BBC - Frozen Planet (2011) Part 1 To the Ends of the Earth

Frozen Planet

Frozen Planet is a nature documentary series, produced and filmed by the BBC Natural History Unit. The production team, which includes executive producer Alastair Fothergill and series producer Vanessa Berlowitz, were previously responsible for the award-winning series The Blue Planet (2001) and Planet Earth (2006), and Frozen Planet is being billed as a sequel. David Attenborough returns as narrator and as with Planet Earth, the series will be shot entirely in HD. The seven-part series will focus on life in the Arctic and Antarctic. The production team were keen to film a comprehensive record of the natural history of the Polar Regions, because climate change is affecting landforms such as glaciers, ice shelves, and the extent of sea ice. Sir David first visited Antarctica 17 years ago, but this was his first time ever to visit the geographical North Pole. To get there, meant flying in to a Russian ice camp on the frozen Arctic Ocean, where he could (after several days of bad weather) finally reach the pole itself by helicopter. He also returned to Scott's hut, a place he first visited several years ago, but still touches him today. This is the place where Sir Robert Falcon Scott and his men began their fateful journey to reach the geographical South Pole. “I remember very vividly indeed the first time I entered this extraordinary building…it was not like any other place - because it isn't like any other place on earth. If ever there was a place that held the personality of the people that had lived in it, a century ago, this surely must be it”. Sir David authors On Thin Ice, the seventh film of the series, which explores the effects of climate change on the Polar Regions and the lengths that scientists are going to, to understand it. Some regions, like the Antarctic Peninsula, have warmed significantly in the years since Sir David first visited them. He explores what this means, not just for the animals and people of the polar regions, but for the whole planet.

Part 1 To the Ends of the Earth

Our journey begins with David at the North Pole, as the sun returns after six months of darkness. We follow a pair of courting polar bears, which reveal a surprisingly tender side. Next stop is the giant Greenland ice cap, where waterfalls plunge into the heart of the ice and a colossal iceberg carves into the sea. Humpback whales join the largest gathering of seabirds on earth to feast in rich Alaskan waters. Further south, the tree line marks the start of the Taiga forest, containing one third of all trees on earth. Here, 25 of the world's largest wolves take on formidable bison prey. At the other end of our planet, the Antarctic begins in the Southern Ocean where surfing penguins struggle to escape a hungry sea-lion and teams of orcas create giant waves to wash seals from ice floes -a filming first. Diving below the ice, we discover prehistoric giants, including terrifying sea spiders and woodlice the size of dinner plates. Above ground, crystal caverns ring the summit of Erebus, the most southerly volcano on earth. From here we retrace the routes of early explorers across the formidable Antarctic ice-cap - the largest expanse of ice on our planet. Finally, we rejoin David at the South Pole, exactly one hundred years after Amundsen then Scott were the first humans to stand there

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