The original Planet Earth was probably the greatest TV experience of college for me. Planet Earth showed the world a side of nature that most people never knew existed. The footage captured whilst filming those episodes blew minds all across the world, and I think we all expected a sequel at some point or another.
The issue with pushing out Planet Earth 2 (a sequel) is two-fold: 1) the camera technology has improved immensely since the first series hit our TV sets back in 2006 and 2) capturing stunning footage of nature takes years and years of documentarians living in the wild. So many of the shots captured are seasonal, and many might have a window of just a few weeks in which they can be filmed. On top of that, these documentarians are also out there in the wild just hoping/waiting for the unexpected, the shot of a lifetime. Capturing shots like that can take years upon years, so it makes sense that Planet Earth ** would be released a decade after the first.
Planet Earth II is said to be ‘coming soon’, and it’s unclear when exactly this show will be released on the BBC. But given that we’ve made it to the trailer stage I think it’s safe to assume we’ll see this rolled out within the next year.