Viewers across the U.S. were glued to their televisions last night as “Frozen Planet” premiered.
Earlier this month, we reported about a viral video showing penguins running about a plane on their way to the series premiere in New York.
Check out the video.
This weekend, the penguins arrived not only in New York but also onscreen along with the polar bears and woolly bear caterpillars, who viewers learned spend 14 years eating and freezing over winter before becoming Isabella Tiger Moths.
Sunday night, Alex Baldwin brought the first installment of “Frozen Planet,” a documentary series spawned from Discovery Channel’s famous 2007 “Planet Earth” series that takes viewers through life at the poles.
The series comes as a co-production of the Discovery Channel and BBC and was made over four years.
“From the makers of Planet Earth and Life, Frozen Planet is the ultimate portrait of our earth’s polar regions, where the scale and beauty of the scenery and sheer power of the natural elements are unlike anywhere else on the planet,” reads the Discovery website.
The premiere episode was jam-packed with everything from surprising moments to exciting ones as well as tear-jerking moments too.
In one scene, viewers learn how orca killer whales hunt: the whales group up and in unison create waves that knock their prey, a seal, off an ice block and into the water. In another scene, one of the most emotional scenes from the episodes, viewers watch as a father polar bear abandons his mate, who gives birth to three cubs, one of which dies of starvation.
The episode is the first of seven that will include even more amazing footage.
One of the episodes documents the Icy Finger of Death, a brinicicle that can be found under the Antarctic ice shelf. The videographers captured the brinicle as it reaches toward the seabed from the ice above and kills everything and anything in its path including starfish innocently moving about below.
“This had never been filmed before Frozen Planet,” reads the description of a video released earlier this month.
The seventh and final episode follows British naturalist David Attenborough investigating the rising temperature and what it will mean for the planet and life on it, reported the Associated Press.
Check out a clip of orca whales hunting on the premiere episode of “Frozen Planet.”
