Alec Baldwin Hosts Discovery's 'Frozen Planet'

It may not be the most sensationalistic programming around, but the seven-part hi-definition series, Frozen Planet, narrated by Alec Baldwin and made by BBC, which also brought you Planet Earth, is the water cooler talk of a more discerning television-watching crowd.

Frozen Planet is a project that was four years in the making, and it offers "the ultimate portrait of our earth's polar regions, where the scale and beauty of the scenery — and sheer power of the natural elements — are unlike anywhere else on the planet," reports TV Line.

The documentary follows the lives and survival strategies of everything from penguins to orca killer whales in the Arctic and Antarctic regions, pointing out that more than a third of our world is covered in ice. Some of these icebergs are bigger than the island of Manhattan, and they can make survival for the animals who call them home a real challenge.

Sunday night's installment saw the heartbreaking death of a polar bear's youngest cub to starvation, and the precarious situation of the rest of the family members, who continue to search for food. Lighter moments showed male penguins furtively stealing stones from one another to make pebble nests for their young, and massive orca whales synchronizing their swimming in order to knock a seal off his ice cap with the resulting waves.

Catch the remaining installments of the seven-part series Sunday nights at 8 p.m. on Discovery.

Watch the killer whales here: