The Trials of Life
Each of the twelve 50-minute episodes features a different aspect of the journey through life, from birth to adulthood and continuation of the species through reproduction.
- 1990-1990
- 1 season
- I
- Documentary, Family
Each of the twelve 50-minute episodes features a different aspect of the journey through life, from birth to adulthood and continuation of the species through reproduction.
Season 1 Episode Guide
12 Episodes 1990
Episode 1
Arriving
49 mins
The first dangerous step into a hazardous world. From egg laying to live-bearing mammals have adopted an extraordinary variety of techniques to give birth, but the release of an egg to the safe delivery of an infant is merely one step in the great journey through life.
Episode 2
Growing Up
49 mins
For some baby animals, the care of diligent parents smooths the way to adulthood. Whereas others are abandoned before their childhood is over. But whether cared for or not, the main trial remains the same; staying alive during this difficult period.
Episode 3
Finding Food
49 mins
Finding enough to eat is a problem which faces every animal on the planet and since animals - unlike plants - cannot manufacture their own food, they have to eat other organisms which, by and large, don't welcome the experience.
Episode 4
Hunting and Escaping
49 mins
Kill or die. Escape or perish. Such life and death duels are fought on a daily basis in the wild between assassins and their victims and have fuelled a long evolutionary arms race.
Episode 5
Finding the Way
48 mins
How do animals find their way around the globe with such extraordinary accuracy - an accuracy which we have only been able to match in recent years with satellite navigation.
Episode 6
Homemaking
49 mins
To create their hugely varied homes, animals become potters and plasterers, weavers and needleworkers, miners, masons, scaffolders, thatchers and sculptors.
Episode 7
Living Together
49 mins
Whole communities of different kinds of animals have been committed by evolution to live together. We show how some of these animal partnerships are ancient and intricate, whilst others are just being formed and that the delicate balance of benefit and exploitation is ever-changing.
Episode 8
Fighting
49 mins
Fighting is most usually an expression of competition - for food, for land or for a mate. But all fights do not have to be expressed with physical violence. Some are also ritualised encounters in which conflict is waged by signals and in which the only damage done is psychological.
Episode 9
Friends and Rivals
47 mins
Many animals find it advantageous, essential even, to live in social groups where recognising friends and respecting the power of rivals is vital. However there are problems: inevitable squabbles over food, disputes over nesting places and arguments over mates.
Episode 10
Talking to Strangers
49 mins
An exploration of the enormous variety of ways in which animals communicate and then by imitating or adopting some of these, David Attenborough demonstrates how he is able to "talk" to animals.
Episode 11
Courting
49 mins
In the animal kingdom all sorts of methods are employed to attract the best mate from singing, to fantastical displays of plumage, to stylish dance routines, and more violent strategies like the clashing of horns and the assaults on a rival's property.
Episode 12
Continuing the Line
49 mins
A look at the ingenious strategies employed by animals in their desperate attempts to find and retain a mate.
