In the quest to pass on their genes, animals use incredible skills to win a mate. And spectacular displays to beat their competition. When the fight for mates gets fierce, it could take super strength and secret powers just to keep rivals at bay. After all, when it comes to sharing your future, only the most super-powered partner will do.

David Attenborough explores Britain and Ireland’s grasslands, revealing the creatures that create them and the extraordinary stories they hide. From the coastal flower meadows in the Scottish Outer Hebrides to the rich open landscapes in the mountains of southern Ireland, we enter surprising and dramatic worlds.
In southern England, we meet an extraordinary bee that lives in chalk grassland, one of our rarest habitats, laying her eggs in empty snail shells. Meanwhile, in the colourful machair of the Hebrides, ringed plovers and lapwings strive to rear their families of tiny fluffy chicks and to save them for marauding gulls.
We travel back in time to explore the vast wild grasslands once found throughout our isles, before meeting herds of semi-wild horses, where males battle fiercely for the females. Today, they are helping to turn some of this land back to wilderness. And in our precious remaining pockets of flower-rich meadow, a remarkable conservation success story plays out. Once extinct in our isles, England now has the largest known populations of large blue butterflies. Their survival relies on a game of deception with red ants, which are tricked into adopting the butterfly’s unassuming but predatory caterpillars.
Our story then journeys to the mountains. Each morning in early spring, feisty male black grouse battle for prime position on their frozen breeding grounds. Their sole mission is to impress a female. Meanwhile, on south-facing scree slopes, dozens of adders emerge from hibernation to perform a surprisingly delicate courtship routine.
The episode concludes with a mighty battle in the wild mountains of County Kerry. This is the scene of an epic and spectacular rut between the largest land mammals in Britain and Ireland, red deer.
The grasslands of Britain and Ireland are under threat. We have lost 97 per cent of our species-rich meadows in the last century, as modern agriculture replaces these precious habitats. This episode shows just how important different types of grassland are to the species which call these islands home.

When Norwegian gamer Mats Steen died at age 25, his parents mourned what they thought was an isolated life. It was only once they had access to his blog that they discovered the deep friendships he created virtually before passing away from a degenerative muscular disease. They were unaware that Mats had long been leading a vibrant digital life that had left a profound impact on a community of fellow gamers.
The film takes us on a journey through the breadth of Mats Steen's adventurous online life, introducing us to Ibelin, his charismatic World of Warcraft persona. Through reconstructed animated moments from Mats' gameplay, narrated entries from his blog and interviews with people who knew him as Ibelin, a picture of a remarkable young man emerges, one that underscores how community and soulful relationships can transcend the boundaries of the physical world.