The Blue Planet: Seas of Life, Part 2

Narrated by. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .Sir David Attenborough
Produced by. . . . . . . . . . . .. . . . . . .Alastair Fothergill, Martha Holmes, Andy Byatt

The BBC spent five years and $10 million to produce this landmark exploration of the ocean, that will take you from the ocean shores to its mysterious depth and show you life as you've never seen it before.

"...beautiful, startling epic." - Robert Hanks, The Independent Review

Includes the following episodes:

Open Ocean: In the immense space of the open ocean the sea bed is a staggering five miles below the surface and the nearest island is over 300 miles away. Yet here live many of the most spectacular predators in the ocean. Marvel as you experience ruthless and beautiful battles between hunter and prey.

The Deep: A place of mountain ranges, perpetual night, pressure extremes and cold... and the weirdest life forms on our planet. Dive to the depths of the ocean, an eerie world where predators with teeth so large they can't even close their mouths, chase bioluminescent creatures of the deep. Discover the spectacular smoking chimneys of the hydrothermal vents. Go deeper down than you have ever been...

BAFTA? Awards
2001/2 - Best Photography (Factual) 2001/2 Best Original Television Music - George Fenton

?The latest in the BBC Natural History Unit's long line of beautiful, startling epics is a portrait of marine life. Last night's opening programme contained countless, marvellous images of the sea's variety and abundance: vast maelstroms of silver fish, seas black with herring, joyful-looking dolphins racing through the Pacific swell, strange alien forms pulsing and glowing through the depths... It almost goes without saying that much of what was put on screen was amazing...The most memorable image in the programme was the opening shot of a lone blue whale from far away, a minnow adrift in a black void. Over this, David Attenborough tried to give some sense of scale: ?Its tongue weighs as much as an elephant, its heart is the size of a car and some of its blood vessels are so wide that you could swim down them.?The only sensible response to that is:Wow. And when it makes you say that, television is doing its job.? ? Independent
?For the last five years, camera crews have been trawling the world's oceans in search of blue whales, turtles, sharks and strange luminescent creatures that could have come straight out of a sci-fi blockbuster. Some of the footage is, frankly, unbelievable.? ? Express
?The images are every bit as spectacular as you have come to expect from the BBC's natural history unit. So is the narration ...Facts, facts, facts; administered like medicine, while a succession of stunning images fills the screen like a spoonful of sugar, to help the medicine go down.? ? The Times
?Sit back and prepare to be effortlessly educated as the masterly David Attenborough returns with a new natural history series. BBC camera crews and researchers have again outdone themselves, presenting breathtakingly beautiful shots of everything from shoals of sardines to the massive blue whale.? ? Daily Mail
?It's taken five years to bring together this superb series exploring the rich natural history lurking in oceans, and the results are truly worth it...As you would expect, the photography is astounding, and each programme ends with an epilogue showing the ingenuity needed to capture such visuals.? ? Guardian
?Closer to a miracle than a television programme? ? The Times
?One of the best wildlife series ever made.? ? Guardian
?A captivating series.? ? Sunday Times
?The breathtaking underwater footage in The Blue Planet (BBC1) goes on and on.? ? Express
Yes, alien life does exist! It is amazingly beautiful, alarmingly hideous, utterly astonishing and scientists are still discovering it in the unexplored deep oceans.Watch and wonder. ? The Times

The Deep - A place of mountain ranges, perpetual night, pressure extremes and cold... and the weirdest life forms on our planet. A true voyage into the unknown with constant surprises in store. Fish with grotesquely cavernous mouths and cruel teeth lurk one kilometre below the surface.Any light is living light, but a glow in the dark may be meant to attract the opposite sex, unless it is the deep-sea angler fish who already has her mate conveniently fused to the end of her nose. On the floor of the ocean deep, all manner of primitive creatures crawl across the ooze.

Open Ocean - A void. Endless blue stretches in every direction.The sea bed is a staggering eight kilometres deeper down and the nearest island is 500 kilometres away.There is nothing save the burning sun above and the blackened abyss below. How, then, does life exist? Finding the only shelter under floating matter, half-moon fish pick off parasites from the bizarre three-metre-long sun-fish; loggerhead turtles pause to nibble particles on a log; huge schools of sardine, yellow-tails and trigger-fish bring the number sheltering under the flotsam to their thousands.

This definitive natural history of the world's oceans covers everything from popular shores and teeming shallows to the mysterious open depths. Two-thirds of the planet is covered by the oceans and yet they remain largely unexplored and certainly under-filmed. This series changes all that and subsequently changes our views of the deep. Advances in underwater photography have opened the doors to unknown territories never before explored.