Our world has led a long, sometimes tumultuous and always complicated life. Telling that story is no small feat, but Earth, a five-part BBC documentary narrated by naturalist Chris Packham, sets out to do so by focusing on one of the most volatile moments in this 4.5-billion-year saga.
The first episode, Inferno 鈥� a thrilling look at the biggest mass extinction to date 鈥� establishes the series as a fascinating trip back in time, with science firmly in the driving seat.
It focuses on the Great Dying, more formally known as the end-Permian extinction event, which began 252 million years ago and wiped out up to 90 per cent of all life.
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The question of what caused such widespread destruction has long fascinated researchers, and Inferno investigates it in the style of a true crime documentary.
Suspects are rounded up and thoroughly interrogated. Was it a volcanic eruption that swept across northern Pangea, the only continent on Earth at the time, for 2 million years? Carbon dioxide spurring the growth of toxic algal blooms? The loss of the ozone layer exposing our world to lots of damaging ultraviolet light?
To eliminate lines of inquiry, Packham scours the globe for clues. This evidence-based approach is the most refreshing thing about Earth: rather than just showing you what we think happened with convincing CGI, it explains how we built this picture and includes recent scientific discoveries.
In one scene, Packham compares an image of pollen from a present-day plant with one of fossilised pollen from the Great Dying. The latter鈥檚 malformed shape suggests the planet was awash with UV radiation at that time, which may have been a key factor in the near-total demise of life. And 鈥渕ay鈥� is the operative word here 鈥� the series isn鈥檛 afraid to shy away from the inevitable uncertainty of looking so far into the past.
Throughout this first episode, Earth redresses a few misconceptions about our extraordinary planet. For instance, we are reminded that our oldest mountains and valleys are actually ephemera on grand geological timescales. They haven鈥檛 always existed and won鈥檛 always endure, being subject to the same terrifying forces that created the Great Dying.
What鈥檚 more, while the diversity of life that now surrounds us is breathtaking, this is only possible because of the deaths of what came before. Extinction seems to be an inevitable part of life and probably will be until our world is swallowed up by the sun in around 6 billion years.
Rather than slip into solipsism regarding the future of our planet, there is a quiet but consistent thread of optimism throughout Inferno. While Packham has stressed elsewhere that climate change isn鈥檛 the focus of Earth, there are clear lessons from the Great Dying.
What鈥檚 more, marks left on the planet today, such as the unusual shape that Italy鈥檚 Dolomite mountains formed into as Earth bounced back from the extinction event, also provide hope that our world can rebound from catastrophe聽鈥� even if humanity can鈥檛.
Future episodes explore everything from the idea of Snowball Earth, a hypothesised period in which the planet became an ice world, to how plants came to dominate the land. With Packham as a knowledgeable and entertaining guide, the rest of the series seems set to be as fascinating as the first episode鈥檚 thorough analysis of Earth鈥檚 deadliest days.
Earth starts on 17 July, 9pm, BBC Two and iPlayer
