If the cold never bothered you anyway, check out our guide on how to watch Frozen Planet 2 online.
Step into the winter season with David Attenborough. frozen planet 2 is here, and ready to transport you to the frozen ecosystems few of us will ever see or understand. This viewers guide will provide you with the highlights and recommendations for enjoying this series. Viewers may be familiar with the BBC Earth series which uses modern technology and long-range filming to capture the most remote regions of the planet.
Shot in exquisite detail, narrated by the legendary David Attenborough and written by the legendary Hans Zimmer, this series is a great primer for the cold season ahead. Using drone technology and ingenious composite images, this series will transport you to the most remote regions of our world and show you ecosystems beyond imagination.
The entire series is now available to stream in the UK on BBC iPlayer (opens in a new tab)but if you’re based in the US or elsewhere in the world, we’ve got tips on how you can watch Frozen Planet 2 below.
If you want to watch more great documentaries, check out our Shark Week streaming guide. We also have streaming content for dinosaur fans and aspiring paleontologists with our guide to how to watch Prehistoric Planet (and for something a little less scientifically accurate, but equally entertaining, we also have our guide to streaming Jurassic Park).
How to watch Frozen Planet 2?
Frozen Planet 2 is best enjoyed at pace and can be viewed alone or with a partner and/or children who can handle the occasional brutality of nature. Recommended with a blanket and a hot drink, this series continues the perfect blend of relaxing viewing, wanderlust and learning opportunities.
The entire series was released weekly from September 11 to October 16, 2022 and is now fully available to stream on BBC iPlayer (opens in a new tab). BBC iPlayer is not available in the US, but scroll down to the VPN section to find out how you can still watch the series online.
The first Frozen Planet series is available to US viewers on HBO Max or Discovery+ (opens in a new tab) with a subscription. If you don’t have any service, Frozen Planet (the first series) is available to rent or buy on Amazon Instant Video, Vudu, and Google Play.
Watch in the US with a VPN
Until Frozen Planet 2 is available overseas, BBC iPlayer can be accessed via VPN for those overseas. A Virtual Private Network (VPN) is a recommended security measure to hide your online location and can access region-specific content based on the location of the host server. There are many available but we recommend either ExpressVPN (opens in a new tab) Where SurfShark (opens in a new tab) both of which offer a host of security options at a very reasonable price.
Frozen Planet 2 Trailers
The official trailer (opens in a new tab) for Frozen Planet 2 is brief at around 30 seconds but offers some of the best visual highlights of the series, drawing you in for the delights that await you over the full six episodes.
Moreover, this region without “First Look: Frozen Planet II ft. Camila Cabello & Hans Zimmer” (opens in a new tab) from BBC Studios features a haunting musical composition from the voice of global superstar Camila Cabello alongside legendary composer Hans Zimmer in the original piece ‘Take Me Back Home’. It features some of the best visuals in the series and makes you want to explore these unique regions more.
What is Frozen Planet 2?
This sequel to the 2011 Frozen Planet series takes us beyond the polar focus of the first. He explores all the frozen regions of our globe, from the Rocky Mountains to the Siberian forests, passing through the icy oceans and the frozen deserts. This series also takes advantage of improved technology from the middle decade, particularly in the use of drone cameras and infrared night vision. Drone technology allows the crew to capture monumental events such as ice calving and avalanches, while night vision comes close to a midnight mountain lion attack.
The series doesn’t shy away from addressing the impacts of climate change and how it affects everything from the survival of individual species to the precious balance of our entire planet. Peppered throughout each episode is a reminder of how things have changed in the short decade between the two series. The show does a particularly good job of using time-lapse satellite photography to demonstrate the tangible changes in ecosystems over such a short period of time.
Episode guide
Spoiler-free recommendations
For those new to these series (hey, life can take us in so many directions!), the best recommendation is the very first episode: Frozen Worlds. It’s a good introduction / “best of” of the whole series. For a change of pace, it’s also worth watching the latest episode: Our Frozen Planet. It leaves behind the nature documentary format and takes a deeper look at scientists studying climate change and its effects on different environments. Finally, it’s also worth noting that the last ten minutes of each hour-long episode is a “behind the scenes” mini-doc on what it was like to shoot one of the sequences for that particular episode.
Spoiler-Free Personal Recommendations: The episode with the most bizarre animal behavior was undoubtedly Episode Two: Frozen Ocean, the most gruesome animal behavior was Episode Three: Frozen Peaks, and the most fascinating animal behavior was definitely Episode Four: Frozen South. See below for specific spoiler references.
Frozen Planet – Episode 1: Frozen Worlds
As mentioned in the Spoiler-free recommendations, if you only watch one episode, Episode One: Frozen Worlds (September 11, 2022) brings the most balance in terms of depicting the series theme. This episode covers highlights from pole to pole. It begins in Antarctica and shows the lives of emperor penguins as well as killer whales hunting seals.
It then travels through the Himalayas to the Great Steppe. We get some great shots of the “the grumpiest cat in the world”, Pallas’ cat before continuing to the boreal forest and the Siberian tigers. Continue through arctic tundra through Greenland before highlighting spectacular icebergs and how ice loss affects polar bears.
The “behind the scenes” segment follows a lone film crew trying to capture iceberg calving with drone technology. This episode is the “best of” Frozen Planet 2 and if you’re only going to watch one, watch this one.
Frozen Planet – Episode 2: Frozen Ocean
Episode Two: Frozen Ocean (September 18, 2022) explores the Arctic and the worlds of water and ice. Featured animals include polar bears, beluga whales, baby harp seals, plankton and skeleton shrimp (particular weirdness highlights), bowhead whale (longest-lived whale), killer whales, crested auklets and their very memorable mating practices, and last but not least: sunbathing walruses in a somewhat grotesque dance between sea and land.
The ‘behind the scenes’ highlight the difficulties of trying to capture the breeding of harp seals, with only a twelve-day window in treacherous waters.
Frozen Planet – Episode 3: Frozen Heights
Episode Three: Frozen Peaks (September 25, 2022) offers spectacular views of the mountain ranges. Animals featured include chameleons, golden eagles hunting mountain goats, Japanese macaque primates, Kea parrots, cougars, flamingos and pandas. The memorable scene in this episode is undoubtedly the Golden Eagles trying to pick up mountain goats and knock them down from great heights.
Coordinated attack patterns are spectacularly captured and the execution will leave you jaw dropping. The “behind the scenes” section focuses on tracking the Puma in the Andes (South America) and trying to capture their midnight hunts.
Frozen Planet 2 – Episode 4: Frozen South
Episode Four: Frozen South (October 2, 2022) turns to the various frozen regions of the Southern Hemisphere. Animals featured include king penguins and leopard seals, Antipodean albatrosses, blue whales, Weddell seals, chinstrap penguins, killer whales, snow petrels and giant stromatolites that suggest possible life on d other frozen planets.
There are several memorable wildlife moments in this episode, but the highlight is also the “behind the scenes” segment: the killer whale’s “wave wash” technique for seal hunting, a technique rarely captured on hand. camera and absolutely stunning to behold.
Frozen Planet 2 – Episode Five: Frozen Lands
Episode Five: Frozen Lands (October 9, 2022) focuses on the vast expanse of forests and tundra. Animals featured include: a pack of wolves hunting bison, an arctic fox hunting lemmings, the Amur leopard and Siberian tiger in an exquisite dance over the same territory, the painted turtle and Lapland bumble bees waking up after months of hibernation, snowy owls and grizzly bear hunting. Caribou.
The “behind the scenes” segment focuses on capturing the “super pack” of wolves chasing a herd of bison, trying to land a ground camera crew who must track and transport equipment across northern Canada.
Frozen Planet 2 – Episode 6: Our Frozen Planet
Episode Six: Our Frozen Planet (October 16, 2022) shifts its focus by focusing on biologists and climatologists who study these frozen regions. It fully confronts the impact of human-caused climate change and how it has already, and continues to influence, precious isolated frozen biomes. Featured scientists and regions include glaciologists as well as researchers who study baby harps and polar bears.
The episode then turns to human civilizations, exploring a group of Inuit hunters in Greenland and the disappearance of hunting grounds. As we take flight, we see the impacts from the perspective of the International Space Station and helicopter-based radar systems.
Finally, we visit a researcher who has spent his entire life studying the Adélie penguin and how studies over the decades have witnessed complete colony extinctions. This episode is a necessary reflection on how our actions negatively affect the delicate balance of existence of isolated species and biomes.
#watch #Frozen #Planet #Stream #online #world