Eight worlds circle one star, and each has a biography of its own. The Planets, a 2019 British documentary series presented by Professor Brian Cox, treats the solar system as a family history instead of a list of measurements.
What is The Planets about?
Across the series, Professor Brian Cox tells the story of the eight planets from their beginnings to the present day. They are not toured as fixed objects. Each world is approached as something that has changed over immense stretches of time, shaped by its distance from the Sun, its size and its neighbours, so that what telescopes and spacecraft see now is only the latest chapter. Small rocky worlds close to the Sun and distant giants are set side by side, and Earth's own past is read against the others. Every episode runs close to an hour.
About the cast
Professor Brian Cox is the only on-screen name credited in the catalogue, and the series is built around him as guide and narrator. Direction is shared by three people: Stephen Cooter, Martin Johnson and Nic Stacey. With a single presenter and no cast of characters, the weight falls on how the science is explained and on the images that accompany the explanation.
Context & significance
The Planets belongs to the tradition of the presenter-led science documentary, where one voice carries the audience through a very large subject. Here the subject is about as large as they come: Mercury, Venus, Earth, Mars, Jupiter, Saturn, Uranus and Neptune. The catalogue description speaks of the planets' dramatic lives, and that phrase signals the approach, which is to present planetary science as narrative, with beginnings, upheavals and endings. Produced in the United Kingdom and released in 2019, it is one of the most highly regarded documentary titles in the K-Time catalogue. Viewers who last met astronomy in a school classroom will find a way back into the subject here, and younger viewers can treat it as a first introduction, since the series assumes no prior knowledge.
Watching The Planets on Ktime
The Planets is available on K-Time with a Persian dub and with Persian subtitles, so it can be watched in Farsi or in the original English with Farsi text on screen. Playback requires signing in to a K-Time account; this page is free to read without one. K-Time is made for Persian-speaking audiences abroad, and its menus, search and player all work in Farsi.