The Planets
Genre Documentary
Executive producer Andrew Cohen
Producer Gideon Bradshaw
Editor Louise Salkow
Production companies BBC Studios, with Nova and WGBH Boston, co-produced by Tencent Penguin Pictures
Directed by Stephen Cooter & Martin Johnson
Presented by Brian Cox (UK version)
Narrated by Zachary Quinto (U.S. version)
There’s two versions of the BBC/Nova joint production of 2019’s The Planets. One is voiced by Zachary Quinto, Spock from the movies, and I may watch it some day to see how badly they dumbed it down for an American audience. Perhaps not at all (people who watch “Nova” aren’t dumb) or perhaps they needed to explain what planets were and why they went around the sun instead of the moon. We just saw one of those documentaries an hour earlier. The presenter explained for the third time in the first four minutes that the sun was bright, warm and the giver of life, and the phrase “one of those documentaries” floated through our brains and we wisely sought other entertainment.
In any event, Brian Cox, the Manchurian astrophysicist slash rock god, is a household favorite for narrating documentaries. He’s hosted some of the best science documentaries the BBC has ever presented, including “The Wonders of…” series and Life of a Universe. He’s not afraid to challenge his audience, with brain-cracking results. He’s been regarded by many as a worthy successor to Sir David Attenborough, including by Attenborough himself, but that’s only half a likelihood. He did a series on the Wonders of Life, and Brian and nature don’t get on all that well, it seems. When a critter with lots of teeth got feisty nearby, Cox reminded me of Don Knotts that time the zombie apocalypse came to Mayberry. (Oh, you remember that one. Little Opie gets eaten, and all the zombies retire and make sentimental movies until someone kills them with fire.)
Well, ok, that’s a bit of an exaggeration, but Cox was out of his element.
But when it comes to physics and the universe, he’s top notch. A genius who can explain extremely arcane ideas to a general audience without talking down. He is a national treasure.
The Planets was a 2019 series, five episodes about 52 minutes each, split into topics of Mercury and Venus, Earth and Mars, Jupiter, Saturn, and the ice worlds – Uranus and Neptune, Pluto and the other Kuiper Belt objects. In each, he describes known science about the formation of the various worlds, and the trajectory they took to get to where they are today. Some of the stories are amazing, including Earth’s, and the massive influence Jupiter had on our home at one point. There’s a lot about where the worlds are today that until very recently was completely unknown.
The BBC had a “The Planets” documentary in 1991, and it might be fun to watch to see how much we’ve learned since the days when Jupiter had 12 moons and Saturn 9, and only Saturn had rings, and the moons of the giants were just indistinct dots.
There’s a companion book, a 288-page hardback book written by Brian Cox and Andrew Cohen was released on 23 May 2019. by Harper Collins (ISBN 978-0007488841). The book was also released for ebook readers as well as an audiobook on the same day.