'Frozen Planet' to debut on Discovery on March 18

[December 07, 2011]  NEW YORK (AP) -- Discovery Channel's documentary series "Frozen Planet" will premiere March 18, and will encompass seven episodes including a program on climate change hosted by David Attenborough.

On that seventh episode, the famed British naturalist will investigate what rising temperatures will mean for the planet and life on it.

The network made the announcement Tuesday.

"Frozen Planet" is described as "the ultimate portrait of our Earth's polar regions." A co-production of Discovery Channel and BBC, it was four years in the making and comes from the team behind "Planet Earth," the acclaimed series that aired on Discovery in 2007.

The "Frozen Planet" team filmed in every nation inside the Arctic and Antarctic Circles during 2,356 days in the field, 1 1/2 years at sea, more than six months on the sea ice and 134 hours beneath that ice, according to Discovery.

Among the sights: the birth of an iceberg bigger than the largest building on Earth, a caterpillar with antifreeze in its veins and tiny baby polar bears, which at birth are 25 percent smaller than human babies.

"Frozen Planet" will be narrated by Alec Baldwin.

Discovery and TLC networks head Eileen O'Neill calls the series remarkable "because it's so surprising. You see sequences that have never been captured on film before -- a world you would expect to see in a `Narnia' film, not on this planet."

She adds, "You see an environment that's changing, if not disappearing, in our generation."

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Online:

http://www.discovery.com/

[Associated Press]

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