Open Ocean • 2001 • episode "S1E3" • Blue Planet I

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

57:50

This programme, narrated by Andrew Scott, celebrates the glorious nature of summer on Earth and the extraordinary ways animals and plants rise to the challenges it brings. With the sun shining and the flowers blooming, this is the season of splendid abundance, and the long hours of daylight make life burst out in a riot of activity. But you have to find clever ways to get your share of the good times while they last, and as temperatures soar, everything has to deal with sweltering heat. For a whole range of animals, from sneaky ring-tailed lemurs to battling ibex, and from overheated penguins to astonishing colour-changing lizards, summer is a time when the living is not always easy.

S1E1 • Earth's Seasonal Secrets • 2016 • Nature

58:59

In South Africa, Chris finds out how reproduction has shaped life on Earth and the surprising evolutionary origins of sex, eggs and birds. This is a journey of innovation, adaptation and astonishing creativity.

S1E2 • Evolution • 2026 • Nature

42:11

Patagonia's ancient woodlands are a magical home to creatures found nowhere else on Earth. This journey explores the forests that time forgot, revealing hidden treasures, while meeting scientists and Indigenous people working to protect them.

S1E5 • Patagonia: Life on the Edge of the World • 2022 • Nature

43:27

Every year, five million people visit London's Natural History Museum to see its incredible collection, from extraordinary dinosaurs to giant whales, and rare fossils to space rocks said to be as old as the solar system itself. But only a fraction of the staggering 80 million items in the collection are on display. Here cameras capture some of these incredible specimens, revealing the unique and rare pieces too valuable to exhibit.

S1E1 • Natural History Museum: World of Wonder • 2020 • Nature

43:55

From the mountains to the sea, from the scorching desert to the arctic tundra, explore Europe's last great wilderness - full of a delicious and surprising burst of life.

S1E3 • Wildest Europe • 2016 • Nature