The Atlantic is the second largest ocean on the planet. It is the resting place of the Titanic, home to the mysterious Bermuda Triangle and is the youngest of the Earth's great oceans. It reaches depths of 8,500 metres. Oceans investigates this influential body of water from a group of islands in its western reaches - the Bahamas.

Jessie Buckley narrates the extraordinary story of the first transatlantic communications cable. In 16 August 1858, a short message is telegraphed from County Kerry to Newfoundland, 3,000km away: ‘Europe and America are united by telegraph. Glory to God in the highest, on earth peace, good will towards men.’ The Morse code message is conducted along the new underwater transatlantic telegraph cable laid across the bed of the Atlantic Ocean. Sending the same message by ship would have taken at least ten days, but the transmission takes just hours and heralds the dawn of the modern communications age.
The quest is driven by visionaries and pioneers. Among them are Cyrus Field, a wealthy businessman who, despite his immense success, ends his life in poverty; Samuel Morse, inventor of the telegraph and Morse code; Isambard Kingdom Brunel, the British engineer who pushes boundaries and budgets; and Belfast physicist Lord Kelvin, who calculates how to achieve what had hitherto been deemed impossible. Together, their ingenuity and relentless pursuit helps realise one of the great scientific accomplishments of their age for which Valentia, on Ireland’s remote western coast, is ground zero.

In the last episode, Iain discovers the remarkable impact of just one plant: grass. On the savannah of South Africa he sees how grass unleashed a firestorm to fight its greatest enemy, the forests. He shows how cutting your finger on a blade of grass shows us how it transformed life in the oceans. In Senegal, he meets the cleverest chimps in the world. And, in the ruins of the oldest temple on Earth, he tells the extraordinary story of how grass triggered human civilisation.

This episode is centered around how science, in particular the work of Clair Patterson (voiced in animated sequences by Richard Gere[33]) in the middle of the 20th century, has been able to determine the age of the Earth. Tyson first describes how the Earth was formed from the coalescence of matter some millions of years after the formation of the Sun, and while scientists can examine the formations in rock stratum to date some geological events, these can only trace back millions of years. Instead, scientists have used the debris from meteor impacts, such as the Meteor Crater in Arizona, knowing that the material from such meteors coming from the asteroid belt would have been made at the same time as the Earth. Patterson also examined the levels of lead in the common environment and in deeper parts of the oceans and Antarctic ice, showing that lead had only been brought to the surface in recent times. He would discover that the higher levels of lead were from the use of tetraethyllead in leaded gasoline resulting in government-mandated restrictions on the use of lead.

Sir David Attenborough reveals the findings of one of the most ambitious scientific studies of our time - an investigation into what is happening to our oceans. He looks at whether it is too late to save their remarkable biodiversity. Attenborough explores some of the ways in which we are affecting marine life - from over-fishing to the acidification of sea water. The film also uncovers the disturbing story of how shipping noise is deafening whales and dolphins, affecting their survival in the future.

Every year, around the world, seasonal changes transform entire landscapes and draw in millions of creatures as these great events unfold. This fantastic series combines the epic scale of Planet Earth and the intimate, emotional stories of charismatic animals as they struggle to survive. Using state of the art technology, these programmes capture the Earth's most dramatic and epic wildlife spectacles and the intimate stories of the animals caught up in them.
The Great Melt: The summer melt of Arctic ice, opening up nearly three million square miles of ocean and land, provides opportunities for millions of animals, including beluga whales, families of Arctic foxes, vast colonies of seabirds, and the fabled Arctic unicorn, the narwhal. For polar bears, however, it is the toughest time of year. Why? How will they survive? A mother polar bear and her cub make their first journey together onto the sea ice. They are looking for ringed seals, their favourite prey. It is a serious business but the cub just wants to play. The melting ice makes it harder for them to hunt and threatens their survival. In a unique aerial sequence, the migration of narwhal with their distinctive unicorn-like tusks is filmed for the first time. The whales' journey is risky as they travel along giant cracks in the ice. If the ice were to close above them, they would drown. Hundreds of beluga whales gather in the river shallows. They rub themselves on smooth pebbles in one of the most bizarre summer spectacles. Guillemot chicks take their first flights from precipitous sea cliff nests to the sea 300 metres below. They attempt to glide to safety but many miss their target. Their loss is a bonus for the hungry Arctic fox family waiting below. As the melt comes to an end the bears gather, waiting for the sea to freeze again. Two 400kg males square up to each other to spar.