Planet Earth II (2016)

Official trailer

Planet Earth II is the BBC natural history television series narrated by David Attenborough.

The BBC Natural History Unit in Bristol produced the series with Mike Gunton as the executive producer and Tom Hugh-Jones as the series producer. The series originally aired on BBC One between November and December 2016. The six-episode series provides thorough documentation of the planet’s major habitats using technical approaches developed in the decade since the original Planet Earth (2006). Each episode runs approximately fifty minutes.

The six episodes are: “Islands,” “Mountains,” “Jungles,” “Deserts,” “Grasslands,” and “Cities.” The series covers approximately one hundred species across more than forty countries. Hans Zimmer, Jacob Shea, and Jasha Klebe composed the score.

Nothing else on television has made me gasp at a lizard. That’s what this series does to me: six episodes where I forget I’m watching a documentary and start picking sides between hatchlings and snakes. Attenborough’s voice, that Zimmer score and camera work that shouldn’t be possible add up to the finest thing the BBC’s natural history people have made.

The BBC Natural History Unit produced the series over four years and used technical advances that had become available since Planet Earth’s 2006 production. Planet Earth II is consistently cited among the major natural history productions of the 2010s. The series’s specific approach combined the thorough habitat-based structure of the original Planet Earth with considerably improved cinematography, audio recording, and storytelling techniques. The introduction of “Cities” as the final episode represented the first major Attenborough series to dedicate an episode to urban environments and the wildlife that’s adapted to them.

The series became the most-watched natural history show in fifteen years at its release and shifted natural history programming’s specific approach to character-driven sequence construction.

The Technical Generation

The series deployed technical approaches that hadn’t been available during Planet Earth’s 2006 production. Camera stabilization had advanced considerably. The Movi gimbal stabilization systems (which became available around 2013) allowed handheld filming with image quality previously available only from large vehicle-mounted equipment. Drone cinematography had become technically practical and aesthetically acceptable for major productions. Low-light camera sensitivity had improved through several generations of digital sensor development. Audio recording technology had advanced to support more specific species identification.

The technical improvements shaped what the series could capture.

The mountain goat sequence in episode two follows specific animals across terrain with a steadiness earlier handheld work couldn’t have managed, and I sit there trying to work out how a camera kept up with them. The pygmy three-toed sloth sequence in episode one documents a critically endangered species with image quality that serves conservation. The flamingo sequence in episode two uses aerial work the original’s helicopters couldn’t have achieved.

The technique shows how each technical generation in documentary production enables specific new content. The improvements compound over time. Planet Earth II’s specific contribution is the thorough deployment of the decade’s technical advances in service of natural history documentation.

The Character-Driven Sequences

The series’s most-discussed structural innovation was its commitment to following individual animals through extended narrative sequences. Previous Attenborough series had typically presented species-level information illustrated through individual examples. Planet Earth II committed to extended sequences following named or implied individuals across multi-stage narrative arcs.

The iguana-and-snakes sequence in episode one (“Islands”) is the most-cited example, and it’s my favorite five minutes of nature filmmaking, period.

A newly hatched marine iguana tries to reach the ocean across a beach full of racer snakes. The snakes close in, the hatchling runs, and I’m talking out loud to a lizard. The sequence plays as one animal’s story, built with the structure drama uses, and it grips me harder than most thrillers do.

The sequence’s specific success produced extensive cultural conversation in 2016 and showed that natural history programming could compete with scripted entertainment for audience attention. Later BBC natural history productions have continued to develop the character-driven approach.

The Cities Episode

The series’s sixth episode (“Cities”) covers urban wildlife and the ways animals have adapted to human-built environments. The episode represents the first major Attenborough series to dedicate an episode to urban ecology. The content includes leopards in Mumbai, peregrine falcons in New York City, hyenas in Harar Ethiopia, langurs in Jodhpur, and starlings over Rome.

The episode’s argument extends the Attenborough corpus into territory the series hadn’t previously covered fully. Urban environments are now significant wildlife habitats. Multiple species have adapted to human-built conditions. Some species (peregrine falcons among them) have recovered from previous population declines partly through urban habitat use. Some species (urban leopards) maintain populations adjacent to human settlements through behavioral adaptations. The episode shows that contemporary natural history must include urban ecology as a major subject area.

I think “Cities” is the smartest decision in the series.

The world earlier Attenborough series filmed had relatively little urban wildlife, and the world of 2016 had a great deal more. Ending on leopards in Mumbai and falcons in New York tells the audience that nature hasn’t gone somewhere else to wait for us. The series does well to close on our own streets instead of pretending the wild stops at the city limits.

Is Planet Earth II as good as people say?

10/10. I can’t think of a thing I’d change.

The camera work, the choice to follow individual animals as characters, the Cities episode and the return to the snow leopards all show a team pushing past what it had already done, and it pays off in every hour. My only gripe is that it stops at six episodes. Watch all of them, in order, and let the iguana chase wreck your nerves.

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