''Human Planet'' is an 8-part British television documentary series. It was produced as a co-production between the BBC Natural History Unit,

BBC Worldwide BBC Worldwide Ltd. was the wholly owned commercial subsidiary of the BBC, formed out of a restructuring of its predecessor BBC Enterprises in January 1995. The company monetised BBC brands, selling BBC and other British programming for broadcas ...

BBC Cymru Wales BBC Cymru Wales is a division of the BBC and the main public broadcasting, public broadcaster in Wales. It is one of the four BBC national regions, alongside the BBC English Regions, BBC Northern Ireland and BBC Scotland. Established in 1964, ...

Discovery Channel Discovery Channel, known as The Discovery Channel from 1985 to 1995, and often referred to as simply Discovery, is an American cable channel that is best known for its ongoing reality television shows and promotion of pseudoscience. It init ...

and

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. The documentary describes the human species and its relationship with the natural world by showing the remarkable ways humans have adapted to life in every environment on Earth. The show drew attention for alleged fakery and the BBC eventually acknowledged that a number of scenes were inaccurately depicted or misleading and withdrew the series from distribution. ''Human Planet'' was originally screened in the UK on

BBC One BBC One is a British free-to-air public broadcast television channel owned and operated by the BBC. It is the corporation's oldest and flagship channel, and is known for broadcasting mainstream programming, which includes BBC News television b ...

each Thursday at 8pm over eight weeks, starting from 13 January 2011. Domestic repeats have been seen on Eden, with all 8 episodes aired over one week in April 2012. BBC Worldwide has since announced they have sold the broadcast rights to 22 international markets.

Production

Announced in 2007, the production teams based at the BBC Natural History Unit in Bristol and

BBC Wales BBC Cymru Wales is a division of the BBC and the main public broadcasting, public broadcaster in Wales. It is one of the four BBC national regions, alongside the BBC English Regions, BBC Northern Ireland and BBC Scotland. Established in 1964, ...

spent three years shooting over 70 stories in some of the most remote locations on Earth spanning about 40 countries. Each episode of the series focuses on a different human-inhabited environment, including deserts, jungles, the

Arctic The Arctic (; . ) is the polar regions of Earth, polar region of Earth that surrounds the North Pole, lying within the Arctic Circle. The Arctic region, from the IERS Reference Meridian travelling east, consists of parts of northern Norway ( ...

, grasslands, rivers, mountains, oceans, and the urban landscape. For the first time on a BBC landmark series, the production had a dedicated stills photographer, Timothy Allen, who documented the project photographically for the books and multimedia that accompany the series.

Broadcast

Episodes

Reception

''Human Planet'' was nominated for 7

BAFTA The British Academy of Film and Television Arts (BAFTA, ) is an independent trade association and charity that supports, develops, and promotes the arts of film, television and video games in the United Kingdom. In addition to its annual awa ...

Television Craft awards, the most for any programme in 2011, and it won 2 of them, both for the Arctic episode, where Jason Savage won the factual editing prize, and Will Edwards, Doug Allan and Matt Norman won the photography (cinematography) prize.

Controversy and inaccuracies

The BBC has issued multiple statements about inaccuracies within the series. A first statement admitted that "the portrayal of the Korowai">Korowai_people.html" ;"title="nowiki/>Korowai people">Korowaitribe moving into the treehouse as a real home is not accurate." In fact, the tribe built the treehouse on commission for the programme. A second statement stated that a scene depicting "a Lamaleran whale hunter named Benjamin Blikololong shown supposedly harpooning a whale" is also inaccurate. The BBC also later disclosed that a scene from the "Deserts" episode, which supposedly showed a wild wolf being shot at by Mongolian herders, actually showed a semi-domesticated wolf running to its handler, who was kept out of frame. The wolf was not shot at. Another scene depicting Venezuelan children hunting tarantulas, while implied to be taking place in the jungle, actually was shot in a television studio. As a result, the BBC withdrew ''Human Planet'' from distribution pending a full editorial review.

Merchandise

The Region 2 DVD and Blu-ray three-disc set was released on 21 February 2011. The Region 1 DVD and Blu-ray three-disc set was released on 26 April 2011. The Region 4 DVD and Blu-ray three-disc set was released on 5 May 2011. The accompanying hardcover book was released on 20 January 2011:

References

External links

* *
Human Planet
' at BBC Earth *
Human Planet Audio Slideshow
– BBC interview with Human Planet photographer Timothy Allen
Human Planet web exclusives
– Behind the scenes and extra footage
''Human Planet'' blog

Timothy Allen's ''Human Planet'' photography blog

Human Planet on Eden
{{GMA Network Shows (current and upcoming) BBC high definition shows Documentary films about nature 2011 British television series debuts 2011 British television series endings BBC television documentaries Discovery Channel original programming Television series by BBC Studios Documentary television shows about evolution