BBC America has announced that multiple award-winning actress Helena Bonham Carter will narrate Eden: Untamed Planet, its new natural history series.
From the folks who brought us Blue Planet II comes Eden: Untamed Planet, the new BBC America natural history series that will be narrated by BAFTA winner and two-time Oscar® and four-time Emmy® nominee Helena Bonham Carter (The King’s Speech, The Crown, Burton and Taylor).
Eden: Untamed Planet, which will air as part of BBC America’s “Wonderstruck” programming slate on Saturdays, invites viewers to travel to the far corners of the planet and discover the secrets of Earth’s few remaining untouched lands, all flourishing with rich biodiversity. Isolated from the rest of the world, life here exists as nature truly intended.
While the remoteness of these Edens has protected them from the most damaging effects of human interference, the series will also reflect on the survival of these rare, precious, and unique environments amid the perils of the modern world.
A production of BBC Studios Natural History Unit (Planet Earth, Blue Planet, Frozen Planet) for BBC America, Eden: Untamed Planet premieres Saturday, July 24, at 8 PM ET, and will be simulcast on BBC America and AMC. New episodes will debut weekly on both channels, and all six episodes, plus a making-of episode, will also be available for streaming on AMC+ the same day they air.
Episode descriptions are below.
Episode One — “Borneo: Sacred Forest” (July 24, 8 PM ET)
Borneo is the richest rain forest island of all — home to 60,000 species of plants and animals, 6,000 of which are unique, with more being discovered almost daily. But this paradise is an illusion: The lush forest is effectively growing on a desert, the soil shallow and nutrient poor, leeched by eons of incessant rain. This episode reveals how the intense competition for nutrients on Borneo has led to it becoming one of the most biodiverse places on the planet.
Episode Two — “Namib: Skeleton Coast and Beyond” (July 31, 8 PM ET)
The Namib Desert is one of the oldest deserts of all, giving rise to more indigenous species than any other. It seems like it should be impossible, with the desert’s 50-degree Celsius temperatures and annual rainfall that is measured in millimeters, but this place has hidden water sources. Discover what they are, including the mysterious sea fog that sweeps across the Namib Desert’s Skeleton Coast.
Episode Three — “Luangwa: The Emerald Valley” (August 7, 8 PM ET)
At the very end of East Africa’s Great Rift Valley is a “land that time forgot”: the rolling grasslands of the Luangwa Valley. Here the real Africa lives on in abundance, a place where the balance of power shifts constantly, and where everything, including the herbivores and carnivores, have adapted to take advantage of the ebb and flow of the Luangwa River’s cycles of flooding and dry seasons. Travel through the seasons in this episode to learn the secret to this Eden’s great riches: the annual flood of the mighty Luangwa River.
Episode Four — “Galapagos: Enchanted Isles” (August 14, 8 PM ET)
In the far-flung tropical Pacific, roughly 1,000 km from anywhere, lie the Galapagos Islands — home to almost 2,000 species found nowhere else, including reptiles and mammals, 97% of which are unique to Galapagos. On a journey from the lava ramparts of its coast, to its fiery heart, discover how this place became one of the most important areas of biodiversity in the world.
Episode Five — “Patagonia: The Ends of the Earth” (August 21, 8 PM ET)
At the far tip of South America lies a magical realm that seems frozen in time. Known as “the end of the world,” this is Patagonia — a remote region still largely untouched by humans, whose unpredictable polar winds, poisonous lagoons, driest of dry deserts, and vast ice fields make it a hostile place to call home. Yet its inhabitants thrive. In voyaging from the high Andes to the coastal fjords, this episode shows that, to survive in Patagonia, you have to be as extreme as the place itself: either specialize in one habitat or be tough enough to live in all.
Episode Six — “Alaska: Last American Frontier” (August 28, 8 PM ET)
In Southeast Alaska, there’s an ice-bound Eden. Home to possibly the richest temperate rain forest of all, this region remains a stronghold for some of North America’s most secretive and charismatic animals, and has the densest concentration of grizzly bears in the world. In a story that follows the seasons, learn how the salmon run, nature’s greatest migration, is the secret to this Eden’s great abundance.
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