Ten years ago, we were graced with the BBC series Planet Earth. The network has blessed us with the series’ return in Planet Earth II. (Seven episodes each, almost 10 years apart, seems about the perfect pacing for BBC shows, as Tahani jokes on The Good Place.) The filming technology has gotten better, our televisions better, and our world hasn’t gotten any less expansive or interesting. Come for David Attenborough’s steady British voice and the stunning visuals. Stay for the soaring music and the drama.

The seven-part documentary started Saturday night on BBC America (Britain saw the series last November), with simulcasts on AMC and Sundance. The first episode, “Islands,” opened with the tale of a pygmy sloth in search of a mate on an island surrounded by crystal blue waters. Sloths are a top 10 internet animal, made popular by Kristen Bell absolutely losing it when her husband gifted her a visit from one. So this felt a bit like audience pandering. To which I say: pander away, BBC, pander away.

Alas, because of the unflinching realness of Planet Earth, we know that the pandering is a brief respite, as danger is never too far away in our natural world.

After cute fuzzy sloths, we are taken to Komodo to visit the dragons which inhabit that island, as two large males battle it out for the attention of a female. Three meters long, Attenborough tells us, and 70 kilos (that’s a 150+ pounds, my non-metric friends), they have existed on the island of Komodo for 4 million years. Time for your existential crisis: literally nothing we do or have ever done will matter. We are but specs of dust in the blink of an eye. Sleep well! (Four million years!)

We get a glimpse on the way back from one commercial break on how they filmed these aggressive predators (which are also venomous, because why not?), which is another marvel of the Planet Earth series: wondering how the hell they get the shot. As with the previous series, being given insight into how they do it will make you fear for the safety and admire the sheer audacity of nature photographers. In this case, they push the 150-pound beasts away with a pronged stick. Okay, then! That seems sound! (Phil Bronstein wishes he had one when he visited the L.A. Zoo all those years ago.)

“Islands” zig-zags across the globe, from the Seychelles and Madagascar to Escudo in Panama and Christmas Island in Australia. In a world where humans are increasingly connected and the planet can feel small, we are reminded of its vastness as we see such varied species in each unique environment, all still islands, all over our planet. We get to see all that is going on around us that has nothing to do with us and living our lives, the natural world that so few of us get a chance to see or pay much attention to. It is breathtaking.

While the internet was given an early peek of the marine iguana versus the racer snakes, in a video that quickly went viral, it is somehow even more compelling when lengthened in the episode, the life and death drama drawn out. While one iguana escapes, unscathed, one does not. Which is a reminder that this is not a series for the faint of heart. Some animals live and some animals die, and we can all go sing “Circle of Life” afterward, but because Planet Earth draws you into the drama by anthropomorphizing the animals in a way, calling them “he” or “she,” discussing family dynamics among groups, you will feel the losses.

More than the iguanas and snakes, I was struck by the story of the pisonia tree, which has evolved too well and has been nicknamed the bird catcher tree, weighing down, and causing the death of, fledgling birds with its sticky, barbed seeds. The story of the small bird ends with a beautiful bright score and Attenborough with the explicit, but not pandering, lesson of that circle of life: that the fledglings will now fertilize the tree.

What wasn’t discussed in the last series was man’s influence on the physical world. Although global warming was mentioned in the original Planet Earth, there was no plea to stop it or even discussion that it is a man-made issue. In “Islands,” however, where the famous red crab population is being destroyed by ants, the show states that the problem started with man bringing the ants to the island and now it is man’s job to stop it.

A later episode will deal even more explicitly with man’s encroachment on animals, and any symbiosis that may exist, in an episode titled “Cities.” Given the brilliant score, Attenborough narration, and happy ending of “Islands” with the story of a father penguin returning against much adversity to feed his small family, I can hardly wait to see what we will learn about ourselves and our planet in “Cities,” and in the five episodes between now and then.

Planet Earth II‘s first episode, “Islands,” replays Thursday night at 9 p.m. And can also be viewed online at the BBC America website and app.