Angry Planet

Early September of 2008 saw radical imagery on the hurricane maps of the Atlantic. "Angry Planet" was there as three of them made landfall as hurricanes in the US. He and his team filmed Gustav 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.

Possibly the home of the deadly Marburg virus, Kitum Cave is high on Mount 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.

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 Bond-ish submarine base. In northern Ukraine, the Chernobyl nuclear site is still a radioactive wasteland.

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 white water rivers in full flood, rappels down raging waterfalls, and handles some of deadliest snakes this tropical country has to offer.

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.

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.

Filming the volcanoes, mud pools and geysers in the geothermic wonderland of New Zealand's north island, George learns 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", he heads for the remote island and end up clad in nothing but underwear and a lifejacket.

George and his storm chase team head straight into the "bears' cage", looking to get beat up by the biggest, baddest hailstones that Texas and Oklahoma can throw at them. They find it - and their storm chasing vehicles don't look too pretty after coming through these massive storms.

We break the bounds of earth, looking up in the sky and high into space. George experiences extremes of aviation and space training-aboard a Czech-built Albatross fighter jet, on a tiny hang glider, inside the Zero-G plane, simulating zero gravity by diving from 30,000 feet in giant parabolas, and in stomach-churning spinning centrifuges producing 6 G's of force.

George's exploration of the undersea world begins on a submarine in Grand Cayman Island. He then is one of the first civilians to be taken to deep pressure inside the Canadian Armed Forces' experimental diving unit, then heads west to dive with undersea explorers Chris Harvey-Clark and Phil Nuyyton and to investigate the newly discovered "Black Smoker" deep sea vents.

In 2000, a remarkable find was made in Chihuahua, Mexico, of a spectacular cave filled with giant crystals, some over 12 meters long. But it is a intensely difficult spot to explore - with temperatures over 50 degrees C and humidity approaching 100%. George leads an Explorers Club Flag Expedition into the cave, wearing special refrigerated suits and respirators to battle the extreme environment.

Methane gas rising from the huge Catatumbo swamps of Venezuela mixing with cold air from the Andes creates an almost perpetual lightning storm over South America's largest lake. George explores this unique phenomenon, takes an 84 km ride in a dugout canoe to visit the world's highest waterfall, swims with piranhas and pulls a 5 meter long Anaconda from the jungle.