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Documentary series · BBC

Life

British nature documentary series

Verification status: Imported automatically from public Wikidata and Wikipedia records; not yet reviewed by an editor. Fields we could not find are marked “Not verified”.

Research date: 2026-11-08

Synopsis

Life is a British nature documentary series created and produced as a co-production between the BBC Natural History Unit, Discovery Channel and Skai tv in association with The Open University. It was first broadcast as part of the BBC's Darwin Season on BBC One and BBC HD from October to December 2009 and was written and narrated by David Attenborough. The series takes a global view of the specialised strategies and extreme behaviour that living things have developed in order to survive; what Charles Darwin termed "the struggle for existence". Four years in the making, the series was shot entirely in high definition.

Life premiered on 12 October 2009 in the United Kingdom consisting of ten 50-minute episodes. The opening programme gives a general introduction to the series, a second look at plants, and the remainder are dedicated to some of the major animal groups. They aim to show common features that have contributed to the success of each group, and to document intimate and dramatic moments in the lives of selected species chosen for their charisma or their extraordinary behaviour. A ten-minute making-of feature Life on Location aired at the end of each episode, taking the total running time to 60 minutes.

Text from Wikipedia, available under CC BY-SA 4.0.

Key facts

Official title
Life
Alternative titles
Not verified
Original release
2009-10-12 – 2009-12-14
Country of production
United Kingdom
Language
English
Genres
nature documentary
Seasons
1
Episodes
10
Directors
Not verified
Producers
Olle Hellbom
Production company
Not verified
Presenters
David Attenborough
Official website
https://www.bbc.co.uk/programmes/b00lbpcy
Official trailer
Not verified

Streaming

Listed service
BBC
Original or licensed
Original — public records list BBC as the original network or distributor (BBC One, Netflix).
Available now in UK
Not yet checked
Available now in Ireland
Not yet checked
Available now in US
Not yet checked
Past availability
Not verified

Episodes, events and timeline

Episode titles, summaries, running times, key events and a timeline have not been researched for this series yet. We'll add them only once they can be checked against reliable sources.

Sources