At 100, his voice returns to the deep: Attenborough narrates Blue Planet III as it premieres tonight

Twenty-five years after The Blue Planet first aired, and nearly a decade after Blue Planet II, the BBC's landmark ocean series returns tonight — Sunday, 1 November, at 8pm on BBC One — narrated by Sir David Attenborough, who turned 100 in May and was, producers say, very much involved, down to changes in the scripts. Blue Planet III was filmed over four years and spans six episodes: Tropical Seas, Open Ocean, Seasonal Seas, Polar Waters, The Deep and Future Seas. In an AI age, the production makes a point of its honesty: 'No gen AI was used in this series. Not a single frame. It's all real photography,' the BBC's head of specialist factual commissioning, Jack Bootle, told a press screening — with producers deliberately keeping murkier, less polished footage in, so viewers can trust that the animals are real. A new song, 'Into The Deep (Seas Cry)', by JADE and Hans Zimmer's Bleeding Fingers collective, marks the launch.

SDG 14 · Life below water — Mechanism: behaviour campaign