David Attenborough narrates the new Blue Planet series as it returns to marine life with remote underwater cameras and footage taken from a turtle’s back. Its opening programme moves between animal encounters and environmental damage. The production follows the original series and Blue Planet II, with a making-of segment explaining how difficult underwater sequences were filmed.
Blue Planet III, the British Broadcasting Corporation’s new marine documentary series, has begun on BBC One with David Attenborough narrating. It follows Blue Planet from 2001 and Blue Planet II from 2017. The opening episode visits Shark Bay in Western Australia, where dolphins carry sea sponges. A featurette after the episode describes the remote cameras and patient approach used to film the behaviour.[1], [2]
A Brazilian sequence follows a turtle pursued by a shark. Aerial images accompany footage from a camera attached to the turtle’s back as it heads for shallow water and makes a sharp turn. Elsewhere, harlequin shrimp in Indonesia grapple with a starfish, with lighter music and a playful narration. Guardian critic Jack Seale praises the programme’s movement between suspense, comedy and environmental destruction.[1]
The series also shows a reef in shots filmed months apart, placing colourful coral beside the scene after a heatwave. Another passage, described by Independent critic Annabel Nugent, follows a turtle hatchling on a Mexican beach obstructed by plastic waste and thick seaweed. A conservationist lifts it into the water. Nugent finds the series moving and praises Attenborough’s continuing curiosity; those assessments describe her response to the documentary.[1], [2]
