Netflix has had one of the most impactful developments of any company over the past decade. It paved the way for streaming television and movies, converting many of us to its digital subscription service. It’s forcing giants like HBO to reckon with its massive customer base. Its reach is gradually expanding across the face of the Earth. As such, Netflix is finally casting off its nice guy image and admitting that, yes, all your base are belong to it. Never has that been more clear than now, as Deadline reports that the streaming service will air a new eight-part nature documentary series from the makers of Planet Earth—only, because Netflix now owns everything, it’s calling the new show Our Planet.
And since our little blue home belongs to them, Netflix is putting its weight into an incredibly ambitious plan to outdo all previous nature docs, because, like any proud new owner, it wants to put its best foot forward. Filming is scheduled to last for four years, as Planet Earth creators Alastair Fothergill and Keith Scholey (who also made Blue Planet and Frozen Planet for the BBC) drag 4k camera technology across the globe to capture previously unseen wilderness, and stick a flag reading “Netflix” into all of it. Conservation group the WWF is assisting the filmmakers with capturing the rarest animals and most fragile natural habitats on film, shortly before signing those animals up for an unlimited streaming subscription plan.
Planet Earth aired on the Discovery Chanel in 2006, earning four Emmys, including Outstanding Nonfiction Series. It was the first nature series to be filmed in HD, something Netflix hopes to improve on using 4k technology, a bold and exciting advancement in picture quality that’s basically worthless for 99 percent of people. Of course, by the time Our Planet finally airs in 2019, it’s probable that we’ll all just be watching it on our contact lens view screens—leased to us by Netflix, of course.