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''Life in the Freezer'' is a

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nature documentary A nature documentary or wildlife documentary is a genre of documentary film or series about animals, plants, or other non-human living creatures, usually concentrating on video taken in their natural habitat but also often including footage of tr ...

series written and presented by

David Attenborough Sir David Frederick Attenborough (; born 8 May 1926) is an English broadcaster, biologist, natural historian and author. He is best known for writing and presenting, in conjunction with the BBC Natural History Unit, the nine natural histor ...

, first transmitted in the United Kingdom from 18 November 1993. A study of the seasonal cycle of

Antarctica Antarctica () is Earth's southernmost and least-populated continent. Situated almost entirely south of the Antarctic Circle and surrounded by the Southern Ocean, it contains the geographic South Pole. Antarctica is the fifth-largest contine ...

, it was the first of Attenborough's more specialised surveys following his major trilogy that began with ''

Life on Earth Life on Earth may refer to: Science * Life * Earliest known life forms * Evolutionary history of life ** Abiogenesis Film and television * ''Life on Earth'' (film) (''La Vie Sur Terre''), a 1998 Malian film * ''Life on Earth'' (TV series), a 197 ...

''. Each of the six 30-minute episodes (except the last) examines how species cope with life on the Antarctic continent during the year. The series was produced in conjunction with The

National Geographic Society The National Geographic Society (NGS), headquartered in Washington, D.C., United States, is one of the largest non-profit scientific and educational organizations in the world. Founded in 1888, its interests include geography, archaeology, and ...

and Lionheart International, Inc. The producer was

Alastair Fothergill Alastair David William Fothergill (born 10 April 1960) is a British producer of nature documentaries for television and cinema. He is the series producer of the series ''The Blue Planet'' (2001), ''Planet Earth'' (2006) and the co-director of ...

and the music was composed by

George Fenton George Richard Ian Howe (born 19 October 1949), known professionally as George Fenton, is an English composer. Best known for his work writing film scores and music for television, he has received five Academy Award nominations, several Ivor No ...

. Part of David Attenborough's 'Life' series of programmes, it was preceded by ''

The Trials of Life ''The Trials of Life: A Natural History of Behaviour'' is a BBC nature documentary series written and presented by David Attenborough, first transmitted in the United Kingdom from 3 October 1990. A study in animal behaviour, it was the third i ...

'' (1990) and followed by ''

The Private Life of Plants ''The Private Life of Plants'' is a BBC nature documentary series written and presented by David Attenborough, first shown in the United Kingdom from 11 January 1995. A study of the growth, movement, reproduction and survival of plants, it was ...

'' (1995).

Background

Over the course of the series, the seasonal effect on the continent is explored, from one of the harshest

winter Winter is the coldest season of the year in polar and temperate climates. It occurs after autumn and before spring. The tilt of Earth's axis causes seasons; winter occurs when a hemisphere is oriented away from the Sun. Different cultures ...

s on the planet to the arrival of

spring Spring(s) may refer to: Common uses * Spring (season) Spring, also known as springtime, is one of the four temperate seasons, succeeding winter and preceding summer. There are various technical definitions of spring, but local usage of ...

, which welcomes a population of ocean travellers returning to breed. Then, in the

summer Summer is the hottest of the four temperate seasons, occurring after spring and before autumn. At or centred on the summer solstice, the earliest sunrise and latest sunset occurs, daylight hours are longest and dark hours are shortest, wit ...

, creatures such as

seal Seal may refer to any of the following: Common uses * Pinniped, a diverse group of semi-aquatic marine mammals, many of which are commonly called seals, particularly: ** Earless seal, or "true seal" ** Fur seal * Seal (emblem), a device to impr ...

s and

penguin Penguins (order (biology), order List of Sphenisciformes by population, Sphenisciformes , family (biology), family Spheniscidae ) are a group of Water bird, aquatic flightless birds. They live almost exclusively in the Southern Hemisphere: on ...

s struggle to raise their young before winter once again sets in. At this point, the ice sheet doubles and animals must leave to find food. David Attenborough accompanied a 20-strong crew to Antarctica and spent three years filming the series. They had to contend with monolithic

glaciers A glacier (; ) is a persistent body of dense ice that is constantly moving under its own weight. A glacier forms where the accumulation of snow exceeds its ablation over many years, often centuries. It acquires distinguishing features, such as ...

and extreme weather conditions, including mountainous seas, 160 km/h blizzards and harsh temperatures. Once again, following on from ''The Trials of Life'', the team used the latest camera technology and techniques, and had to travel into territory that had been previously inaccessible to filmmakers. For example, to photograph the wildlife of the sea, boats, divers, suspended capsules and remotely controlled cameras mounted on inflatables were used. Particularly dangerous to divers were

leopard seal The leopard seal (''Hydrurga leptonyx''), also referred to as the sea leopard, is the second largest species of seal in the Antarctic (after the southern elephant seal). Its only natural predator is the orca. It feeds on a wide range of prey incl ...

s and other predators, so some underwater sequences necessitated the use of cages for safety. The team also used a small, steel-hulled yacht, the ''Damien II''. It had a retractable keel, which enabled the vessel to venture into shallow bays and land camera crews on to remote islands, where they could remain in contact via radio. A

steadicam Steadicam is a brand of camera stabilizer mounts for Movie camera, motion picture cameras invented by Garrett Brown and introduced in 1975 by Cinema Products Corporation. It was designed to isolate the camera from the camera operator's movement ...

was used to obtain close-ups of fighting

fur seal Fur seals are any of nine species of pinnipeds belonging to the subfamily Arctocephalinae in the family '' Otariidae''. They are much more closely related to sea lions than true seals, and share with them external ears (pinnae), relatively lon ...

s, with another person carrying a pair of wooden poles close by, in case one of the creatures attacked the human visitors. Cameraman Michael deGruy gave an account of what it was like to film beneath the ice during a blizzard:

I jumped into a seal hole, pushing the ice away as I entered, and they handed me my camera. Surprisingly, I wasn't too cold, except around where my mouth held on to my regulator, and that instantly froze and became numb. Suddenly everything was quiet and I found myself looking at easily one of the most extraordinary scenes I had ever, ever experienced. When I dropped down through a hole in the ice, I was completely surrounded by ice: a tunnel maybe twenty feet across. Everything above me on the land was roaring with wind and down there, there was absolutely no sound except for the distant trills of Weddell seals.

The last episode looks at the race by

human Humans (''Homo sapiens'') are the most abundant and widespread species of primate, characterized by bipedalism and exceptional cognitive skills due to a large and complex brain. This has enabled the development of advanced tools, culture, ...

s to be the first to reach the

South Pole The South Pole, also known as the Geographic South Pole, Terrestrial South Pole or 90th Parallel South, is one of the two points where Earth's axis of rotation intersects its surface. It is the southernmost point on Earth and lies antipod ...

, and its second half describes how the series was made.

Episodes

1. "The Bountiful Sea"

Broadcast 18 November 1993, the first episode introduces the

continent A continent is any of several large landmasses. Generally identified by convention rather than any strict criteria, up to seven geographical regions are commonly regarded as continents. Ordered from largest in area to smallest, these seven ...

of Antarctica and the surrounding sea and islands, its

glacier A glacier (; ) is a persistent body of dense ice that is constantly moving under its own weight. A glacier forms where the accumulation of snow exceeds its Ablation#Glaciology, ablation over many years, often Century, centuries. It acquires dis ...

s and the

iceberg An iceberg is a piece of freshwater ice more than 15 m long that has broken off a glacier or an ice shelf and is floating freely in open (salt) water. Smaller chunks of floating glacially-derived ice are called "growlers" or "bergy bits". The ...

s that form from it. It describes how the continent changes throughout the seasons, as it effectively doubles in size in winter when the surrounding sea freezes over, "the greatest seasonal change that takes place on this planet." Penguins,

whales Whales are a widely distributed and diverse group of fully aquatic placental marine mammals. As an informal and colloquial grouping, they correspond to large members of the infraorder Cetacea, i.e. all cetaceans apart from dolphins and ...

and seals are shown feeding in the

Southern Ocean The Southern Ocean, also known as the Antarctic Ocean, comprises the southernmost waters of the World Ocean, generally taken to be south of 60° S latitude and encircling Antarctica. With a size of , it is regarded as the second-small ...

. Many of them eat the abundant

krill Krill are small crustaceans of the order Euphausiacea, and are found in all the world's oceans. The name "krill" comes from the Norwegian Norwegian, Norwayan, or Norsk may refer to: *Something of, from, or related to Norway, a country in n ...

(which in turn feed on

phytoplankton Phytoplankton () are the autotrophic (self-feeding) components of the plankton community and a key part of ocean and freshwater ecosystems. The name comes from the Greek words (), meaning 'plant', and (), meaning 'wanderer' or 'drifter'. Ph ...

and ice-algae).

Humpback whale The humpback whale (''Megaptera novaeangliae'') is a species of baleen whale. It is a rorqual (a member of the family Balaenopteridae) and is the only species in the genus ''Megaptera''. Adults range in length from and weigh up to . The hu ...

s are shown catching krill through sophisticated co-operation: they create spiralling curtains of air bubbles that drive it into their centre, where the whales can then catch them by surging upwards in the middle of the spiral. Also shown are the various

seabird Seabirds (also known as marine birds) are birds that are adapted to life within the marine environment. While seabirds vary greatly in lifestyle, behaviour and physiology, they often exhibit striking convergent evolution, as the same enviro ...

s which feed in the Antarctic sea, especially

albatross Albatrosses, of the biological family Diomedeidae, are large seabirds related to the procellariids, storm petrels, and diving petrels in the order Procellariiformes (the tubenoses). They range widely in the Southern Ocean and the North Pacifi ...

es, whose impressive wingspans are possible because they utilise the updraft generated by the huge waves in the stormy southern waters. Because of the patchiness of krill, albatrosses can travel for many hundreds or indeed thousands of miles on a single trip in search of it. All birds scavenge, and a group (including

giant petrel Giant petrels form a genus, ''Macronectes'', from the family Procellariidae, which consists of two species. They are the largest birds of this family. Both species are restricted to the Southern Hemisphere, and though their distributions overla ...

s) is shown taking the remains of a whale, left by

orca The orca or killer whale (''Orcinus orca'') is a toothed whale belonging to the oceanic dolphin family, of which it is the largest member. It is the only Extant taxon, extant species in the genus ''Orcinus'' and is recognizable by its black ...

. Many birds (including penguins) lay their

egg An egg is an organic vessel grown by an animal to carry a possibly fertilized egg cell (a zygote) and to incubate from it an embryo within the egg until the embryo has become an animal fetus that can survive on its own, at which point the a ...

s and feed their chicks on the islands surrounding the Antarctic continent, especially South Georgia where both albatross and

king penguin The king penguin (''Aptenodytes patagonicus'') is the second largest species of penguin, smaller, but somewhat similar in appearance to the emperor penguin. There are two subspecies: ''A. p. patagonicus'' and ''A. p. halli''; ''patagonicus'' ...

s have their nesting sites throughout the year.

2. "The Ice Retreats"

Broadcast 25 November 1993, the second programme examines what happens during spring on Antarctica. The sea ice extends for hundreds of miles around the continent, but there are a few subantarctic islands that escape it. Such places are highly valued, for as the sea never freezes, animals can always get ashore.

Elephant seal Elephant seals are very large, oceangoing earless seals in the genus ''Mirounga''. Both species, the northern elephant seal (''M. angustirostris'') and the southern elephant seal (''M. leonina''), were hunted to the brink of extinction for oi ...

s are the first creatures to return to the beaches. They form large breeding colonies, where the males fight fierce battles to gain and retain permanent access to a great number of females and mate with them as soon as they are receptive again. Millions of

macaroni penguin The macaroni penguin (''Eudyptes chrysolophus'') is a species of penguin found from the Subantarctic to the Antarctic Peninsula. One of six species of crested penguin, it is very closely related to the royal penguin, and some authorities conside ...

s occupy huge territories on the islands to breed, as do thousands of albatrosses. The

Antarctic peninsula The Antarctic Peninsula, known as O'Higgins Land in Chile and Tierra de San Martín in Argentina, and originally as Graham Land in the United Kingdom and the Palmer Peninsula in the United States, is the northernmost part of mainland Antarctic ...

is one of the few regions of the continent inhabited by animals, even in summer.

Gentoo penguin The gentoo penguin ( ) (''Pygoscelis papua'') is a penguin species (or possibly a species complex) in the genus ''Pygoscelis'', most closely related to the Adélie penguin (''P. adeliae'') and the chinstrap penguin (''P. antarcticus''). The ear ...

s build their nests on bare rock and humpback whales seek krill along the coast, while

Adelie penguin Adelie or Adélie may refer to: * Adélie Land, a claimed territory on the continent of Antarctica * Adelie Land meteorite, a meteorite discovered on December 5, 1912, in Antarctica by Francis Howard Bickerton * Adélie penguin The Adélie pen ...

s nest even further south.

Crabeater seal The crabeater seal (''Lobodon carcinophaga''), also known as the krill-eater seal, is a true seal with a circumpolar distribution around the coast of Antarctica. They are medium- to large-sized (over 2 m in length), relatively slender and pale-c ...

s, one of the most numerous mammals on Earth, live and reproduce in the

pack ice Drift ice, also called brash ice, is sea ice that is not attached to the shoreline or any other fixed object (shoals, grounded icebergs, etc.).Leppäranta, M. 2011. The Drift of Sea Ice. Berlin: Springer-Verlag. Unlike fast ice, which is "fasten ...

zone around Antarctica.

Snow petrel The snow petrel (''Pagodroma nivea'') is the only member of the genus ''Pagodroma.'' It is one of only three birds that has been seen at the Geographic South Pole, along with the Antarctic petrel and the south polar skua, which have the most s ...

s fly many miles into the island to find rock on which to lay their eggs.

3. "The Race to Breed"

Broadcast 2 December 1993, this instalment looks at the summer, when almost all life in the region breeds. A South Georgian colony of fur seals is shown: the pups grow fast on the rich,

fat In nutrition science, nutrition, biology, and chemistry, fat usually means any ester of fatty acids, or a mixture of such chemical compound, compounds, most commonly those that occur in living beings or in food. The term often refers spec ...

milk Milk is a white liquid food produced by the mammary glands of mammals. It is the primary source of nutrition for young mammals (including breastfed human infants) before they are able to digestion, digest solid food. Immune factors and immune ...

provided by their mothers and double their weight in just sixty days. As the females become sexually available, the mating season begins – males try to claim territory and mate with females. Chinstrap penguins form large groups on

Deception Island Deception Island is an island in the South Shetland Islands close to the Antarctic Peninsula with a large and usually "safe" natural harbor, which is occasionally troubled by the underlying active volcano. This island is the caldera of an acti ...

, climbing up its steep slopes to find mountain ridges free of snow. Returning birds find their partners by recognising their voice (performing a brief greeting ritual when they find them), which is why the colonies are very noisy during the breeding season. Males and females take turns in catching food, some of which they later regurgitate for their chicks. The summer also thaws some of the ice on the continent's shores. The fresh water allows

moss Mosses are small, non-vascular flowerless plants in the taxonomic division Bryophyta (, ) '' sensu stricto''. Bryophyta (''sensu lato'', Schimp. 1879) may also refer to the parent group bryophytes, which comprise liverworts, mosses, and hor ...

and other plants to grow, which in turn provide food for

mite Mites are small arachnids (eight-legged arthropods). Mites span two large orders of arachnids, the Acariformes and the Parasitiformes, which were historically grouped together in the subclass Acari, but genetic analysis does not show clear evid ...

s that are adapted to the cold climate – they can survive temperatures up to minus 30 °C because they contain a kind of

antifreeze An antifreeze is an additive which lowers the freezing point of a water-based liquid. An antifreeze mixture is used to achieve freezing-point depression for cold environments. Common antifreezes also increase the boiling point of the liquid, all ...

. They become active as soon as the ice melts, and reproduce whenever they get an opportunity to do so. Lichens grow even further south than moss, and algae populate some of the snow. In the ocean, life is much more diverse, and

blue-eyed shag ''Leucocarbo'' is a genus of birds in the family Phalacrocoracidae with the members commonly known as blue-eyed shags. This is a group of closely related cormorant taxa. Many have a blue, purple or red ring around the eye (not a blue iris); othe ...

s dive for fish near the peninsula. More than 300,000

petrel Petrels are tube-nosed seabirds in the bird order Procellariiformes. Description The common name does not indicate relationship beyond that point, as "petrels" occur in three of the four families within that group (all except the albatross f ...

s come to breed to the Scullin Monolith, one of the few areas of open rock.

4. "The Door Closes"

Broadcast 9 December 1993, this episode describes the migration of most animals northwards (some from the Antarctic continent, others from the few islands surrounding it) as the continent and surrounding sea freeze over at the end of summer. At Cape Royds, the most southernly colony of Adelie penguins is virtually emptied as adults lead their newly feathered young to the sea. Young penguins often fall prey to leopard seals as they try to make their way across the already partially frozen water – and their stripped remains become food for

isopod Isopoda is an order of crustaceans that includes woodlice and their relatives. Isopods live in the sea, in fresh water, or on land. All have rigid, segmented exoskeletons, two pairs of antennae, seven pairs of jointed limbs on the thorax, an ...

s and meter-long

nemertea Nemertea is a phylum of animals also known as ribbon worms or proboscis worms, consisting of 1300 known species. Most ribbon worms are very slim, usually only a few millimeters wide, although a few have relatively short but wide bodies. Many h ...

ns. However, before going to the sea, the adult penguins must

moult In biology, moulting (British English), or molting (American English), also known as sloughing, shedding, or in many invertebrates, ecdysis, is the manner in which an animal routinely casts off a part of its body (often, but not always, an outer ...

their coats. The freezing sea ice usually does not reach South Georgia, and seal pups are still fed there by their mothers in autumn to be ready for the winter. They use their remaining time for play and mock fights in the ocean. Those who do not survive become food for the predator birds – the

skua The skuas are a group of predatory seabirds with seven species forming the genus ''Stercorarius'', the only genus in the family Stercorariidae. The three smaller skuas, the long-tailed skua, the Arctic skua, and the pomarine skua are called ...

s and the giant petrels. Elephant seals also undergo moulting while on the island. Albatrosses nesting on South Georgia continue to feed and mate, but the ever harsher weather forces most animals further northwards.

5. "The Big Freeze"

Broadcast 16 December 1993, this programme deals with those who stay during the coldest weather. As almost all animal inhabitants of Antarctica are forced to migrate, the sea underneath the ice still provides a home to many specially adapted fish whose

cell Cell most often refers to: * Cell (biology), the functional basic unit of life Cell may also refer to: Locations * Monastic cell, a small room, hut, or cave in which a religious recluse lives, alternatively the small precursor of a monastery ...

s are protected from freezing through an inherent "antifreeze". Many feed on the faeces of other animals. Perhaps the most notable larger creature that does not journey north is the

Weddell seal The Weddell seal (''Leptonychotes weddellii'') is a relatively large and abundant true seal with a circumpolar distribution surrounding Antarctica. The Weddell seal was discovered and named in the 1820s during expeditions led by British sealing ...

, which can be found as close as 1300 kilometres to the pole. Groups of seals tear holes into the ice to dive for food and come up to breathe. The females come back to the ice to give birth. Also described is primitive

plant Plants are predominantly photosynthetic eukaryotes of the kingdom Plantae. Historically, the plant kingdom encompassed all living things that were not animals, and included algae and fungi; however, all current definitions of Plantae exclud ...

life such as

lichen A lichen ( , ) is a composite organism that arises from algae or cyanobacteria living among filaments of multiple fungi species in a mutualistic relationship.valley A valley is an elongated low area often running between Hill, hills or Mountain, mountains, which will typically contain a river or stream running from one end to the other. Most valleys are formed by erosion of the land surface by rivers ...

s – conditions under which dead animals can lie frozen for many centuries without decomposing. Attenborough observes that the Antarctic plateau is so "forbidding, hostile and desolate" that human life there seems not only insignificant, but also "totally irrelevant". Also explored is the life of the

emperor penguin The emperor penguin (''Aptenodytes forsteri'') is the tallest and heaviest of all living penguin species and is endemic to Antarctica. The male and female are similar in plumage and size, reaching in length and weighing from . Feathers of th ...

, "the only birds to lay their eggs directly on ice". While others retreat, emperors migrate not just to the ice, but into Antarctica itself. The newly laid egg is quickly transferred from female to male. They then incubate the eggs under the harshest conditions on Earth (huddling closely together in temperatures of minus 70 °C), while their partners return to the sea.

6. "Footsteps in the Snow"

Broadcast 23 December 1993, the final instalment discusses human exploration of Antarctica, in particular the mission led by Captain

Robert Falcon Scott Captain Robert Falcon Scott, , (6 June 1868 – c. 29 March 1912) was a British Royal Navy officer and explorer who led two expeditions to the Antarctic regions: the ''Discovery'' expedition of 1901–1904 and the ill-fated ''Terra Nov ...

, whose team died on the way back from the South Pole. Attenborough visits the hut at Cape Evans where Scott and his team spent the winter of 1911. It shows their well-equipped laboratory and the darkroom where the group's photographer,

Herbert Ponting Herbert George Ponting, FRGS (21 March 1870 – 7 February 1935) was a professional photographer. He is best known as the expedition photographer and cinematographer for Robert Falcon Scott's Terra Nova Expedition to the Ross Sea and South Pol ...

, developed his films. Attenborough contrasts the transportation used by Scott (initially motor sledge, ponies and dogs before ending up on foot) with today's

helicopter A helicopter is a type of rotorcraft in which lift and thrust are supplied by horizontally spinning rotors. This allows the helicopter to take off and land vertically, to hover, and to fly forward, backward and laterally. These attributes ...

s. The episode also details the scientific work in the modern human bases in Antarctica, especially Mawson Base and its observation of Adelie penguins (partially through tracking devices). The film concludes that although working in Antarctica is now much easier than during the early days of exploration, human footsteps on the continent are still exceedingly rare – in part because of international treaties prohibiting industrial exploitation.

A. N. Wilson controversy

After ''Life in the Freezer'' was broadcast, A. N. Wilson, then a television reviewer for ''

The Independent ''The Independent'' is a British online newspaper. It was established in 1986 as a national morning printed paper. Nicknamed the ''Indy'', it began as a broadsheet and changed to tabloid format in 2003. The last printed edition was publis ...

'', wrote a column accusing the production team of staging a harrowing sequence in which a leopard seal killed and dismembered a young penguin. He claimed that the chances of filming natural behaviour like this were far too low, and that the crew must have thrown baby penguins to the seal until they got the shot they wanted. Alastair Fothergill responded by threatening to sue. In a private settlement, Wilson was forced to publish an apology and retraction acknowledging that there had been no basis for his claims. ''The Independent'' also paid an undisclosed sum of money, which Fothergill and Attenborough donated to a fund for the penguins of the

Falkland Islands The Falkland Islands (; es, Islas Malvinas, link=no ) is an archipelago in the South Atlantic Ocean on the Patagonian Shelf. The principal islands are about east of South America's southern Patagonian coast and about from Cape Dubouzet ...

.David Attenborough, ''Life on Air'', BBC Books 2002. Wilson had previously made similar claims about Attenborough's previous series, ''

'', regarding the filming of the

malleefowl The malleefowl (''Leipoa ocellata'') is a stocky ground-dwelling Australian bird about the size of a domestic chicken (to which it is distantly related). It is notable for the large nesting mounds constructed by the males and lack of parental ca ...

, and had been forced to retract those as well.

DVD and book

The series is available in the UK for Regions 2 and 4 as a single DVD (BBCDVD1106, released 16 September 2002) and as part of '' The Life Collection''. There are no extra features. The accompanying book, ''Life in the Freezer: A Natural History of the Antarctic'' by Alastair Fothergill with a foreword by David Attenborough ( ), was published by BBC Books on 4 November 1993. It is currently out of print.

References

External links

* *
''Life in the Freezer''
on the Eden website {{DEFAULTSORT:Life in the Freezer 1993 British television series debuts 1993 British television series endings 1990s British documentary television series BBC television documentaries Documentary films about Antarctica Documentary films about nature 1990s English-language films