“…it is jaw-dropping television from start to finish.” – Sunday Express

We live on a planet that we can never truly appreciate. No person will ever live long enough to see or experience even a fraction of its variety and complexity, beauty and magnificence. But travelling the world with the latest aerial surveillance, state-of-the-art cameras and high definition film, the producers of the BBC Series Planet Earth have recorded places and animal behaviour that few others have seen.

Five years in the making, over 2000 days spent in the field, across 200 locations, a budget of unprecedented proportions and shot in high definition film, Planet Earth is the ultimate portrait of our planet. The DVD Planet Earth ‘Part One’ features the first five episodes plus behind-the-scenes ‘making of’ documentaries from the producer of each episode.

Episode 1
From Pole to Pole – The lives of animals and plants are dominated by the sun and fresh water which trigger seasonal journeys. The latest technology and aerial photography enable the Planet Earth team to track some of the greatest mass migrations.
In the Arctic spring, a mother polar bear and cubs emerge from their winter den. They have just two weeks to cross the frozen sea before it melts and they become stranded. Share the most intimate and complete picture of polar bear life ever filmed. Further south, time-lapse cameras capture the annual transformation created by the Okavango floods.

Episode 2
Mountains – Tour the mightiest mountain ranges, starting with the birth of a mountain at one of the lowest places on Earth and ending at the summit of Everest. One of Earth's rarest phenomena is a lava lake that has been erupting for over 100 years. The same forces built the Simian Mountains where troops of gelada baboons live, nearly a thousand strong. In the Rockies, grizzlies build winter dens inside avalanche-prone slopes. The programme also brings us astounding images of a snow leopard hunting on the Pakistan peaks, a world first.

Episode 3
Freshwater – Fresh water defines the distribution of life on land. Follow the descent of rivers from their mountain sources to the sea. Watch spectacular waterfalls, fly inside the Grand Canyon and explore the wildlife in the world's deepest lake. Planet Earth captures unique and dramatic moments of animal behaviour: a showdown between smooth-coated otters and mugger crocodiles; deep-diving long tailed macaques; massive flocks of snow geese on the wing and a piranha frenzy in the perilous waters of the world's largest wetland.

Episode 4
Caves – The Cave of Swallows in Mexico is a 400m vertical shaft, deep enough to engulf the Empire State Building. The Lechuguilla cave system in the USA is 193km long with astonishing crystal formations. Caves are remarkable habitats with equally bizarre wildlife. Cave angel fish cling to the walls behind waterfalls with microscopic hooks on their fins. Cave swiftlets navigate by echo-location and build nests out of saliva. The Texas cave salamander has neither eyes nor pigment. Planet Earth gets unique access to a hidden world of stalactites, stalagmites, snotites and troglodytes.

Episode 5
Deserts – Around 30% of the land's surface is desert, the most varied of our ecosystems despite the lack of rain. Saharan sandstorms reach nearly a mile high and desert rivers run for a single day. In the Gobi Desert, rare Bactrian camels get moisture from the snow. In the Atacama, guanacos survive by licking dew off cactus spines. The brief blooming of Death Valley triggers a plague of locusts 65km wide and 160km long. A unique aerial voyage over the Namibian desert reveals elephants on a long trek for food and desert lions searching for wandering oryx.

Special Features
5×10 minute behind-the-scenes ‘making of’ documentaries from the producer of each episode