UK’s Channel 4 unveils natural history, true crime shows for 2020

Walking With Elephants

Channel 4 in the UK has unveiled a raft of new shows for 2020, with a focus on wildlife and true crime programming that includes a three-parter featuring adventurer Levison Wood.

Walking With Elephants is produced by October Films and will follow Wood (Walking The Nile) as he tracks the movements of elephants on their annual migration across Botswana.

The show will see Wood trek through all terrains as he keeps pace with the giant creatures along a journey of 650 miles, avoiding both natural and man made threats such as poachers. Series producer is Alexis Girardet and executive producer is October Films MD Adam Bullmore.

Also on the slate is 90-minute documentary Unexplained (working title), which is from Keo Films and explores the unexplained death of Stuart Lubbock, whose body was found in the swimming pool of UK TV presenter Michael Barrymore.

Natural history show Living Wild is an eight-parter set in Kenyan wildlife reserve Ol Pejeta, while CJZ’s Falconio: An Outback Murder (working title) will explore the kidnapping of UK tourist Joanne Lees in the Australian outback in 2001 and the murder of her partner, Peter Falconio.

Other additions include The Segregation Experiment (working title, a two-parter that sees pupils taking part in games, exercises and activities that will challenge everything they thought they knew about race.

The UK broadcaster has also picked up exclusive rights to shows including Warner Bros. Television Group’s Batwoman, adult animated series Harley Quinn and Supernatural for its E4 service.

C4’s director of programmes, Ian Katz, said the slate had been “built around our three priorities of noise, scale and fun, and I hope it will make people think and laugh in equal measure.”