Planet Earth

Planet Earth was the BBC Natural History Unit's answer to its own success. The Blue Planet (2001) had been acclaimed, widely watched and sold to 150 countries, and executive producer Alastair Fothergill proposed repeating the formula across the whole planet. Commissioned for BBC One in January 2002 and co-produced with BBC Worldwide, Discovery Channel and NHK, in association with CBC, it took five years to make, was the most expensive nature documentary the BBC had ever commissioned, and was the first it shot in high definition.

Each of its eleven episodes takes one biome or habitat (the polar regions, mountains, caves, deserts, jungles, shallow seas, the deep ocean) and surveys it on a global scale, followed by a ten-minute Planet Earth Diaries featurette on the difficulties of filming it. David Attenborough narrates the original version; the American broadcast on Discovery substituted Sigourney Weaver. George Fenton wrote the orchestral score, and the camera teams, including the cinematographer Doug Allan, pushed the patient, long-lens observation that The Blue Planet had pioneered to new extremes of scale and intimacy.

It premiered on BBC One on 5 March 2006, and its first five episodes averaged 11.4 million viewers, more than The Blue Planet. It was sold to 130 countries, won four Emmys including Outstanding Nonfiction Series, a Peabody and a Royal Television Society award, and holds a perfect Rotten Tomatoes score. Two sequels followed, Planet Earth II in 2016 and Planet Earth III in 2023.