Friends and Rivals • 1990 • episode "9/12" • Trials of Life

52:04

A thousand years ago, many millions of whales dominated the sea, with their ancient behaviours vital to the well-being of the oceans. These marine mammals are the ambassadors between one world and another, land and sea, their close communities only now being truly researched and understood. They are still a keystone species in our fragile ecosystem today, with crucial impact on our seas and the life contained within them. But whaling decimated their numbers over the last 150 years, in particular the whaling industry run by the KGB during the Cold War. In a basement in Odessa, top-secret Soviet whaling reports record the unimaginable number of whales killed. This film tells how surviving members of the Soviet leadership, and original Soviet whalers, uncover these secret records, allowing us to understand the magnitude of historical whale populations and the shocking impact of commercial whaling. Whale populations are now largely cherished across the world as we begin to understand these amazing animals, their intelligence and their important contribution to the sustainability and health of the oceans.

2023 • Nature

48:04

At first glance, they look like pigs, but they're actually white-lipped peccaries from the Brazilian wetlands of the Pantanal, 10 times the size of the Everglades. Follow scientists as they track these mysterious mammals in their daily quest for food, while keeping a watchful eye for their main predator: jaguars.

3 • Brazil Untamed • 2016 • Nature

59:01

This edition follows the plight of some of the youngest and most vulnerable of the mountain gorilla population. Includes the two young orphans whose mothers were callously murdered in execution-style killings, the young female battling with new emotions, and the new gorilla king struggling to keep hold of the group he fought so hard to win. Discover how they cope in this exploration of what the future holds for the remaining last few hundred mountain gorillas.

S1E3 • Mountain Gorilla • 2010 • Nature

58:40

In Snowball, Chris Packham tells the story of the astonishing moment in Earth’s distant past, when almost the entire planet froze – a glistening ‘Snowball Earth’ in the dark void of space. With ice wrapped around the planet to the equator, the chances of life surviving hang in the balance. Earth’s terrifying journey into the deep freeze started with fire, not ice. 800 million years ago, long before the age of the dinosaurs, before there was even animal life, the giant supercontinent Rodinia broke up. Earth’s vast powerful tectonic forces ripped the land apart, kicking off a series of events that resulted in huge amounts of carbon dioxide being sucked from the atmosphere and sending global temperatures plummeting. This plunge into the deep freeze couldn’t have come at a worse time. The very first forms of complex life - the ancestors to the amazing life we see around us today - were evolving but, as the planet froze to the equator, it looked like their days were numbered. Happily, Chris discovers that after 50 million years locked in ice, volcanic eruptions drove a great thaw. Life broke free from the ice and soon made a giant leap, from the microscopic, to the first animals big enough to see and touch.

S1E2 • Earth: One Planet, Many Lives • 2023 • Nature

57:49

The first part explores how centuries of scientific and religious dogma were overturned by the earliest discoveries of the existence of cells, and how scientists came to realize that there was, literally, more to life than meets the eye.

S1E1 • The Cell • 2012 • Nature

58:27

In this episode Brian uncovers how the stunning diversity of shapes in the natural world are shadows of the rules that govern the universe. In Spain he shows how an attempt by hundreds of people to build the highest human tower reveals the force that shapes our planet. In Nepal, honey hunters seek out giant beehives that cling to cliff walls. The perfect hexagonal honeycombs made by the bees to store their honey conceal a mathematical rule. Off the coast of Canada, Brian explains how some of the most irregular, dangerous shapes in nature - massive icebergs that surge down from Greenland and into shipping lanes of the Atlantic - emerge from a powerful yet infinitely small force of nature. Even the most delicate six-sided snowflake tells a story of the forces of nature that forged it.

Part 1 • Forces of Nature With Brian Cox • 2016 • Nature