David Farnor | On 09, Dec 2019

Sir David Attenborough is returning to BBC One to present The Green Planet.

The five-part series from BBC Studios Natural History Unit will be the first immersive portrayal of an unseen, inter-connected world, full of remarkable new behaviour, emotional stories and surprising heroes in the plant world – Planet Earth from the perspective of plants.

Across the series, David will travel to the USA, Costa Rica, Croatia and northern Europe, from deserts to mountains, from rainforests to the frozen north, to find new stories and a fresh understanding of how plants live their lives. He will meet the largest living things that have ever existed; trees that care for each other; and plants that breed so fast they could cover the planet in a matter of months. He will find time-travellers – seeds that can outlive civilisations, and plants that remain unchanged for decades. He will examine our relationship with plants, past, present and future, and reveal how all animal life, ourselves included, is totally dependent on plants.

Using brand new technological advances, such as robotics, moving time-lapse, super-detail thermal cameras, deep focus ‘frame-stacking’ and ultra-high-speed, the documentary promises to make visible the hidden life of our green planet.

Plants, after all, can be as aggressive, competitive and dramatic as animals – locked in desperate battles for food, for light, to reproduce and to scatter their young.

Attenborough says: “This is a wonderful opportunity to explore a neglected yet truly remarkable part of the natural world. Once again, the innovative approach of the BBC NHU and groundbreaking technology will reveal new and surprising wonders to the BBC One audience.”

Mike Gunton, Executive Producer, says: “This series will take viewers into a world beyond their imagination – see things no eye has ever seen. The world of plants is a mind-blowing parallel universe; one that we can now bring to life using a whole range of exciting new camera technology.”

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