All Creatures Great, Small ...and Endangered

After completing the nature documentary "The Blue Planet" - a $10 million, eight-part BBC series that took 20 camera teams five years to shoot, spawned an international concert tour based on its Emmy-winning score and eventually was shown in more than 50 countries - its producer, Alastair Fothergill, could have taken a well-deserved break. Instead, immediately following "Blue Planet's" September 2001 debut, Mr. Fothergill, a longtime BBC producer, began work on another ambitious project. His new series, "Planet Earth," "is trying to do for the whole planet what 'Blue Planet' had done for the oceans," Mr. Fothergill said in a telephone interview. "To be honest, that's a pretty tall order." The new 11-part series, shown last summer in Britain, will have its United States premiere on March 25 on the Discovery Channel...