Planet Earth

[first lines]

Himself - Narrator:
This is our planet's final frontier, and a world where only the most adventurous dare to go. [BASE jumper disappears into black hole]

Himself - Narrator:
Bats are not the only commuters in these Bornean caves. There's a day-shift as well. [approaching cacophony Swiftlets]

Himself - Narrator:
[teaming fish] These big-eyes are the equivalent of bats - night feeders that leave the cave each evening. And like all caves-commuters, they're most vulnerable at the scheduled time of departure. [ominous shadows of larger fish]

Himself - Narrator:
Each year, explorers chart over 100 miles of new cave passages. But with half the world's limestone still to be explored, who knows how many Lechuguillas are still waiting to be discovered. [surveying stalactites in the Chandelier Ballroom chamber]

Himself - Narrator:
Of all the habitats the Planet Earth team had to deal with, undoubtedly the one that was to provide the most unpleasant working conditions was the underground world of caves.

Himself - Field Assistant:
Look at that. [pointing at a hissing mass] *Thousands* of cockroaches. There's juveniles in a sort of moulting phase here. And just everywhere you look it's cockroaches. Look at that. Beautiful sight. [getting too close they scatter]

Himself - Producer:
[leaning into rope] Well, it seems that every cave trip involves at least one thrilling, but buttock-clenching moment, and this is Lechuguilla's. It's Boulder Falls, 150-foot drop into blackness.

Himself - Narrator:
The team laboriously picked their way through a maze of passages. It was crucial that nobody fell. The last time somebody broke an ankle down here, it took a team of over 100 expert cavers 3 days to get them out.

[last lines]

Himself - Narrator:
This was to be the last time that the authorities were going to allow Lechuguilla to be filmed. So this footage is the only way that most people can be transported into this magical place. Lechuguilla would be allowed to return to its pristine status as one of the most beautiful and unspoiled environments on the planet.

[first lines]

Himself - Narrator:
A third of the land on our planet is desert. These great scars on the face of the Earth [rolling sand dunes] appear to be lifeless. But, surprisingly, none are. In all, life manages somehow to keep a precarious hold.

Himself - Narrator:
Few rocks can withstand the continuous blast of the sand-carrying wind. These outcrops are standing in Egypt's White Desert. But they will not do so for much longer. They're being inexorably chiseled away, and turned into more sand.

Himself - Narrator:
Of all the places visited by the Planet Earth team, the most remote was Mongolia's Gobi desert.

[first lines]

Himself - Narrator:
Only 3% of the water on our planet is fresh. Yet these precious waters are rich with surprise. All life on land is ultimately dependent on fresh water.

Himself - Narrator:
Angel Falls, the highest waterfall in the world. It's waters drop unbroken for almost 1,000 meters. Such is the height of these falls that long before the water reaches the base in the Devil's Canyon, it's blown away as a fine mist.

Himself - Narrator:
This is the end of the river's journey. Collectively they've worn down mountains and carried them to the sea, and all along the way their fresh water has brought life in abundance to planet Earth.

[last lines]

Crew Member:
[about piranha] So you got a bit of respect for these guys now?

Peter Scoones:
The number of those attacking made me believe they'll strip a horse's head down in 3 minutes, yeah. No problem.

Crew Member:
You've still got all your fingers?

Peter Scoones:
[show his hand] Yep. [checking other hand] Yep.

[first lines]

Narrator:
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.

[last lines]

Mark Linfield:
This is amazing. This is absolutely amazing.

Narrator:
This [tropical] forest covers only 3 percent of the planet's surface, but it contains more than 50 percent of all its plants and animals.

Narrator:
[about polar bears] She's leading her cubs into a dangerous new world. Nearly half of all cubs die in their first year out on the ice.

Narrator:
As we travel south, so the Sun's influence grows stronger, and at 50 degrees of latitude a radical transformation begins. Summers here are long enough for broad leaved trees to replace conifers. Broad leaves are much easier to digest, so now animals can collect their share of the energy that has come from the Sun. It's summer and these forests are bustling with life. [birds, butterflied, wrestling antelope]

Narrator:
But the good times will not last. [green transforms to white] Broad leaves must be shed in winter, for they are damaged by frost. As they disappear, so the land become barren, with little for animals to eat. The inhabitants must migrate, hibernate, or face months of near-starvation.

Narrator:
One season hands over to another. Some organisms thrive on decay. [time lapse of growing mushrooms] But most must make special preparations for winter, and life with little sun.

Narrator:
300,000 Baikal Teal gather to escape from the Siberian winter by migrating south to Korea. [small birds swarm the skies] The world's entire population in a single flock.

Narrator:
Female Asses are mysterious creatures. They come and go as they please, and much of their behaviour seems unfathomable to an outsider.

[first lines]

Narrator:
Vast open plains. Immense spaces. Eerie silence. But any feeling of emptiness is an illusion.

Narrator:
The plains of our planet support the greatest gatherings of wildlife on Earth. At the heart of all that happens here is a single living thing. Grass. This miraculous plant covers a quarter of all the lands of the Earth. Grasslands exist wherever there is a little rain, but not enough to sustain a forest. Some are huge. The Central Asian Steppe alone extends one third of the way around our planet.

Narrator:
Flooded, burned, baked and frozen, grass can withstand it all.

[first lines]

Himself - Narrator:
Both poles of our planet are covered with ice. They're the largest and most demanding wildernesses of all. Nowhere else on Earth is seasonal change so extreme. It causes the ice to advance and retreat every year. And all life here is governed by that.

[last lines]

Himself - Narrator:
This bear is much too close for comfort.

Doug Allen:
Now, this guy...

Jason:
Get down.

Himself - Narrator:
A reminder that we are only visitors in the polar bear's world.

Jason:
Hang on. Hang on, Doug. He's coming back that way. Get the gun ready. Get the gun ready, Doug.

Himself - Narrator:
[about competing mating frogs] It's a case of first-come first-serve.

Himself - Narrator:
Incredibly, more than 80% of all insects live in jungles.

[first lines]

Himself - Narrator:
This is our planet's hothouse, the jungle, the tropical rainforest. Forests like these occupy only 3% of the land, yet they're home to over half of the world's species. But how do so many different kinds of plants and animals find the space here to live alongside one another?

Himself - Narrator:
There are thought to be nearly a million different types of fungi in the tropics, the vast majority still unknown to science. But one thing's for certain. Without fungi, rainforests could not exist.

[first lines]

Himself - Narrator:
Human beings venture into the highest parts of our planet at their peril. Some might think that by climbing a great mountain they have somehow conquered it. But we can only be visitors here. This is a frozen, alien world.

Himself - Narrator:
On the highest summits of our planet, nothing can live permanently.

Doug Allen:
[showing off his blind] It's actually, I think, quite comfy. Here's the bed, and I've got pretty much everything I need. There's film stock. I brought some water up from the river. Sure it's a little cramped, but it's great enough. And then all I need now are one or two p*ssy cats... [peering outside for snow leopards]

[last lines]

Himself - Narrator:
The final day of filming was to bring the best luck of all. [dramatic footage] Planet Earth's 3-year quest ended with this extraordinary footage. A wild snow leopard hunt. Something few humans have ever even seen.

[first lines]

Himself - Narrator:
Away from all land, the ocean. It covers more than half the surface of our planet. And yet, for the most part, it is beyond our reach. Much of it is virtually empty, a watery desert. All life that is here is locked in a constant search to find food. A struggle to conserve precious energy in the open ocean.

Himself - Narrator:
Over 90% of the living space for life on our planet is in the oceans. Home to the biggest animal that exists, or has ever existed. The blue whale. Some weigh nearly 200 tons, twice the size of the largest dinosaur. Despite their great size, we still have little idea of where they travel in the vast oceans. And none at all of where they breed.

Himself - Narrator:
The largest animal on Earth feeds almost exclusively on one of the smallest; krill, shrimp-like crustaceans. They take many tons of water into their ballooning throats in a single gulp and sieve out what it contains. Every day, each one swallows some four million krill.

[last lines]

Himself - Narrator:
Global changes now threaten the great blooms of plankton on which the whales depend. Once, not so long ago, 300,000 blue whales roamed the oceans. Now, less than 3% of that number remains. 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.

[last lines]

Himself - Narrator:
The Oceanic whitetips had allowed the Planet Earth team a rare insight into their world. Now it was time to leave these magnificent animals in peace.

[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]

Narrator:
A distracted squirrel is a vulnerable squirrel.

[first lines]

Narrator:
Trees, surely among the most magnificent of all living things. Some are the largest organisms on Earth, dwarfing all others. And these are the tallest of them all. [ascending 100s of feet into a redwood]

Narrator:
At the Tiaga's northern extent, the growing season can last for just one month a year. It can take 50 years for a tree to get bigger than a seedling.

Narrator:
These forests were growing here long before humans walked the Earth. They were in their prime 20million years ago, and existed before the Swiss Alps or the Rocky Mountains were even raised.

Narrator:
[baby owl's first flight] If you're going to fall here, it's quite a good idea to do it in stages.

Narrator:
Having fed the predators, the cicadas leave one final gift for the forest itself. The nutrients in a generation of cicadas are returned to the soil all at once, and the trees enjoy a marked spurt in growth. This may be the single largest dose of fertilizer in the natural world.

Narrator:
Whether trees have needles or broad leaves, it is their ability to survive annual change that has enabled them to cover such vast areas of the Earth, and made the seasonal forests the greatest forests of all.

Himself - Cameraman:
[regrouping after a minor hot air balloon accident] We're just deciding which tree to try and crash land into. Preferably the hardest, spikiest one that's nearby. That one looks good. There's some nice, sort of sticking out thorns on it.

Narrator:
This giant sequoia, a relative of the redwood, is the largest living thing on Earth. Known as General Sherman, it's the weight of ten blue whales.

Narrator:
Higher up in the nearby mountains, bristlecone pines. The oldest organisms on the planet. Some have been here for 5,000 years. They were alive before the pyramids were built, and were already 3,000 years old when Christ was born.

[first lines]

Himself - Narrator:
Our planet's continents are fringed by shallow seas. Rarely more than 200 meters deep, they lie on the continental shelves, which may stretch sometimes for hundreds of miles before the sea floor drops into deeper, darker waters. Altogether, they constitute a mere 8% of the world's oceans, but they contain the vast majority of its marine life.

Himself - Narrator:
Reefs are the work of polyps, tiny colonial animals like minute sea anemones. Yet the Great Barrier Reef is so big it can be seen from the moon.

Himself - Narrator:
In the spring, as the sun daily climbs higher in the sky, the algae start to grow. Blooms the size of the Amazon rainforest turn the seas green. Individually, the algae are tiny, but together they produce three quarters of all the oxygen in our atmosphere