Escape with BBC America’s Wild Summer Starting June 29

BBC America is gearing up for a Wild Summer, kicking off Saturday, June 29 with Wild Life Week – a full week of the network’s celebrated natural history programming, including the Emmy®-winning Planet Earth II and Blue Planet II, as well as the premiere of Enchanted Kingdom, narrated by Idris Elba, closing out the week on Saturday, July 6 at 9/8c. Nature programming will continue every Saturday for the entire summer, including premieres of Best of The Hunt (Saturday, July 13 at 9/8c) and Wild City: Singapore (Saturday, July 27 at 9/8c), which are both narrated by Sir David Attenborough.

Then, Top Gear returns Sunday, July 14 at 8/7c, introducing new hosts Freddie Flintoff, Paddy McGuinness and returning host Chris Harris, with the premiere episode seeing the trio relive their first car experiences in Ethiopia.

The previously announced, out-of-this-world Space Week will start Monday, July 15 with marathons of Star Trek series, Doctor Who and feature films including The Right Stuff, I Am Number Four and Space Cowboys. All this leads up to the U.S. premiere of two documentaries in celebration of the 50th anniversary of the moon landing: Wonders of the Moon, airing Friday, July 19 at 10/9c, and Moon Landing Live, airing Saturday, July 20 at 9/8c.

Plus, blockbuster movies bring memorable adventures straight to the small screen, from wild comedy hits like Ferris Bueller’s Day Off, to wild superhero tales like X-Men Origins: Wolverine, wild stories of survival with Cast Away, and wild casts of characters with Addams Family and Addams Family Values.

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Read on for a taste of the wild that's to come!

    • Enchanted Kingdom – Saturday, July 6 at 9pm/8c – Narrated by Idris Elba, Enchanted Kingdom explores seven distinct worlds in the wildest continent on Earth, Africa, to discover that nature is so much more surprising and extraordinary than ever imagined. Currently available on Screeners.com.

 

    • Best of The Hunt – Saturday, July 13 at 9/8c – Narrated by Sir David Attenborough, Best of The Hunt takes a detailed look at the remarkable strategies the planet’s top hunters use to succeed and the huge effort they must put forth in order to survive. When predators are doing well, we know the habitats they live in are healthy too. The competition between predators and prey may be among the most dramatic events in nature, but this relationship is also essential to the balance of the natural world.

 

    • Top Gear – Sunday, July 14 at 8/7c – Featuring new hosts Freddie Flintoff, Paddy McGuinness and returning host Chris Harris, the premiere episode sees the trio reliving their first car experiences in Ethiopia. Freddie, Paddy and Chris are tasked with buying a fine example of their own first car, and drive their purchases to the Danakil Depression – the hottest year-round place on Earth. Moreover, Chris takes to the track in the McLaren 600LT and Ferrari 488 Pista in order to determine which track-day supercar is the best. Suffice to say, Europe’s tire manufacturers were kept in business for another few years.

 

    • Wonders of the Moon – Friday, July 19 at 10/9c – Blood moons, super moons and total eclipses. Explore a stunning medley of lunar delights from across the globe. Low light cameras reveal the moon in its natural light, in ways that have rarely been witnessed, and illustrate its extraordinary influence over our planet, against a range of stunning backdrops. Travel to the rich undersea world of the South Pacific, where the coral reefs breed in synch with the moon cycles. Witness the mid-Autumn festival in Hong Kong, where the entire city falls under the moon’s spell, and watch the total eclipse transform day to night across the U.S.

 

    • Moon Landing Live – Saturday, July 20 at 9/8c – July 1969. America made history and sent the first humans to the moon. High-quality NASA footage and extensive news broadcasts bring this sensational moment in history bursting back into life. Live news footage from every corner of the globe recreates the excitement and elation that surrounded the event, as 600 million people tuned in to watch Neil Armstrong’s remarkable first steps.

 

    • Wild City: Singapore – Saturday, July 27 at 9/8c – Narrated by Sir David Attenborough, the series aims to be nothing less than a comprehensive profile of Singapore’s surprisingly diverse animals and plants and their fascinating behaviors. The series, divided into four 1-hour episodes, showcases the range of different habitats found in and around the built-up urban sprawl, then journeys around the island’s hidden wildlife hotspots – from the overlooked interior to the inaccessible coastline and islands that have become unplanned sanctuaries for Singapore’s natural heritage.