Ten years after the original, David Attenborough fronts six hour-long films shot in 4K, chasing penguins through city gutters, racer snakes across Galápagos ash and snow leopards along Himalayan cliffs. Drone-mounted cameras, gyro-stabilised zoom rigs and thermal imaging turn familiar habitats into vertigo-inducing arenas where survival is measured in inches and seconds. The score, co-composed by Hans Zimmer, pulses under footage that took three years and 117 filming trips to 40 countries.
BBC One debuted the series on 6 November 2016 and kept it on Sunday primetime through 11 December, drawing 12.3 million viewers for the “Cities” episode, the channel’s highest natural-history audience since 2009. International rollouts on BBC Earth doubled the global viewership of its predecessor and pushed 4K set sales for retailers. A trailer scored again by Sigur Rós’s “Hoppípolla” reprised the first series’ emotional shorthand within 48 hours the clip passed 20 million online views.
Critics called it “television that re-boots your sense of scale,” and awards followed: two BAFTAs for Best Specialist Factual and Best Photography, plus two craft wins, then two Primetime Emmys. Executive producers Vanessa Berlowitz and Mike Gunton labelled the project “one-planet storytelling,” a mantra that shaped the 2018 spin-off “Dynasties” and fed directly into 2023’s “Planet Earth III.”
Production Details
BBC One / 1 Season / 6 Episodes / 2016
Showrunner(s): Vanessa Berlowitz, Mike Gunton
Producer(s): Chadden Hunter, James Brickell
Cinematography: Bob Gilles, Jonathan Jones
Music: Hans Zimmer, Jasha Klebe, Jacob Shea
Main Cast
David Attenborough as Self - Narrator
