| Life Story | |
|---|---|
 Series title card from BBC broadcast | |
| Genre | Nature documentary |
| Narrated by | David Attenborough |
| Composer | Murray Gold |
| Country of origin | United Kingdom |
| Original language | English |
| No. of episodes | 6 |
| Production | |
| Executive producer | Mike Gunton |
| Running time | 60 minutes |
| Production company | BBC Natural History Unit |
| Original release | |
| Network | BBC One BBC One HD |
| Release | 23 October (2014-10-23) – 27 November 2014 (2014-11-27) |
Life Story is a British natural-history television series co-produced by theBBC Natural History Unit,Discovery Channel andFrance Télévisions in association withThe Open University.[1] The six-part series, narrated byDavid Attenborough, reveals the challenges faced by individual animals at different stages of their lives.[2]
The series was announced by theBBC on 8 July 2011 with the working titleSurvival,[3] later changed toLife Story. As with other BBC Natural History Unit productions,Life Story was a co-production betweenBBC Television,Discovery Channel,France Télévisions andOpen University, who each contributed to the documentary's funding, and is the first Natural History Unit series to film using ultra high-definition4K cameras.[4] The series was marketed byBBC Worldwide at the BBC Worldwide Showcase event in 2014.[5]
The series has been produced with extensive use of surround sound effects, and with out-of-frame sounds changing with each change of shot; something that is often minimised to avoid distraction but which works well on wildlife material. It is currently broadcast with Dolby 5.1 surround onFreesat.
Life Story's world premiere took place at Bristol's Cinema de Lux on 14 October 2014, to coincide with the BBC's 80th anniversary in the city.[6] The television broadcast began on 23 October 2014 onBBC One andBBC One HD. The UK broadcast consisted of six episodes, each of which included a 10-minutemaking-of documentary calledLife Story Diaries.
The series was mainly broadcast internationally onBBC Earth channel, with a few exceptions for some countries.
In Canada,Canadian Broadcasting Corporation aired the series on CBC-TV from 11 January 2015.[7]
On 6 June 2015, the series began its run on American television on the Discovery network, premiering on the Discovery Channel, and retained David Attenborough's narration from the original British television broadcasts.[8]
| No. | Title | Original release date | UK viewers (millions) [9] | |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| 1 | "First Steps" | 23 October 2014 (2014-10-23) | 5.12 million viewers | |
David Attenborough introduces the series from South Africa, where he watchesmeerkat pups emerging from their burrows. The programme documents some of the threats faced by animals at the beginning of their lives. In Greenland, youngbarnacle geese face a perilous start in life. The parents coax their five goslings to jump from the nest, perched on the edge of a 400-foot cliff face. Their survival depends on luck and a good jumping technique. Babyhumpback whales must grow quickly to build strength for a long migration, but when a group of over-eager males chase a female, her calf is pushed to exhaustion. Later, the mother seeks the help of a lone male whale to protect her weakened calf fromsharks, behaviour never filmed before. In New Zealand, another new discovery is revealed. Youngfur seals, instead of heading to the ocean where predatorykiller whales await, swim up a rainforest stream to a secluded pool where they play, train and gain strength together. The challenges facing younglions,jerboas,orchid mantids andblack-footed albatross are also shown.Life Story Diaries features the Greenland shoot and the difficult scenes witnessed by the film crew. | ||||
| 2 | "Growing Up" | 30 October 2014 (2014-10-30) | 4.65 million viewers | |
This episode focuses on the challenges faced by young animals as they gain independence. A juvenileArctic fox is shown attempting to catchlemmings by snow diving, a skill it must master if it is to make it through the winter. In India, three adolescenttiger cubs rely on the provision of their mother and the protection of their father, but when independence is forced upon the youngsters early, there are dramatic consequences for one overconfident cub. Youngsatin bowerbirds in Australia andstriated caracaras on the Falkland Islands must overcome the challenges presented by adults of their own kind, while a loneveined octopus must use its ingenuity to protect itself from a pursuingflounder. As aracket-tailed hummingbird enters adulthood, it must quickly adapt to an exhaustive daily schedule in order to survive. The many challenges faced by hummingbirds in the cloud forests of Peru are filmed in intricate detail. Two newly independentcheetah sisters struggle to make their first big game kill, but when an opportunity arises they work together in order to successfully capture a maleimpala.Life Story Diaries follows the team's two-and-a-half-year quest to capture footage of young Arctic foxes snow diving for lemmings. | ||||
| 3 | "Home" | 6 November 2014 (2014-11-6) | 4.41 million viewers | |
This programme shows how animals go about establishing, using and defending a home. On the plains of Zambia, a pack ofAfrican hunting dogs use their territory to raise young, face off competitors and huntwildebeest. For ahermit crab, home is the shell on its back. When an empty seashell washes ashore on a tropical beach, it sets off a chain of house swaps amongst the local crab population. In the Rocky Mountains,mountain goats descend from the high peaks in spring, braving river crossings andgrizzly bears on an annual pilgrimage to a place where they can take in vital minerals. Meanwhile,pikas engage in a race against time – and a few underhand tactics – to build a stockpile of food during the short summer season. Australianweaver ants use their silk-spinning larvae as 'glue guns' to bind together their leaf nests, which they defend from a marauding neighbouring colony. In Senegal, achimpanzee troop relies on detailed knowledge of their territory to endure a drought. The elders lead the troop to a dry river bed where water still flows beneath the surface.Life Story Diaries reveals how the Zambia crew obtained rare footage of a complete wild dog hunt. | ||||
| 4 | "Power" | 13 November 2014 (2014-11-13) | N/A | |
The fourth stage of life's journey is for animals to gain power and the privileges it brings: enhanced social status and a better chance of siring offspring. The programme follows the struggles of an orphanedchimpanzee. At first ostracised by his elders, he later gains a friend and learns a valuable spear-hunting technique, gaining him access to females in the troop. Youngarcherfish learn their hunting skills by imitating their larger, more successful peers, but may still lose their prey to bullying adults. The same fate befalls a young Alaskanbald eagle, but when the thieving adult bird is forced to defend its bounty from rival eagles, she reclaims her meal.Meerkats learn the value of teamwork when facing down acobra, but forhoney ants, teamwork turns to treason as worker ants kill all but one of the queens that had worked together to dig the burrow for their colony. Some animals employ aggression as the best strategy to gain power, illustrated by the brutal boxing matches of malekangaroos and the jousting ofsharp-tailed grouse.Life Story Diaries features the Senegal chimpanzee shoot, where the crew spent 700 hours with the troop to film the spear-hunting behaviour. | ||||
| 5 | "Courtship" | 20 November 2014 (2014-11-20) | N/A | |
The competition to breed has created both the most extraordinary beauty and the most violent battles seen in nature. Waved albatross pair for life and spend hours canoodling with each other. But for a male peacockjumping spider one wrong move in his dazzling courtship routine may well prove fatal. A maleflame bowerbird creates a stick sculpture decorated with shells and berries to impress a mate. Even that isn't enough. He then uses it as a backdrop to show off his vivid colours in a dazzling dance. But things don't go to plan as his bower is destroyed by mischievous youngsters and a rival male. But the most extraordinary display of all is created by a tiny, drab malepuffer fish. He builds a spectacular submarine 'crop circle' in the sand. It's the most perfect and complex structure created by any animal. The crop circles were only discovered in southern Japan in 1995 and the fish architect was only identified in 2011. | ||||
| 6 | "Parenthood" | 27 November 2014 (2014-11-27) | N/A | |
In the final episode ofLife Story, animals attempt to rear theiroffspring. This takes extraordinary commitment, and a parent may even need to risk its own life for its offspring. A femaleturtle, returning to the island where she was born 30 years ago, hauls herself up the beach to lay her eggs in a safe place above the tide line. But her commitment may prove her undoing. The low tide traps her on the island behind a wall ofcoral. If she cannot climb over it the heat of the sun will kill her. A motherbonobochimpanzee lavishes care on her son for five years, deep in theCongo forest. Their bond will endure for the rest of her life. She will teach him how to survive in the jungle. One of her most important lessons is showing him a hidden forest pool where they harvest lilies rich in minerals essential for their good health. A motherzebra must decide where to lead her young foal across theMara River so that they can reach new grazing grounds. Should she cross where they will face predators such ascrocodiles? Or should she lead her foal through treacherous rapids? Her foal's life may rest on the decision she makes. In a touching sceneelephants delicately stroke the bones of an ancestor. We cannot know what they are thinking, but perhaps like humans they have a sense of a shared history? It is a communal experience that appears to draw the family members closer together. | ||||
| - | "The Full Circle" | 1 January 2015 (2015-1-1) | N/A | |
In this highlights programme compiled from the recentLife Story series, David Attenborough brings us the universal story that unites each of us with every animal on the planet, the story of the greatest of all adventures - the journey through life. For each stage of life we see the most spectacular, beautiful or dramatic stories from theLife Story series. The journey begins with one of the most talked-about sequences - flightlessbarnacle goose chicks making an extraordinary leap down a cliff face from the ledge where they hatched. Newly independentArctic foxes travel great distances across the frozen, northern landscape, learning how to catch prey. They leap high into the air and plunge nose-first into the snow to catch thelemmings living underneath. In pursuit of a home, tropicalhermit crabs do something seen nowhere else in nature. Inmeerkat society, a youngster must quickly learn how to defend home and family from snakes. In a spectacular showdown between the meerkat clan and a venomouscobra, the youngsters learn a vital life lesson. In a sequence that has since gone viral across the globe, a tiny, drab malepuffer fish creates the most complex and beautiful structure made by any animal on earth. He builds a spectacular submarine 'crop circle' in the sand to attract a female's attention. Parenthood for a motherzebra involves a life-and-death choice on where to cross the river during migration. In a touching final scene,elephants delicately stroke the bones of an ancestor. | ||||
The series was released in the UK as Region 2, two-discDVD (BBCDVD3981)[10] andBlu-ray (BBCBD0281) box sets[11] byBBC Worldwide on 1 December 2014.
In United States, both DVD and Blu-ray were released on 29 March 2016 byWarner Home Video.[12][13] As for Canada, both DVD and Blu-ray Disc were released under Bilingual Edition on 10 November 2015.[14][15]
In Australia and New Zealand, DVD and Blu-ray were released by ABC DVD/Village Roadshow on 8 October 2015.[16][17]
In the United Kingdom, an accompanying hardcover format was written by Mike Gunton and Rupert Barrington. It was released on 9 October 2014 and published by BBC Books (ISBN 9781849906647).[18]
