New PBS Special to Explore David Attenborough’s LIFE ON EARTH Series
Life On Earth: Attenborough’s Greatest Adventure will premiere on Wednesday, May 6, 2026, 8:00-9:00 p.m. ET on PBS.
In celebration of Sir David Attenborough’s 100th birthday, PBS will debut Life On Earth: Attenborough’s Greatest Adventure, a new special spotlighting Attenborough's documentary series Life on Earth. It will premiere on Wednesday, May 6, 2026, 8:00 -9:00 p.m. ET on PBS.
In 1976, Attenborough embarked on an ambitious three-year global odyssey to film Life on Earth, traveling to 40 countries to document over 600 species. Along the way, he faced extraordinary challenges, including a coup in the Comoros, gunshots in Rwanda, and threats from Saddam Hussein’s army in Iraq. Written and presented by Attenborough, Life on Earth set out to “tell the greatest story in all the world”: how life on our planet evolved.
Life On Earth: Attenborough’s Greatest Adventure offers rare, behind-the-scenes insight into the making of the series. Featuring exclusive interviews with Attenborough and his original crew, the special captures the triumphs and setbacks of filming the series during a pivotal era in television history, when jet travel and color filming were relatively new.
Life on Earth was the first series to combine cutting-edge camera technology and techniques. Time-lapse, microphotography, and filming speeds of up to 10,000 frames per second were used to capture animal movement in ways never before seen. New Kodak film stock allowed the team to produce some of the sharpest and most colorful wildlife footage at the time, while the new Canon 300 lens enabled the camera crew to film at dawn and dusk and document new animal behavior previously thought impossible to record.
Life on Earth became the first worldwide natural history blockbuster. Upon its broadcast on PBS in 1982, Life on Earth quickly became a global phenomenon, commanding the attention of over 500 million people in more than 100 territories.
The documentary details how the team captured some of the series’ most astounding moments, a lioness ferociously taking down a wildebeest, the rare moment a male Darwin’s frog “gives birth” by mouth, and Attenborough’s encounter with mountain gorillas in Rwanda.
Life On Earth: Attenborough’s Greatest Adventure, a 1x60’ for BBC One and iPlayer, is made by BBC Studios Natural History Unit and co-produced by PBS. It was commissioned by Jack Bootle, Head of Commissioning, Specialist Factual and the Commissioning Editor was Sreya Biswas, former Head of Commissioning, Natural History. The Executive Producer is Mike Davis. Production Executive is Sue Aartse-Tuyn and Producer Director is Victoria Bobin. Diana El-Osta is the Executive in Charge for PBS. BBC Studios is handling global sales.
Videos