Angry Planet

SEASON 3

Violent hurricanes and tornados, volcanoes spitting molten lava, floods from melting glaciers and raging forest fires are all part of the fabric of this intriguing series. Viewers will get an in-your-face thrill ride through some of the most extraordinary sights our Angry Planet can produce. Hosted by intense, personable thrillseeker George Kourounis, the show is a behind-the-scenes chronicle of the adventures - and misadventures - of George and his associates as they explore the world´s wildest weather and natural phenomena. In the series opener George heads straight into the “Bearcage”, looking to get beat up by the biggest, baddest hailstones that Texas and Oklahoma can throw at him. He finds it – and their stormchasing vehicle doesn’t look too pretty after coming through these massive storms.

SEASON 3 SYNOPSIS

Episode 1 – Hurricane Triple Threat
Early September of 2008 saw radical imagery on the hurricane maps of the Atlantic – four named tropical storms, swirling in a train across the ocean. “Angry Planet” was there as three of them made landfall  as hurricanes in the US. We filmed gustaf in Louisiana, Hanna in North Carolina, then flew with the USAF Hurricane Hunters into Ike over cuba, and met it again as it made a wild destructive landfall in Galveston, Texas.

Episode 2 – Elephant Cave
Possibly the home of the deadly Marberg Ebola virus, Kitum Cave is high on Mt.Elgon straddling the Kenya-Uganda border. The deep, waterfall-shrouded cave has been carved out over millennia by elephants in search of salt. When host george kourounis gets bitten by one of the bats…well, you’ll have to see the show to find out what happens.

Episode 3 – Eco-Disasters
No-one creates eco-disasters on quite the scale of the former Soviet Union. In Uzbekistan, the Aral Sea, once one of the largest freshwater lakes in the world, has seen its waters diverted, so that it has shrunk to 1/6 its previous size. In Crimea, a mountain has been carved into a james bondian submarine base. In northern Ukraine, the Chernobyl nuclear site has been reduced to a radioactive wasteland.

Episode 4 – Costa Rica
Costa Rica is a tiny country jammed with diversity and adventure. George explores the volcanoes of Costa Rica with an international team of scientists, rafts down whitewater rivers in full flood, canyoneers down raging waterfalls, and handles some of deadliest snakes this tropical country has to offer.

Episode 5 – Antarctica
George returns to the “Fin Del Mundo” at the southern tip of Argentina, this time to sail on a Russian icebreaker to Antarctica. After braving the stormy Drake passage, he explores volcanic Deception Island, camps out in the Antarctic snow, and paddles a kayak through icebergs calved off the melting glaciers.


Episode 6 – Arctic Winter
George links up with two experienced polar adventurers to explore the frigid Canadian arctic in the depths of winter. The team first uses skis to cross the fractured sea ice of Frobisher Bay, then dog teams to head north through the spectacular Auyuittuq Mountains.

Episode 7 – Polynesian Volcanoes
Filming the volcanoes, mudpools and geysers in the geothermic wonderland of New Zealand’s north island, we learn that a new island is being created by an undersea volcano 1000 miles north in Tonga. Determined to be among the first to see this “newest land on earth”, we head for the remote island by plane and boat, after various nautical mishaps, George ends up, bedraggled and clad in nothing but underwear and a lifejacket, honored to be one of the very first to explore this brand new island.

Episode 8 – Highway to Hail
George and three side-kicks head straight into the “Bearcage”, looking to get beat up by the biggest, baddest hailstones that Texas and Oklahoma can throw at them. They find it – and their stormchasing vehicles don’t look too pretty after coming through these massive storms.

Episode 9 – Space
We break the bounds of earth, and look at the environment of space. We examine the difficulties and challenges of exploring this most challenging environment.

George experiences some of the extreme training needed for space travel –aboard a Czech-built Albatross fighter jet, the Zero-G plane, and a centrifuge producing 6 G’s of force, and witnesses the launch of a flight to the International Space Station.

Episode 10 – Under Pressure
It’s dark, it’s cold, there is no air to breath and everything is under extreme pressure. George begins his exploration of the deep with a well-preserved shipwreck in the st.lawrence River, then heads west to dive with undersea explorers Chris Harvey-Clark and Phil Nuyyton, and investigate the newly discovered “Black Smoker” deepsea vents. The show climaxes in Curacao, where we dive to 1000 feet aboard Nuyyton’s newest submersible.

Episode 11 – Crystal Cave
In 2000, a remarkable find was made in Chihuahua, Mexico, of a spectacular cave filled with giant crystals, some over 20 meters long. But it is a intensely difficult spot to explore – with temperatures over 50 degrees C and humidity well over 100%. George leads an Explorers Club Flag Expedition into the cave, wearing special refrigerated suits and respirators to battle the extreme environment.

Episode 12 – 2009 Hurricane
The “Angry Planet” team will be tracking storms through the 2009 Hurricane season, and plan to film george as he heads into a big one.

Episode 13 – Turkmenistan
The “Angry Planet” team hopes to film the natural wonders and extreme phenomena of this fascinating Central Asian country, including a spectacularly burning crater of natural gas, underground lakes, sandstorms and remnants of the dinosaurs.