BBC Studios evolves Walking with Dinosaurs into a new series on BBC Earth: 'Truly the most accurate you'll have seen dinosaurs on TV so far'

by Thinus Ferreira

Celebrating 25 years since the jaw-dropping original Walking with Dinosaurs, the BBC is back with a new, updated Walking with Dinosaurs on BBC Earth (DStv 184), which takes viewers back into prehistoric times with six new-old dinos and their stories of parenting, migrating, hunting and trying to survive. 

Bertie Carvel is the narrator of the new 6-episode Walking with Dinosaurs that is both a reimagining and an updated new version of the series - advancing what scientists know about that time and the creatures from so long ago, but also showing the updated technology being employed by modern-day archaeologists.

I recently spoke with Jay Balamurugan, series assistant producer and paleoartist for Walking with Dinosaurs.

Did you use AI or just the knowledge that palaeontologists have gathered to make estimated guesses?

We work very closely with them to know what sort of material we have in the ground.

So things like bones, and sometimes if dinosaurs are really well-preserved, we have things like muscle, skin - that sort of thing. If we have that, since some dinosaurs are preserved so well, we can even tell their colours because their pigment have been cell-fossilised. That is the best. 

If we have that, that is gold. But if we don't, because a lot of dinosaurs are not super well-preserved, we can also look at modern relatives.

So birds today, modern dinosaurs today, were descended from the two-legged dinosaurs like Velociraptor and that sort of thing. 

And we can look at what birds have today that they have in common with their distant ancestors to get a type of an idea. 

It's never going to be perfect, but we do our best to work as closely with the scientists to get a really good, reasonable representation of what these animals look like. 

'They really lived rich and vibrant lives -

each one with triumphs and defeats'

How long did it take to film and make this series?

It was actually quite a long process. I think about three years total in production. It took us anywhere from like six months to over a year to build even just the one dinosaur in VFX. 

So we do a lot of things concurrently. We built multiple animals at once. The visual effects team would be building up these VFX models while we were out in the locations filming, so that everything could come together at the end.

It was really quite a long period of time and quite a challenge because, of course, we're not just doing the dinosaurs in the prehistoric world. 

We're also filming palaeontologists on location. So it's almost like running two productions side by side. It's about three years in total.

How difficult was it to get access to all of these archaeological digs and were you guys surprised?

I think at the start we must have spoken to about 200 palaeontologists.

 There are discoveries being made every day. I think there's something like 50 new dinosaur species being named every year. 

There are a lot of parts of the world that are - even if historically they haven't been explored that much - nowadays with new technology, new science, we're able to go into these places and find new animals and new materials. So it was really surprising. 

More institutions want to do work in there and more parts of the world become accessible. 

Obviously, the dinosaurs evolved until they all died off. But you mentioned we still have birds. 

Did it surprise you guys how palaeontology has evolved? It's quite astounding to see them using drones and they do 3D printing and scanning. It's no longer just sort of like on a rock.

That sort of field of study has also changed, it seems, radically. 

Definitely it's something that has really developed. Like you mentioned the 3D printing - we actually 3D print a T-Rex brain in one of the episodes.

Because of that, we can actually determine, okay, it's got a big section dedicated to smell and taste. So we know for a fact it can smell really well. And then we can use that to learn more about its behaviour.

It's all smaller pieces to a very big puzzle. And with more and more technology over time, we're just getting closer and closer to that better picture of what dinosaurs really looked like.

'One of the more terrifying places

to be in prehistory'

In the second episode, it's about the T-Rex of Africa. And there's a sentence in there that was also new to me, where it says the Sahara was actually home to more large predators than anywhere else in history.

So that's a really interesting dilemma that palaeontologists have had. 

When they dig up dinosaurs, there's maybe one or two, which is the ancient Sahara, about 100 million years ago, roughly, we find lots and lots of very big predators, really close together, which is really rare.

But what palaeontologists are slowly realising is that the reason they can all coexist is because they're all probably eating different things.

In that episode, we show Spinosaurus, which is one of the longest predatory dinosaurs, the big sailback. That's an animal that probably eats fish. And then you have this other animal, Carpodontosaurus, which looks a bit like T-Rex. 

And that's something that's probably eating other big dinosaurs. And then we have a few other species that are probably eating all sorts of different things. So they're not directly competing with each other. 

But it does make for probably one of the more terrifying places to be in prehistory.

Besides the special effects that have improved since the first series, what other things may be improved since the first Walking with Dinosaurs to help make this one look better or be more informed?

I think it really is that the show has traditional species-specific consultants and an up-to-date compendium of information on these animals.

This is truly the most accurate you'll have seen dinosaurs on TV so far, because this Walking with Dinosaurs incorporates the most amount of information. 

We used reputable publications and fossil material and it was a lot of work, working with a lot of people. But it comes together to create something that's really quite a drastic difference from the original series back in 1999.

What would you say astounds you or moves you when you look back at the time so long ago?

I find the most incredible thing about these is that they were animals. They were real animals. They lived here. They died here. 

And over such a huge period of time, they really lived rich and vibrant lives - each one with triumphs and defeats. It's just an untold number of stories that are buried in the rock, just waiting to be told.

And I think, to me, that's incredible. That's the greatest joy, is that we get to tell those stories. It's why I'm happy to be able to do this job. 

Walking with Dinosaurs is on BBC Earth (DStv 184) with episodes also available on DStv Catch Up

BBC Studios natural history series ASIA coming to BBC Earth in February

by Thinus Ferreira

BBC Studios will broadcast its new ASIA natural history series from Monday 24 February at 20:00 on BBC Earth (DStv 184), with the 8-episode cinematic series, narrated by Sir David Attenborough, exploring remarkable places and unseen, extraordinary animal behaviour across Asia.

Filmed over the course of nearly four years, this is the first time that Asia - home to the highest mountain range, the deepest ocean, the tallest jungles, and the biggest cave - has been the focus of a BBC Studios wildlife series.

In Nepal, ASIA will follow rhinos playing "kiss chase" in a bizarre courtship ritual. In the foothills of the Himalayas, amidst forests of bamboo, viewers will meet Asia's shyest and possibly cutest mammal: the red panda. 

Five thousand meters up on the Tibetan Plateau, audiences will witness a lone wolf relentlessly hunting a herd of antelope for hours on end. 

In Sri Lanka, the show will join elephants that have learned to become highway thieves - holding up buses to get food from the passengers. And in the rich waters of the Western Pacific, cameras will swim with sea snakes that have learned to team up with fish to hunt. 

ASIA will also explore the conservation challenges facing the continent and shine a light on the potential solutions being championed by the region's conservation heroes. 

From the vast Gobi Desert to the jungles of Borneo, and from the polar wilderness of Siberia to the coral seas of the Indian Ocean, this series will showcase the breathtaking diversity of Asia's wildest places.

ASIA, with 7 episodes and one "making of" episode, is produced by the BBC Studios Natural History Unit, co-produced with ZDF and France Télévisions.

ASIA's executive producer is Roger Webb and the series producer is Matthew Wright.

Asia episode synopsis:

Episode 1: Beneath the Waves

Asia has the longest coastline of any continent, and the most abundant coral reefs on Earth. 

Its seas are connected by some of the world's most powerful currents and are home to over 60% of all marine species. 

This groundbreaking episode features the charismatic creatures of Asia's oceans, never- before-seen spectacles and brand-new animal behaviour. From giants in the deep ocean, to tiny fish that climb trees, squid that glow in the dark, and grey reef sharks that hunt in their hundreds. Asia's waters are as spectacular as they are diverse.

Episode 2: Above the Clouds

Asia is the most mountainous continent on earth. From the forested slopes of the tropics to the hostile heights of the Himalaya, Asia's mountains are home to an astonishing abundance of specialized plants and wildlife. 

In India, elephants live in high-altitude tea plantations; and in Thailand, mountainous caves hide the planet's greatest gathering of swifts. 

In Pakistan, markhor lives life truly on the edge, fighting for mates atop towering cliffs; and in Nepal, the forested foothills of the Himalayas provide hiding places for one of Asia's shyest but most adorable mammals, the red panda.

Episode 3: The Frozen North

In northern Asia, life defies hostile extremes. In Russia's Lake Baikal, a seal pup must take evasive action when its ice den starts to melt. 

Hokkaido's thermal springs are a haven for dancing red-crowned cranes. On the Tibetan Plateau, a lone Himalayan wolf hunts antelope. Fish owls thrive in the forests where Russia and China meet. 

On the Kamchatka Peninsula, brown bears hunt salmon in preparation for winter. Elsewhere in Japan, bats hibernate beneath snow, while red foxes and sea eagles compete for food. In Arctic Russia, polar bears wait on isolated islands for the return of sea ice.

Episode 4: Tangled Worlds

Asia's jungles are exceptionally diverse, but while they provide shelter, food and opportunity, they are also full of dangers and hidden threats. 

In monsoon forests, tigers tenaciously hunt their prey, and prehistoric-looking rhinos play courtship games akin to "kiss chase".

In tropical rainforests, female orangutans must search far and wide to find their perfect mates. And in the little-known forests of Iraqi Kurdistan, a new Persian leopard population is growing amidst minefields.

Episode 5: Crowded Continent

In Asia, the most densely populated continent, animals have developed extraordinary ways to seize the opportunities of the human world. 

From tigers entering a city to hunt easy prey, to elephants stopping traffic to demand food from motorists. A small park in central Bangkok supports three hundred giant lizards while a flying squirrel in Taipei has made a cozy home in a school. 

Yet, the changing human world creates unprecedented challenges: proboscis monkeys are forced to venture uncomfortably closer to humans and swifts in Jerusalem face tough competition for nest sites.

Episode 6: The Arid Heart

In the heart of Asia lie vast arid lands. These deserts and dry grasslands are so hostile, they push life to the limit. 

Here, one of the rarest animals on earth, the Gobi Bear, searches desperately for water, and bizarre looking long-eared jerboas use their striking features to catch insects. Asiatic lions must do whatever it takes to find food and juvenile cormorants resort to cannibalism to survive. 

On the arid grasslands, Pallas cats need ingenious ways to get close to their prey, Mongolian Gazelles must battle harsh winters and human barriers, and takhi horses are terrorized each night by Mongolian wolves. Life in the Arid Heart demands extraordinary resilience - those that live here are Asia's great survivors.

Episode 7: Saving Asia

Remarkable people are dedicating their lives to saving Asia's extraordinary wildlife, using ingenious solutions. 

In Borneo, we follow a sun bear being released back into the wild; and in Java, we see how a breeding program is saving the Javan green magpie. 

In Japan, orphaned shark embryos are being raised in an artificial uterus. And off Bali, fishermen are trialling new technology that could stop rare species being caught in their nets. 

We witness a Nepali police raid disrupting the illegal wildlife trade, and also join a 24-hour wildlife rescue team saving Sunda pangolins in urban Singapore.

Episode 8: The Making Of Asia

This episode goes behind the scenes with the production team of ASIA.

Africa's animal abundance on display in third season of Planet Earth.

by Thinus Ferreira

South Africa's wildlife - specifically seals who band together to outwit a great white shark - once again feature prominently in the third season of Planet Earth that starts on Monday 19 February at 20:00 on BBC Earth (DStv 184) with astonishing BBC cinematography of the natural world.

Sir David Attenborough is once again the narrator of the third season of this landmark BBC series, which was filmed over five years and includes several segments filmed across South Africa for the eight episodes.

"In this new series of Planet Earth, we travel to the most astonishing wild places, see mysterious creatures, witness rare, spectacular wonders, and reveal breath-taking animal dramas," says Sir David Attenborough.

"The natural world continues to surprise us, but since Darwin's time, it has changed beyond recognition, being transformed by a powerful force – us."

"We will see how animals are adapting in extraordinary ways, to survive the new challenges they face. At this crucial time in our history, we must now look at the world through a new lens."

Nearly two decades since the original season of Planet Earth, the natural history documentary series once again goes on a journey from remote jungles to scorching deserts and from the darkest caves to the depths of the ocean.

The new season highlights several places and animals and their unique wildlife adaptations and survival strategies in Africa - from the Kalahari Desert to the wildebeest migration in the Kruger National Park across vast grasslands, the unique flora and fauna found at the Drakensberg Mountains' high altitudes, and the aquatic life of the Okavango Delta. 

Delving into the heart of South Africa's waters, the first episode entitled "Coasts", reveals the struggle for survival on South Africa's Robberg Peninsula, where thousands of Cape fur seals face off against the world's most notorious predator, the great white shark.

Nick Easton, producer and director of this episode, says "The struggle between the Cape fur seals and the great white shark has been a developing story on the South African coast for the last few years".

"The sharks' increased presence on this stretch of coast is still poorly understood, as is their behaviour generally. And, of course, they are notoriously dangerous predators. The crew had to capture this nail-biting scene over four years." 

The show also captured footage of the first lions to return to Namibia's coast in 40 years, a remarkable event filmed at night using cutting-edge thermal imaging technology.

The series also features two orphan lion sisters whose lives have consisted of scavenging for food.

The coast provides a veritable feast for the tiny pride in the form of roosting seabirds, allowing the sisters to specialise in hunting these flocks, perhaps saving them from starvation.

Using a military-grade thermal camera to film the sequence enabled the crew to capture footage of lions hunting cormorants at night, a behaviour these sisters had to teach themselves as they lost their mother when they were young.

Across the episodes, DStv subscribers will see animals survival strategies in the Kalahari desert, the biodiversity found at high altitudes in South Africa in the Drakensberg Mountains, how wildebeest migrate across the grasslands of the Kruger National Park, and the rich and diverse ecosystems of Southern Africa's freshwater habitats like the Okovango Delta's aquatic life.

There is an ostrich family in the Namib desert and the poignant journey as she tries to raise her chicks in one of the world's most extreme environments, as well as desert baboons' relentless search for water in an arid landscape.

The hunting tactics of Southern African leopards are also on display in Planet Earth III, demonstrating unique hunting tactics by leaping from treetops, showcasing their impressive adaptability. 

In the Zakouma National Park the show follows one of the world's most spectacular elephant herd in Chad which has become a beacon of hope for conservation in central Africa.

"The local scenes are a testament to the rich natural heritage of South Africa and the broader African continent," the BBC says. 

 "They serve as a reminder of the importance of conservation efforts to protect these unique environments for future generations. By featuring these local stories, Planet Earth III aims to inspire South African viewers to take a closer interest in the natural world, its conservation challenges, and what can happen if we help protect these precious ecosystems."

BBC Studios Africa unveils its Summer 2022 slate: Come Dine with Me SA, Prince William conservation series and Frozen Planet II in early-2023.

by Thinus Ferreira

BBC Studios Africa unveiled its upcoming Summer 2022 content slate of its BBC TV channels in South Africa to advertisers, with a new season of Come Dine with Me South Africa starting on 12 October on BBC Lifestyle, a conservation series fronted by Prince William starting in November, and the second season of Frozen Planet making its debut on BBC Earth in February 2023.

ALSO READ: IN IMAGES. The BBC Studios Africa Summer 2022 upfront in 37 photos and 9 videos and channel sizzle reels.

Pierre Cloete, commercial director for BBC Studios Africa, noted that BBC Studios Africa's collection of linear TV channels on MultiChoice's DStv pay-TV service has now passed 2 million viewers weekly.

"Currently we're sitting at around 2 million unique viewers per week who watch our channels so that's quite a big feat for us to hit that 2 million mark. Since 2019 we've seen growth year-on-year and this is across our five channels of BBC Brit, BBC Earth, BBC Lifestyle, CBeebies and BBC World News."

BBC BRIT (DStv 120)

The Weakest Link UK (season 1)

A reboot of The Weakest Link starts on BBC Brit on Wednesday 21 September at 20:00 for a 10-episode season with new host Romesh Ranganathan. Nine contestants will work together to answer questions and bank as much money as possible as players are voted out at the end of each round.

Strictly Come Dancing UK (season 20)

The shiny floor dance competition show is back from Saturday 25 September at 19:00 for 25 episodes, with the South African dancers Johannes Radebe and Cameron Lombard once again part of the contestant pairs strutting their stuff on the dance floor.

Dragon's Den (season 19)

A new set of eager entrepreneurs will be showing up in the 19th season from Thursday 6 October at 20:00 for 14 episodes,, hoping to strike a life-changing deal, as they pitch their business ideas to five multimillionaires. The Dragons - Peter Jones, Deborah Meaden, Touker Suleyman and Sara Davies are joined by Steven Bartlett, the youngest ever Dragon, a 29-year-old entrepreneur and podcast host.

Pointless (season 25)

A new 55-episode season of Pointless will debut on BBC Brit in November when the brainy quiz returns for season 22 and contestants trying to score as few points as possible by plumbing the depths of their general knowledge to come up with the answers no one else could think of. Presented by Alexander Armstrong and co-host Richard Osman.

Mrs Browns' Boys Christmas special

Three episodes in December. It's Christmas in Finglas, and Mrs Brown is coping with life after lockdown. As she gets news of a very special competition, Grandad, Winnie and Father Damien come to her for help.

Father Brown (season 10)

A new 10-episode, 10th season of this crime drama series coming in January 2023. Set in the 1950s in the heart of the beautiful English countryside, Father Brown, the Catholic priest who also happens to have a particular talent for solving crimes, is back in this adaptation of GK Chesterton's novels.

QI (season 21)

There will be 14 new episodes in January 2023 of this British quiz show with more celebrity guests and more weird and wonderful general knowledge. Sandi Toksvig returns as host.

BBC LIFESTYLE (DStv 174)

Come Dine with Me South Africa (season 8)

The 8th season of Come Dine with Me SA, produced by Rapid Blue, will have 12 episodes, once again featuring voiceover legend Dave Lamb. Four strangers per episode, from across South Africa, once again each get a chance to entertain each other, and then scoring it with snark from Wednesday 12 October at 20:00.

Great Pottery Throw Down (season 5)

The search for Britain's best home potter continues with a new season of 10 episodes, starting on Monday 17 October at 20:00. Over 35 gruelling days and 18 different challenges, the potters must make earthenware kitchen bowls, ornate but functional chandeliers and super-sized garden sculptures, among many other household objects.

Nadiya's Fast Flavours

A new series with 6 episodes starting in January 2023 in which Nadiya Hussain inspires viewers to bring the fun back into everyday meals with easy and delicious recipes.

Jamie and Jimmy's Food Fight Club (season 9)

In January 2023 celebrity chef Jamie Oliver is back together with Jimmy Doherty for 8 episodes to whip up easy recipes and to have hilarious conversations with celebrity guests. As well as candid chats and cooking at their cafe on the pier in Southend, they travel around defending great British ingredients and putting them to work in good-humoured battles with prized local delicacies around Europe.

Bake-Off  -The Professionals (season 5)

In January 2023 viewers can watch the 5th season with 10 episodes, as 12 teams from across Britain compete to craft exquisite entremets, delicious desserts and spectacular showpieces in a bid to impress world-renowned judges Benoit Blin and Cherish Finden.

BBC EARTH (DStv 184)

Dynasties (season 2)

A second season of Dynasties will start on BBC Earth on Sunday 2 October at 16:15 for 6 episodes. This series immerses viewers in every gentle moment, poignant event and heart-wrenching betrayal as animals strive to create dynasties fit to rule for generations. 

A cheetah must prepare her daughters to survive alone. An inexperienced elephant unites her herd facing their greatest challenge – twins. High in the mountains a puma and her cubs face a battle for survival. Family rivalries cause chaos within a clan of hyenas. New alliances must form to care for the young of a troupe of macaques. Will a gang of meerkats survive the drought and rebuild their shattered dynasty?

The Earthshot Prize: Repairing Our Planet

On Sunday 13 November this new series of 5 episodes starts and is focused around the Earthshot initiative to save the planet. Facing up to the urgent need to fix our climate, restore nature and build a waste-free world can feel overwhelming. This pioneering series, fronted by Prince William and his team of high-profile champions, explores these simple but ambitious Earthshots – five goals crucial to the survival of our precious planet, and to life itself.

Inside the Factory (season 7)

A seventh season of this engineering series will come to BBC Earth in 2023 with 9 new episodes. Gregg Wallace takes his love of food back to the source - the factories that feed us - to find out how some of our favourite foods get made. Stepping into a different factory each episode, he uncovers the amazing processes behind the production of bread, dairy and confectionery.

Ben Fogle: Return to the Wild (season 3)

In January 2023 adventurer Ben Fogle revisits people around the world who turned their backs on the rat race to set up homes in some of Earth's most remote locations in 9 new episodes. Ben returns to Norway to meet the woman living on a remote island. He revisits the owner of a guest house located deep in the Sahara. And he goes to Wales to find out how a family who built their own eco home are coping. Ben discovers what's changed for these compelling characters as he learns about the challenges they’ve faced since he first spent time with them. Is life in the wild still their ultimate dream?

Life Below Zero (season 10)

There are 19 new episodes in the 10th season of this eye-opening series that follows the drama and hardships experienced by four Alaskan households in different corners of this merciless territory, as they battle to make it through a long, dark, freezing winter. Life is all about survival in the face of unrelenting weather, scarce resources and man-eating carnivores.

Frozen Planet (season 2)

There will be 6 episodes in the second season of this groundbreaking natural history series exploring the north and south poles - covering everything from wolves hunting huge bison across vast snowy plains to killer whales using cunning techniques to stalk their prey.

CBEEBIES (DStv 306)

Postman Pat: Special Delivery Service (season 2)

There are 26 new episodes in the second season, starting 3 October at 17:40. Everyone's favourite postie is back with an even more challenging set of deliveries. Whatever the people of Greendale and Pencaster need, Postman Pat comes to the rescue. Racing ducks, cowboys, a big ukelele band, bagpipes, geckos and digeridoos are all part of the fun in this new season.

Noddy: Toyland Detectives (season 2)

Noddy continues his detective adventures in 55 new episodes from Monday 3 October at 18:20 as he and his friends set out to solve mysteries in Toyland. 

Ranger Hamza's Eco Quest (season 1)

Wildlife expert Ranger Hamza takes his young Ramblers on a journey from cities to the countryside to discover conservation in all its forms in this new show, starting Monday 17 October at 10:45 for 20 episodes. Using his extensive knowledge of UK wildlife, conservation expert Ranger Hamza and his team of young Ramblers search for new Eco Heroes to discover the important part they play in conservation and sustainability.

Shaun the Sheep (season 2)

There are 40 episodes, starting in November, of the world's favourite award-winning sheep, Shaun, and his hilarious farmyard antics, together with the Farmer and the long-suffering sheepdog Bitzer.

JoJo & Gran Gran (season 2)

The heartwarming animated series has 10 new episodes, celebrating the special relationship between an inquisitive girl and her vibrant grandmother is back. JoJo adores spending time with her energetic Gran Gran, who is always ready with a "Gran Gran Plan" when JoJo comes to visit. Gran Gran moved to the UK from Saint Lucia when she was a young girl and the culture of Saint Lucia is woven across the show.

Swashbuckle (season 8)

The Swashbucklers are back for 26 new episodes from December in this adventure gameshow as they help Gem win back stolen treasure from naughty pirates. Set in a shipwreck, the swashbucklers are a team of six and seven-year-old pirates who undertake a number of large physical team games to win jewels.

Hey Duggee (season 4)

Ten further episodes from December in which the big lovable dog Duggee and the little Squirrels have fun earning achievement badges. The Squirrels each have their own distinctive personalities, but they all love playing, learning and making friends together.

ALSO READ: IN IMAGES. The BBC Studios Africa Summer 2022 upfront in 37 photos and 9 videos and channel sizzle reels.

The Green Planet coming to BBC Earth about the personal life of plants.

by Thinus Ferreira

Twenty-five years after the BBC last in-depth look at the world of plants, the 5-episode series The Green Planet is coming to BBC Earth (DStv 184) from Sunday 13 February at 16:00 with Sir David Attenborough as the presenter.

In The Green Planet the BBC Studios' Natural History Unit employs eye-popping time-lapse photography to enter the secret, unseen lives of plants across the globe.

"This is a wonderful opportunity to explore a neglected, yet truly remarkable part of the natural world," says Sir David Attenborough. "Once again, the innovative approach of the BBC Natural History Unit and ground-breaking technology will reveal new and surprising wonders to audiences."

He travelled from America and Costa Rica, to Croatia and northern Europe, to deserts and mountains, and from rainfoests to the frozen north to find new stories and a fresh understanding of how plants live their lives. 

He meets the largest living things that have ever existed; trees that care for each other; and plants that breed so fast they could cover the planet in a matter of months and finds time-travellers - seeds that can outlive civilisations, and plants that remain unchanged for decades. 

In-between he also examines humanity's relationship with plants and how all animal life - humans included - is totally dependent on plants.

The BBC says The Green Planet - that also filmed in South Africa and that arrives a quarter of a century after the BBC's The Private  Life of Plants - will be "the first immersive portrayal of an unseen, inter-connected world, full of remarkable new behaviour, emotional stories and surprising heroes in the plant world. This is Planet Earth from the perspective of plants." 

Mike Gunton, executive producer, says The Green Planet "will take viewers into a world beyond their imagination - see things no eye has ever seen. The world of plants is a mind-blowing parallel universe; one that we can now bring to life using a whole range of exciting new camera technology."

Using brand new technological advances and over two decades of new discoveries, The Green Planet on BBC Earth will take viewers on a journey showing that plants "are as aggressive, competitive and dramatic as animals - locked in desperate battles for food, for light, to reproduce and to scatter their young".

Plants are social - they communicate with each other, they care for their young, they help their weak and injured. They can plan, they can count, and they can remember. 

The Green Planet makes use of new developments in robotics that move time-lapse, super-detail thermal cameras to watch plants' lives on their timescale and from their perspective. Deep-focus, macro "frame-stacking" and ultra-high-speed cameras, along with the latest developments in microscopy travel beyond the power of the human eye and make visible the amazing, hidden life of the green planet.

The Green Planet's episodes include a look at "Tropical Worlds", "Water Worlds" and "Seasonal Worlds" in the third episode that includes South Africa's fynbos on Sunday 27 February. 

The fourth episode is "Desert Worlds" on 6 March that includes stone plants and the desert starfish flower in South Africa's Karoo and Zimbabwe's Boabab trees, with "Human Worlds" as the 5th episode on 13 March.

INTERVIEW. The producers of the new nature documentary series The Mating Game on BBC Earth: So much more than just capturing animal sex.

by Thinus Ferreira

Trying to catch over 80 different species on camera in 22 countries, across 6 continents, all trying to have sex, there's much more involved than just animal hanky-panky as the producers behind the new eye-popping, 5-episode nature documentary series The Mating Game on BBC Earth will tell you.

And of course Sir David Attenborough is the narrator, and of course you will see things and learn things that will bedazzled your eyes and bedazzled your mind as the series shares incredible details about the puffing, pluming, prodding and some of the incredible lengths animals go to to find a mate and to have sex.

A crew of 271, who spent 1 194 days on location and filming over 9 000 hours, captured intimate details in habitats from every corner of the globe, showing 83 different mating strategies in the series.

From great expanses of grassland, to tangled jungles, deep ocean and freshwater each episode shows how an environment shapes animals' mating game, ranging from a violent game played by zebra in the Serengeti as a stallion defends his mares in a herd of 30 000, to a clash between bullfrogs in South Africa.

TVwithThinus sat down with The Mating Game series producer Jeff Wilson and episode producer Joe Loncraine of Silverback Films.

It's obviously not mating season all year round everywhere around the world. And then there are times where multiple species are mating at the same time. How on earth do you tell and film various animals and have camera crews everywhere you wanted to try and follow animals?

Joe Loncraine: You pick the stories you are really keen to do and then you look and go, "Oh gosh, which of those are in July?" And we cannot film, even if we had 12 camera crews that could be in every different country, that. 

Just from a production point of view that wouldn't work. Luckily, there are always good stories because of the nature of the world - you've got Northern Hemisphere, you've got Southern Hemisphere. You've got tropical regions. For some species, there is no mating season.

The chimpanzees you could film any time of year. You pick a few that could be done any time and that enables you to fit your jigsaw puzzle around it. But it is a big part of the initial 6 months before you pick up a camera, before you go anywhere, is working out how on earth we're going to divide our teams around the world. 

While you're not filming continuously for 2 years, across the 5 episodes - between February 2019 and May 2021 - we had someone filming somewhere.

You're talking about dividing and picking, so once you've decided what species, I'm wondering - whether it's 8 or a thousand - how are you successful in choosing the specific, individual animal beforehand to follow, which might be the successful one in a mating game that fights off the competitors, woo a mate and get to mate?

Jeff Wilson: It's a very good question because part of the reason that our teams spend up to 8 or 9 weeks in the field is all about film craft - it's all about observation, mapping out which animals are most likely to show us the behaviour we would need, which ones are in the positions that we can film in.

There's an awful lot of failure that happens with wildlife filming. 

The best wildlife filmmakers can overcome that failure and learn lessons from each one of those fails and move on and eventually succeed. It does take about 8 or 9 weeks to understand the behaviour of the animal well enough to be in the right place, at the right time.

Whilst we can design it as much as we want on paper, it's really all down to careful observation, biologists, and scientists and filmmakers all working together and actually just trying to figure out something that is completely serendipitous. 

If you put yourself in the right place, at the right time, and you're patient and you observe, the natural world can always offer up magic - completely unplanned magic. We got things in The Mating Game that we never thought we were going to get.

Joe Loncraine: Like Jeff said, we're always trying to get the success stories because that gives us an extra element of the story that as you yourself pointed out, there is a lot of failures - a lot of males put the effort in and are not successful. 

That's absolutely fine for our storytelling too because that's the reality of it. To show males doing an amazing dance, or risking life and limb in a competition and then not succeeding to mate - that is fine for us to show that as well. That is the reality. 

We have many stories that end in failure despite all these efforts. 

The argus pheasant in Borneo's rainforests displays and calls to the female and she just runs off in the end and he doesn't get lucky, and that's fine because human males experience that in our lives too - ask any teenage boy. Ha ha.

You captured the humpback whale - we've never seen what they really do. How do you even try to conceptualise the process of trying to film that in pre-production and to capture that in such difficult circumstances underwater?

Jeff Wilson: It's a multi-stage process. We spend around a year and a half in pre-planning and research and that in a large part is devoted to speaking to scientists and strategising on how to be in the right place at the right time.

The second part is that we also need to think of how we're going to film it. 

The humpback whales is a classic example. You have up to 20 whales chasing a female at 10, 12 knots through open ocean. How on earth do you film that? 

The guys spent a lot of time developing a stabilised underwater camera that allow them to track with the wales as they were in a boat alongside them and that had never been done before.

The result of that is the amazing material they got from the humpback whales and just seeing these real-time battle of 20-ton animals pushing each other out of the way and fighting for the right to gain access to a female.

There's quite a lot of camera research and development. The cameras we use are mainly designed for drama series and designed for filming people. 

No-one really builds cameras for wildlife people, so we do a lot of our R&D ourselves; we spend a lot of time building camera units that are specialised to what we need, and then once all of that is developed, you need to give yourself time in the field for mistakes to happen and to then learn from those mistakes. 

The humpback whales is a classic example - the underwater camera didn't quite work to begin with, they changed it around, they made some adjustments and what they got, in the end, was magic.

To what degree did you decide to show and include the actual sex act? Because in the mating game that doesn't always necessarily follow immediately after the successful conclusion of a mating ritual. The animals have bonded but haven't made offspring. Is The Mating Game more about the mating rituals, competing and process than the act?

Jeff Wilson: Exactly right, the mating aspect of most animals' behaviour is the least interesting part of the process and often it's the briefest - a couple of seconds. 

The Mating Game is really about that quest to attract, to defend, to compete and to impress partners in the build-up, the courtship part of the behaviour, in the build-up to the act of mating itself. 

If you take that wide gamut of behaviours and you understand there's this huge amount of behaviour going on in the natural world just to win the mating game. 

And to win the mating game you need to keep your partner close to you, you need to attract a partner, you need to keep your competitors away, and therein lies the storytelling. The mating itself is the least important part.

Is there a subtext or a sense built into The Mating Game of how humanity or civilisation has encroached and made it more difficult for certain animals to find a mate, or is the series more about just purely intra-species competition? Or if it isn't in the show, do you have any production stories about how mankind has made it more difficult for animals?

Joe Loncraine: The remit was that we want to show people these amazing courtship strategies that have evolved over millions of years and we wanted people to understand these amazingly bizarre animal behaviours. 

It wasn't for many of the episodes - we wanted to wow people with this wonder of the natural world. That said, where there was something specific happening in that environment relevant to that courtship story, then we would include that.

For example, in the freshwater episode, we feature an animal called a hellbender salamander and they fight over den sites which are these particular rocks in a river. 

Now, they've always fought over them because there are not that many of them. Now the fights are even more intense because what's happened is a lot of soil erosion, so the den sites are filling up with sediment and they can't find places. 

We are now seeing even more intense fights so that's an environmental issue that's been happening because of deforestation and things happening upriver that's clearly affecting the behaviour we're filming, so we mention it - that's why you're seeing these intense fights. We don't shy away from including it.

We filmed fireflies in Malaysia and we were lucky to film in an amazing place where you can see spectacular firefly displays. But also in Malaysia it's very hard to film them because the specific trees are being cut down, or there's light pollution. 

If there are lights the fireflies won't display. If a house has a light on on the porch, even if there's the right tree, they won't display. That wasn't part of our story because we had found the right place to film fireflies to include in The Mating Game and it was amazing, but we experienced places where we filmed some behind-the-scenes stuff where they won't display.

Jeff Wilson: One of the most interesting stories really for us, and this is covered in episode 5, is how undoubtedly humans are affecting the mating strategies and abilities of animals in the natural world, the world over simply by the way that we are causing environmental change. 

The most interesting story for us is that, through science, we've got the ability to enable animals to win their mating game through captive breeding, through storing genetic material - however, with all the science and all the millions of dollars put into captive breeding programmes across the world, the simple fact is that animals left to their own devices are more successful in their mating game than any science could ever create.

That's illustrated best in the giant panda story. The Chinese scientists and authorities have been involved in this long-term study of giant panda behaviour and captive behaviour and pumped millions of dollars into their programmes. 

They've made a huge success of it - it's one of the best success stories of captive breeding in the world.

 However, they also found that giant pandas need trees to successfully breed. And what they found when they released giant pandas back into the wild - giant pandas were far more successful breeding on their own than any captive breeding efforts that the Chinese have put together.

Through that 25 year process, they've learnt that actually protecting natural habitat is far more important than actually focusing on the species itself. 

That for us was one of the most important stories to tell in The Mating Game. Left to their own devices, animals are very, very good at their own mating game. 

Perhaps if we give them the space and the time and the habitat in which to play out their mating game, the world will be a better place. I think that's a lesson for humanity.

The 5-episode series The Mating Game is on Sundays on BBC Earth (DStv 184) at 16:10 and are available on DStv Catch Up.

INTERVIEW. 'One day there will be a last star in the universe': The producers of Universe on BBC Earth talk about their awe-inspiring new 5-episode space exploration series.

by Thinus Ferreira

One day there will be a last star left shining in the universe. And the day will come, aeons from now, when it shines for a last day and die out. The new natural history series, Universe starting tonight on BBC Earth (DStv 184) at 19:00 with presenter Professor Brian Cox takes viewers on a sprawling adventure through space and time.

In the series with incredible special effects - a sequel to the 2019 series The Planets - viewers get a front-row seat to the greatest show in the universe as Brian Cox delves into the birth of a star in a stellar nursery, experience the power of a supermassive black hole as it flings a star across space, and reveal the chaos as two galaxies collide. 

TVwithThinus sat down with the Universe executive producers Gideon Bradshaw and Andrew Cox to talk about their 5-episode space exploration series that is hugely ambitious in scale and where rogue planets, fossilised stars, and black holes more massive than a million suns, are all caught up in a Shakespearean saga that spans the cosmos.

Universe, a BBC Studios Science Unit production, reveals awe-inspiring wonders and recreates dramatic moments in the Universe's history that defined Earth's – and our own.

The series uses CGI, the latest scientific research, and archival footage captured from a fleet of space bourne telescopes, taking viewers on an expansive story of the universe, from its moment of inception 13.8 billion years ago, to what could be its ultimate fate, trillions upon trillions of years in the future.

What is the challenge in creating a series like Universe for really people really interested in cosmology and big ideas, but to still be accessible to a viewer who's not familiar with astronomy and come into a series like this as an introduction?

Gideon Bradshaw: It's definitely our hope that it will be a broader audience than somebody who is fascinated in science or astronomy. 

We work very hard to look for almost "little mini dramas" - little dramatic moments in the history of the universe that we hope will lead to a real spectacle on-screen with visual effects and knit together to tell a linear story that anyone can latch onto.

There are two modes in Universe - the one is where we look at the biography of an individual part of the universe - so an example is the supermassive black hole Sagittarius A-star that we deal with. We give a whole episode to that because it's so fascinating what we know about that black hole now.

We can chart its history from its birth all the way through to its death in the far-distant future. 

The other way we do it is through this feeling of exploration - this wanderlust of going out into the universe exploring what's there. 

In another episode we've got a story about exoplanets - these planets that exist outside of our solar system. In some ways that were one of our hardest episodes because there are so many of these planets now, we couldn't just pick one. We showcase maybe three or four planets that are very different.

Andrew Cox: The reason that this appeals to everyone is that Universe is a story, not a lecture and you are the main character in it. This is not an abstract experience for the audience, this is actually the story of how you as an individual got here across 30.8 billion years.

Often people talk about science being distant or cold but actually this is an incredibly emotional story and that's what we're driving through every one of the episodes.

Part of our challenge is to take people to some of the most complicated concepts in the universe. We enjoy taking the audience to some of the complex and extraordinary knowledge we have but we never want to just take them there in the head, we want to take them there in the heart as well.

Is there in Universe a message about or for humanity?

Gideon Bradshaw: At the heart of it is also the story of Earth. Why is Earth so special in the universe? We are here as living, breathing, conscious, sentient beings, able to try and make sense of this big thing we find ourselves in. 

Andrew Cox: It's two "P's": Preciousness and privilege. We are incredibly precious - not just in the galaxy but perhaps in the universe. We're also incredibly privileged as a generation to be able to know that, and not just to know it but to tell the story of it.

Universe is about science but you're also creating art. It's so epic and beautiful to look at. Has it become easier, with advances in special effects, to create things we haven't yet seen with human eyes? What still remains challenging to create a show like Universe?

Gideon Bradshaw: I'm so proud of what we're able to create on what's definitely not a Hollywood VFX budget. We have two days of studio filming in Universe which you'd never know looking at it.

When you're looking at stars, for instance, some of the textures in those stars are actually filmed in a studio environment where we are actually doing some little water explosions and filming them at high-speed so that we composite them into the stars because we want them to feel as organic as possible.

What did you enjoy personally about the making of Universe and what did you learn yourself?

Andrew Cox: The cosmic web - this idea that there is a scaffold to the universe, that the universe is built on this scaffold and that it's been there since the beginning of time. It's something that's hugely complicated but also really understandable.

The other area in terms of content was just the material that took us to just before the Big Bang - that the human mind allows us to travel that far back in time and beyond to understand where the universe came from. I loved touching that concept in the making of this series. 

Gideon Bradshaw: I enjoy where we use our imagination. In our first episode where we talk about the story of the stars we arrived at this idea that logically, as the stars go out one by one as the universe ages, there must come a time when there's just one star left.

Therefore there will be a last star in the universe. What an amazing thought that is. There must be a last star in the universe. It takes you somewhere just beyond the science. This thing will happen. 

In the last episode we're calling "Before the Dawn" - this hunt for the day before yesterday, we keep rewinding the universe backwards until you get to the origin of the universe. You get to when the first planet arose around these very early stars. 

Therefore there must have been a day when there was the first sunrise. That first dawn must have played out in the early universe. So let's visualise that first dawn. Let's visualise the last star. 

Hopefully for the audience these steps into imagination open their hearts as well as their minds.

Universe is on BBC Earth (DStv 184) on Thursdays at 19:00, starting 18 November.