Journey of Life is a British documentary series hosted by Steve Leonard which uses the latest graphic techniques to recreate evolution and reveals how the extraordinary diversity of life today came to be.
The series originally premiered in the UK on BBC One on 14 April 2005. There are five one-hour episodes in the series.
Journey of Life premiered in South Africa on DStv's Animal Planet channel on Sunday 6 April 2008, at 14h15.
Repeats
Sundays: 21h00
Mondays: 03h30
Synopsis
In a journey from sea, to land, to sky, life has evolved remarkable solutions to the challenge of survival. This series visits the crucial moments in life's journey to dominate the Earth.
Seas of Life reveals that the basic blueprint of a brain, backbone, two legs and two arms was created in the ocean.
Land Grab follows life as it changes from a fish to a human; and Airborne illustrates the four evolutions of flight.
In Living Together, relationships - predatory, competitive and co-operative - are revealed. And in Human Life, the differences between us and chimps, phenomenally similar creatures, are examined.
The latest graphic techniques recreate evolution before your very eyes, providing viewers with a spectacular representation of how life came to be.
Episodes
Episode 1: Seas of Life
Steve travels back 3.8 billion years to when life began. Journeying round the oceans, he explores life's first laboratory and discovers how the incredible variety of sea creatures arose, from the first microbes to hagfish and dolphins.
Episode 2: Land Grab
Steve tracks the pioneer life forms as they emerged from the seas and evolved adaptations to make them ever better able to cope with life on land, from the searing heat of the deserts to the icy polar wastes.
Episode 3: Airborne
Animals crawled on to the land 500 million years ago, but it was another 100 million years before life finally became airborne. Just four kinds of animals achieved the miracle of flight. Insects led the way, but their story is still shrouded in mystery.
Episode 4: Living Together
The greatest evolutionary challenge faced by living things has been each other! From cunning carnivores to sex crazed elk, Steve reveals how the relationships between living things can drive evolution itself - with some truly bizarre results.
Episode 5: Human Life
Five million years ago we separated from our chimpanzee cousins. Steve Leonard looks back to explain how landscape changes drew us down from the trees and out on to the newly formed African savannah.