David Attenborough to Present 'Asia'

Lately, there’s been a lot about “gerontocracy” and whether or not older people can cognitively handle high-level jobs. For those who need an example showing that age ain’t nothing but a number and you’re only as old as you let yourself feel, I give you Sir David Attenborough. The man is less than two years shy of having lived an entire century, and he’s still hosting and narrating multi-years-long projects and overseeing landmark natural history programs for the BBC. Since 2020, he has released no less than 19 TV series and specials produced for companies, from BBC to Netflix, and aired/streamed everywhere, from PBS to Amazon Prime Video. Now he’s back with his 20th series of the decade, Asia, a new seven-parter deep diving into the planet’s largest landmass.

This is the first time Asia has been the primary focus of a major BBC wildlife series, which speaks to how Western-focus the Nature unit has been in the last few decades. But with Asia, the BBC will seek to correct that, with Attenborough highlighting some of the continent’s stunning landscapes, from the highest mountain range to the deepest ocean, the tallest jungles to the world’s biggest cave.

Filming for the series began in 2020, capturing climates as varied as the Gobi Desert to the Borneo jungles. Episodes span from Siberia’s polar wildernesses to the Indian Ocean’s coral seas. The BBC announcement promises to take viewers to places like Lake Baikal, the oldest and deepest lake in the world, Russia’s taiga forests, Iran’s Lut Desert, and the Arabian Peninsula’s Empty Quarter. As all of Attenborough’s newer projects have done, it will also examine the human animal and our habitats, including Tokyo, Bangkok, Taipei, Bhopal, Hanoi, and Singapore. It will also cover the challenges of climate change, potential solutions, and stories of conservation heroes, which will feature prominently in the series.