The Miracle Planet

A co-production of the National Film Board of Canada and NHK Japan, the beautiful high-definition filmed The Miracle Planet—ably narrated by Christopher Plummer—traces the Earth's evolution over 4.5 billion years, from its birth as a planet (about one-tenth its present size) to the emergence of Homo sapiens roughly 200,000 years ago. Divided into five programs—“The Violent Past,” “Snowball Earth,” “New Frontiers,” “Extinction & Rebirth,” and “Survival of the Fittest”—the four-hour-plus series combines on-location footage shot around the globe, eye-popping computer animation, and field interviews with scientists and scholars (including Richard Fortey, author of Life; Richard Dawkins, author of The Selfish Gene, and multidisciplinary superstar Noam Chomsky), as it explores a variety of theories that try to account for various geological finds. Some interesting things learned along the way: actual life on Earth might have begun as far back as four billion years ago; the Earth was struck by a giant meteor long before the dinosaur age that wiped out all but the most subterranean life (it's estimated that if a 300-mile-wide meteor hit the planet today, life as we know it would disappear within 24 hours); our planet is believed to have been a giant snowball (not once, but twice); ancient trees most likely played a large role in mammalian development and survival; and fire may have been used by simian-like creatures one million years ago. What's most impressive here, however, are not the individual speculations (which are admittedly fascinating), but the series' success in integrating such a wide range of disparate ideas into an absolutely compelling prehistoric narrative, one that sheds considerable light on the extraordinary inner workings of our amazingly resilient miracle planet. Highly recommended. Aud: J, H, C, P. (R. Pitman)