A breathtaking dive into troubled waters

It's a heartbreaking irony-one not lost on Sir David Attenborough - that in his long lifetime scientists' understanding of the natural world has increased dramatically while nature has suffered devastating losses over the same period.

- Emma Robertshaw

Meanwhile, our appetite for Attenborough's powerful storytelling is as insatiable as ever and his remarkable new film and book make a formidable case for change.

These creative endeavours are reflections of a life told through the lens of nearly a century of marine discovery, destruction and glimpses of recovery. The book of Ocean - co-written with Colin Butfield, one of the documentary's directors contains different stories to the film but shares the message of hope.

Parallels are drawn with the 90-year lifetime of a blue whale (a little shorter than Attenborough's, 99 last week); it's a handy device to chart the magnitude of change over this period. The longevity of this magnificent creature is strikingly set against the backdrop of historic events. We become immersed in a whale's-eye view of the world as the largest animal on the planet moves mesmerisingly through a vast expanse of currents in search of krill, its tiny prey. Everything about it is huge and we are in awe as it swallows 80,000 litres of krill and water in one gulp; but the damage caused by humans to the ocean inevitably raises a question over the future of this and countless other species.