Planet Earth

2012 • BBC America
4.6
825 reviews
TV-PG
Rating
Eligible
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Season 1 episodes (11)

1 From Pole to Pole
10/12/11
Season-only
The lives of animals and plants are dominated by the sun and fresh water which trigger seasonal journeys. The latest technology and aerial photography enable the Planet Earth team to track some of the greatest mass migrations.
2 Mountains
10/12/11
Season-only
Tour the mightiest mountain ranges, starting with the birth of a mountain at one of the lowest places on Earth and ending at the summit of Everest. One of Earth's rarest phenomena is a lava lake that has been erupting for over 100 years. The same forces built the Simian Mountains where troops of gelada baboons live, nearly a thousand strong. The program also brings us astounding images of a snow leopard hunting on the Pakistan peaks, a world first.
3 Freshwater
10/12/11
Season-only
Follow the descent of rivers from their mountain sources to the sea. Watch spectacular waterfalls, fly inside the Grand Canyon and explore the wildlife in the world's deepest lake. Planet Earth captures unique and dramatic moments of animal behaviour: a showdown between smooth-coated otters and mugger crocodiles; deep-diving long tailed macaques; massive flocks of snow geese on the wing and a piranha frenzy in the perilous waters of the world's largest wetland.
4 Caves
10/12/11
Season-only
The Cave of Swallows in Mexico is a 400m vertical shaft, deep enough to engulf the Empire State Building. The Lechuguilla cave system in the USA is 193km long with astonishing crystal formations. Caves are remarkable habitats with equally bizarre wildlife. Planet Earth gets unique access to a hidden world of stalactites, stalagmites, snotites and troglodytes.
5 Deserts
10/12/11
Season-only
Around 30% of the land's surface is desert, the most varied of our ecosystems despite the lack of rain. In the Gobi Desert, rare Bactrian camels get moisture from the snow. In the Atacama, guanacos survive by licking dew off cactus spines. The brief blooming of Death Valley triggers a plague of locusts 65km wide and 160km long. A unique aerial voyage over the Namibian desert reveals elephants on a long trek for food and desert lions searching for wandering oryx.
6 Ice Worlds
10/12/11
Season-only
The Arctic and Antarctic experience the most extreme seasons on Earth. Time-lapse cameras watch a colony of emperor penguins, transforming them into a single organism. The film reveals new science about the dynamics of emperor penguin behaviour. In the north, unique aerial images show a polar bear swimming more than 100km. Diving for up to two minutes at a time. The exhausted polar bear later attacks a herd of walrus in a true clash of the Titans.
7 Great Plains
10/12/11
Season-only
After filming for three years, Planet Earth finally captures the shy Mongolian gazelle. Only a handful of people have witnessed its annual migration. Don't miss the bizarre-looking Tibetan fox, captured on film for the first time. Over six weeks the team follow a pride of 30 lions as they attempt to hunt elephants. Using the latest night vision equipment, the crew film the chaotic battles that ensue at close quarters.
8 Jungles
10/12/11
Season-only
Jungles cover roughly three per cent of our planet yet contain 50 per cent of the world's species. High-definition cameras enable unprecedented views of animals living on the dark jungle floor. In the Ngogo forest the largest chimpanzee group in the world defends its territory from neighbouring groups. Other jungle specialists include parasitic fungi which infiltrate an insect host, feed on it, and then burst out of its body.
9 Shallow Seas
10/12/11
Season-only
A humpback whale mother and calf embark on an epic journey from tropical coral paradises to storm ravaged polar seas. Newly discovered coral reefs in Indonesia reveal head-butting pygmy seahorses, flashing 'electric' clams and bands of sea kraits, 30-strong, which hunt in packs. Elsewhere plagues of sea urchins fell forests of giant kelp. Huge bull fur seals attack king penguins, who despite their weight disadvantage, put up a spirited defence.
10 Seasonal Forests
10/12/11
Season-only
Discover the Taiga forest, on the edge of the Arctic - a silent world of stunted conifers. A third of all trees on Earth grow here and during the short summer they produce enough oxygen to change the atmosphere. In California General Sherman, a giant sequoia, is the largest living thing on the planet, ten times the size of a blue whale. The oldest organisms alive are bristlecone pines. At more than 4,000 years old they pre-date the pyramids.
11 Ocean Deep
10/12/11
Season-only
In this final stunning episode, a 30 ton whale shark gorges on a school of fish and the unique overhead heli-gimbal camera reveals common dolphins rocketing at more than 30km an hour. Descending into the abyss, deep sea octopus fly with wings and vampire squid use bioluminescence to create an extraordinary colour display. The first ever time-lapse footage taken from 2,000m down captures eels, crabs and giant isopods eating a carcass, completely consuming it within three hours.

About this show

This jaw-dropping, award-winning, landmark series from the BBC's Natural History Unit presents the epic story of life on Earth. Four years in production, over 2000 days in the field, using 71 cameramen filming across 204 locations in 62 countries, this is the ultimate portrait of our planet. Using a budget of unprecedented proportions, HD photography and unique, specially developed filming techniques, Planet Earth shows you our world in a way you've never quite seen it before. Once purchased please find your episodes under My Movies & TV.

Ratings and reviews

4.6
825 reviews
brady pepion
November 29, 2012
A good tv series with great shots. Not a overly exciting show but it has a great calming effect. Normally watch it as i do my paperwork (im a truck driver) right before bed. If you get hd and its not great picture, then you phone or tablet not true hd, or its too small of a screen. I buy it on my phone, then rewatch on my tablet later. Visually, tablets much better quality.
Gilberto Ochoa Jr
April 21, 2013
Earth is three things. Unlimited space, Unlimited time, and Unlimited power.Earth has allways been here. Living creatures like all the beautifully animals in these series, have been here longer than we can imagine. We as human beings create a lot of this power. We create out of sun light, water, wind, fire, soil,and many other thing. What good is Unlimited space, time and power if we don't know how to use it. WHAT IS EARTH WITHOUT THE MOONE
18 people found this review helpful
A Google user
January 13, 2013
All of my life I had viewed the nature genre of movies as boring - because they were. Boring narrator, boring footage, boring information that you usually already knew. All that changed with planet earth. The perfect combination of action, emotion, and facts you never knew.
19 people found this review helpful