He tries to communicate with one, but a sonic ping interrupts the conversation and scares off the animal, and he is knocked out by a mysterious creature. Leo goes to the mountain ranges and finds a herd of Unths engaged in rutting-like behavior.Īfterward, Leo finds a pair of Bladderhorns engaging in combat. Before his research is finished, a massive hurricane-like storm hits and Ike must take to the sky, launching weather balloons. Ike’s voyage takes him to one of Darwin IV’s pocket forests, where he encounters a flock of Trunk Suckers and their predator, the Daggerwrist.

Later that night, the twins find the wreckage of Balboa and are forced to split up, Ike studying the unique plant life and Leo going after big game.

The two probes are also equipped with a holographic message that will be projected to any sentient life found on Darwin.Īfter the two probes inflate their gas-bags, they encounter a voracious Arrowtongue and watch it pursue a Gyrosprinter. The probes are programmed with different personalities Ike is more cautious, while Leo is the risk-taker. All the real thinking is done by a supercomputer in the orbiting Von Braun. The probes have a limited degree of artificial intelligence, very similar to the ‘processing power’ of a 4-year-old. Each Horus probe consists of an 8-foot (2.4 m) high, 40-foot (12 m) long inflatable, hydrogen-filled balloon, which is covered with solar receptors, a computer ‘brain’, a ‘head’ covered with sensors, and several smaller robots that can be sent to places too dangerous for the probes themselves. The robotic probes sent out to research on Darwin IV are called Horus Probes.

Two backup probes, Leonardo da Vinci (nicknamed Leo) and Isaac Newton (nicknamed Ike), successfully land on the planet, and learn much about its bizarre indigenous lifeforms, including an apparently sapient species. The first probe, Balboa, explodes along with its lifting body transport during entry, because one of its wings failed to unfold. Upon reaching orbit, it deploys the Darwin Reconnaissance Orbiter, which looks for potential landing sites for the probes.

Traveling at 20% the speed of light (37,000 miles/s), it reaches Darwin IV in 42 years. The show was filmed in Iceland and Mono Lake in California.Īlien Planet starts out with an interstellar spacecraft named Von Braun, leaving Earth’s orbit. The show uses computer-generated imagery, which is interspersed with interviews from such notables as Stephen Hawking, George Lucas, Michio Kaku and Jack Horner. It was based on the book Expedition, by sci-fi/fantasy artist and writer Wayne Douglas Barlowe, who was also executive producer on the special. Alien Planet is a 94-minute docufiction, originally airing on the Discovery Channel, about two internationally built robot probes searching for alien life on the fictional planet Darwin IV.

Voyage to darwin iv