Earlier this year, it was announced that the BBC would begin production on a number of new nature documentaries.

Planet Earth III and Frozen Planet II are both sure to be highly entertaining, and a third project, first reported as One Planet: Seven Worlds, was also mentioned.

That title has now been reworked to Seven Worlds, One Planet, and will feature the one and only Sir David Attenborough.

The trailers have been around for a while, but let’s start with this gem to get the ball rolling:

That’s bloody marvellous.

Earlier this month, the BBC also released this trailer:

That elephant stretching its trunk in search of food will look familiar to anybody who has been to Mana Pool National Park.

For those who want one more little taster, here’s a scene involving a penguin and a leopard seal:

So, will the series live up to the hype? If you ask the Guardian, who have given it a five-star review, of course:

Each earthly continent gets an episode narrated by David Attenborough (can you imagine the calls from the agent of any land mass whose wasn’t?), beginning with the one we only noticed 200 years ago – Antarctica…

As ever, the makers play us like pianos and at this stage of natural history television’s evolution they are maestros. Majesty – snowy wastelands! The largest congregation of feeding whales ever filmed! – is followed by melancholy. Warming glaciers are calving so rapidly that their floating rubble masks the penguins’ enemies from them – and the depredations against the environment and its wildlife are putting their function as a massive carbon sponge for the world in jeopardy…

It was all as gorgeous, breathtaking, moving and harrowing as we have come to expect from this world-leading branch of the BBC. There is nothing to criticise or cavil at here, unless you consider yourself to be on sufficiently high moral ground to whine that it and Attenborough could have started leveraging their power to highlight the environmental crisis some time before they did.

We’ll steer clear of that moral high ground.

The Telegraph also gave it a five-star review (“this was wildlife documentary as high-stakes drama”), whilst the Independent’s four-star review makes it clear that Attenborough’s “continued existence is vital for us all”.

Add this one to the list, then.

[source:guardian]