A generation ago, Jacques-Yves Cousteau revealed the oceans' mysteries to millions of landlocked PBS television viewers, and inspired a groundswell of public awareness of the unique problems faced by the world's marine environments. Now, 30 years later, KQED Public Broadcasting and Ocean Futures Society, headed by Jacques' son Jean-Michel, will bring the Cousteau legacy back to PBS with Jean-Michel Cousteau: Ocean Adventures, a six-part HDTV series premiering in April with the film Voyage to Kure, narrated by Pierce Brosnan.
Voyage to Kure will air nationally in prime-time on PBS for two consecutive Wednesdays in April, on Wednesday April 5 at 8pm and on Wednesday April 12 at 8pm (each episode is 60 minutes). In this ground-breaking exploration, the Cousteau team sets sail to the Northwestern Hawaiian Island Archipelago, the most remote island group in the world. There, they discover diverse wildlife populations above and below the sea and investigate these species' fight against extinction and the devastating effects of pollution, mining, fishing and development.
Using state-of-the-art technology and accompanied by marine scientists and ecologists, Peabody and Emmy Award-winning Jean-Michel Cousteau and his acclaimed diving teams will explore a thrilling array of natural phenomena, investigate little known territories and ecosystems hundreds of feet beneath the ocean's surface, and come face to face with the friendly and ferocious inhabitants of the deep in each episode of Ocean Adventures.
"We know more about the 'dead seas' of Mars than our own ocean," said Jean-Michel Cousteau. "In this series, we are charting a course of human adventure and discovery of our real life support system -- our planet's ocean."
"PBS' commitment to quality marine science and ecology programming was inspired by the prescient explorations of Jacques Cousteau," said John Wilson, Sr. Vice President, PBS Programming. "Now our viewers will be able to take the next, great journey into this realm with his son, Jean-Michael, and this unprecedented series."
Consistent with the Cousteau hallmarks of exploration and conservation, Ocean Adventures will share with television viewers the largely inaccessible, dangerous and spectacular locales across the globe. Through Jean-Michel's observations, the series will illuminate the great need for better understanding and sustainable management of the oceans' rich natural treasures.
Additional programs in the first season of Ocean Adventures are:
• The Gray Whale Obstacle Course (1 at 60 minutes). The Cousteau team follows gray whales, unchanged for 600,000 years and under constant threat of extinction, from the nursery lagoons of Baja California north to frigid feeding grounds in the Bering Sea -- through the longest and most polluted migration routes of any whale species.
• Sharks: At Risk (1 at 60 minutes). Long feared as an object of terror, sharks are gaining a new reputation due to unprecedented observation -- yet their numbers are quickly dwindling due to the actions of humans. To better understand shark behavior and the impact their reputation has had on their survival, the Cousteau team observes gray sharks in French Polynesia and great white sharks in South African -- unprotected by a shark cage.
• America's Underwater Treasures (2 at 60 minutes -- Part I and Part II). This two-part installment will bring viewers to the rarely visited underwater parks that constitute the National Marine Sanctuary System -- a diverse and uniquely American group of ecosystems which promises to inspire an ethic of ocean preservation that will translate far beyond any national borders.
Explorer, environmentalist, educator and film producer -- for more than four decades Jean-Michel Cousteau has searched the world to document the pristine and perilous places of the ocean. Son of renowned ocean pioneer Jacques Cousteau, Jean-Michel grew up aboard the Calypso and Alcyone. As the founder and president of Ocean Futures Society, he travels the globe meeting with world leaders, businesses, educators and children as a "voice for the ocean" and our planet's most significant ambassador of the water environment.
Jean-Michel Cousteau: Ocean Adventures is produced by KQED Public Broadcasting and Ocean Futures Society. The exclusive corporate sponsor is Dow Chemical Company
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Preserve Hawaii. The indigenous plants and animals of Hawaii have the highest rate of extinction of all the tropical ecosystems on earth. Of the 2,400 native plant species remaining, almost half are endangered.
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