BBC orders series “Evolution” with Chris Packham

BBC Studios/BBC

EXCLUSIVE: The BBC has caught up with PBS by producing a series on evolution hosted by Chris Packham and announced that it has doubled the number of its high-profile science programmes.

evolution tells the story of the millions of generations that gave rise to today’s animals, following one animal per episode. The species in focus range from the bat, which is one of the world’s deadliest hunters thanks to its ultrasonic hearing, to the peacock with its magnificent plumage, to the kangaroo, which owes its impressive jumps not to its legs but to its teeth.

Packham, who also hosted last year, Earth for the BBC, will take viewers back in time to trace evolution using advances in genetic analysis and CGI.

“This is new, shiny and immediately accessible,” BBC science director Tom Coveney told Deadline. “It’s full of facts about animals, but because there are millions and millions of species, it also offers the opportunity for endless variety, twists and turns. So it’s accessible, but top-notch.”

With David Attenborough taking a step back, Coveney praised Packham as the BBC’s “leading nature and science presenter” whose communication skills and zoological background made him the perfect choice for an evolution show. evolution will stick to science and avoid the role of Darwinian theory in religion, which has at times made it a controversial topic, Coveney added.

BBC head of natural history Sreya Biswas recently described the genre as “saturated” and burdened with “huge” production costs. But after recently Walking with dinosaurs, Coveney said BBC Science is at full speed and has actually doubled the number of its blue chips recently to about one a year. Earth broadcast last year, Solar System starring Brian Cox will premiere later in 2024, Human with presenter Ella Al-Shamahi is planned for 2025 and evolution is scheduled to hit the small screens in 2026.

Coveney’s science team has not received any additional budget for this initiative, but is giving priority to blue chips over other types of series and is working more frequently with co-producers, the Commissioner added.

“We used to do blue-chip productions every two or three years, but they do so well on iPlayer and attract such a wide audience that we try to do one every year,” he added. “It’s also a sign of the health of the co-pro relationships.”

Coveney said his team was “quite nervous” that last year’s highly rated players Earth would be “too big” for the average viewer, but ratings of over 3 million viewers for the first episode proved otherwise. “I don’t think anyone makes science programming as specialised as we do,” he added, trying to draw a line between the BBC and competitors such as Netflix and YouTube.

PBS, with whom the BBC works regularly, is again on board, and Coveney said the broadcaster’s priorities “are a great overlap with ours.” “At a time when we are bombarded with news and misinformation on social media, there is something around science and public service programming that makes the pursuit of truth really important, and in that respect we are in agreement with PBS,” he said. BBC Studios produces and distributes evolutionwhich is co-produced by the Open University. EPs are Andrew Cohen and Rob Liddell, executive producer for PBS is Diana El-Osta and for the Nova science strand, executive producers are Julia Cort and Chris Schmidt.

‘Disease X’

evolution is leading a BBC science programme that also includes a Horizon programme led by Chris van Tulleken documenting the international search for the source of the next global pandemic, Coveney revealed. Produced by STV Studios, Disease X is the name given by the World Health Organization to the yet-to-be-discovered virus that will most likely cause the next pandemic, and in the series, van Tulleken will travel the world meeting the scientists who are competing to prevent it.

“These people didn’t stop,” Coveney added. “Covid was ‘Disease X,’ so we don’t realize there was this army of people in the country trying to find out more about viruses. The concept is terrifying, but the work of scientists is inspiring.”

The BBC has also given the green light to a standalone production directed by Jim Al-Khalili, entitled Secrets of the Brain and a third season of The secret genius of modern life with Hannah Fry, one of the contributors to Channel 4’s election coverage.