edge camera stabilisation, remote recording and aerial drone technology, it will be visually stunning from start to end.
First impression
We’re preparing ourselves for awe inspiring wonder, cutting edge filming technique and more definition than the average Mr. Universe contestant. It’s easy to look at the sheer wealth of wildlife documentaries we’ve watched over the years and assume that we’ve seen everything, but somehow the BBC and David Attenborough manage to surprise us every time.
