From Pole to Pole (25 Mar. 2007)

"Planet Earth" travels around the Earth, finding where the sun always shines and where it's rarely seen. Next, they find where water is abundant and where it's scarce.

Director:

Alastair Fothergill

Writers:

David Attenborough, Alastair Fothergill,

Stars:

David Attenborough, Sigourney Weaver, Mike Holding

Cast

Episode credited cast:
David Attenborough	...	Himself - Narrator (voice)
Sigourney Weaver	...	Narrator - US Version (voice)
Rest of cast listed alphabetically:
Mike Holding	...	Himself
Tania Jenkins	...	Herself (as Tania 'TJ' Jenkins)
Michael Kelem	...	Himself
Mark Linfield	...	Himself
Peter Perlstein	...	Himself

Storyline

What would the earth be like without the sun? We'll never know, but the emperor penguins come the nearest to that experience, as they suffer through winter in Antarctica, where temperatures can drop to minus 70 degrees centigrade. Meanwhile, the sun brightens the far north and the polar bears come out of hibernation. Spring in northern Canada means the migration of three million caribou across the arctic tundra. Winter in the deciduous forests of eastern Russia makes hunting difficult for the Amur leopard, the rarest cat in the world. On the island of New Guinea, birds have plenty of food, giving them time for elaborate mating rituals. "The sun influences life in the oceans just as it does on land," explains the narrator. We watch where the seals go to breed -- and we see the Great White sharks that follow them. What would the Earth be like without water? "Planet Earth" shows us where water is abundant and where it is scarce. During the dry season in the Kalahari desert, elephants go ...

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Plot Keywords:

earth | sun | planet earth | winter | spring | 

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Genres:

Documentary

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Details

Release Date:

25 March 2007 (USA)

Company Credits

Did You Know?

Quotes

[first lines]
Narrator: A hundred years ago, there were one-and-a-half billion people on Earth. Now, over six billion crowd our fragile planet. But even so, there are still places barely touched by humanity. This series will take you to the last wildernesses and show you the planet and its wildlife as you have never seen them before.

User Reviews

Memorable Scenes Get This Series Off To A Great Start

My goodness, there are many memorable scenes from this opening episode of an 11-part BBC series of "Planet Earth." It makes me anxious to see the other 10 parts of this project.

This first part concentrates at the beginning more on life on the two poles, on the Arctic Region and the Antarctic. Anyone who has seen the amazing documentary, "March Of The Penguins," will be familiar with the opening segment here as it talks about those determined penguins.

Elsewhere, on the other end of the globe, we soon enjoy seeing a female polar bear emerge from hibernation with her two little Cubs, and the problems the three of them have adapting to their new (for the cubs) above-ground life in the spring.

We see migrations, such as the huge caribou one, complete with the ever-present predator, this time the wolf.

To me, the most stunning parts of this opening episode were several sights photographed not at the poles but in the forests and warm water areas. Three that come to mind are (1) the incredible Birds Of Paradise; (2) underwater shots of big elephants swimming; and (2) a Great White Shark, which looked the size of a house, exploding out of the water to devour seals.