“Expedition: Saving Our Seas” Coming Soon To National Geographic, Hulu & Disney+
Disney has announced details about a brand-new one-hour National Geographic special, “Expedition: Saving Our Seas”, which is coming soon to the National Geographic linear channel, as well as streaming on Disney+ and Hulu.
The new documentary highlights the National Geographic and Rolex Perpetual Planet Ocean Expeditions, a multiyear, trailblazing scientific research and storytelling transect covering all five Ocean basins to document the impact of rapid environmental change. The documentary follows teams of National Geographic Explorers as they investigate our global Ocean, from seashore to seafloor and pole to pole. Combining cutting-edge technology with the knowledge of coastal communities, they chase the discoveries and solutions needed to protect our Oceans at a critical moment.
Observing the Ocean’s depths nearly 13,000 feet below the surface through the remotely operated vehicle SuBastian aboard the Schmidt Ocean Institute’s research vessel Falkor (too), a cohort of Explorers in the Southern Ocean, including oceanographer Dr. Andrew Thurber, biological oceanographer Dr. Kim Bernard and microbial oceanographer Dr. Allison Fong, surveys the basin’s depths and its icy surface. The team surfaces three first-time discoveries: the most southerly deep-sea hydrothermal vent known on the planet, swarms of egg-carrying Antarctic krill at a depth of 3,000 feet, and the first-known live sighting of a giant Antarctic gonate squid.
Tracking blue whales and their krill prey, Dr. Bernard returns alongside Explorer and marine ecologist Dr. Leigh Torres and the local Māori community to canvas New Zealand’s South Taranaki Bight, while fellow Explorer Dr. Anya Brown stress-tests coral for heat tolerance in the Cook Islands. Both teams are racing to understand how rising temperatures are reshaping Pacific Ocean ecosystems. “If we lose them, we’re going to care a lot,” says Brown. “So, we need to care now.”
More than 10,000 feet below the Indian Ocean’s surface, the first deep-sea scientist from the Seychelles, Explorer Sheena Talma, and her Seychellois team train on deep-ocean camera lander systems off the coast of South Africa. They will deploy similar landers in the Seychelles to gather data to support fisheries and marine protected area management and strengthen Seychellois capacity to monitor the country’s deep-ocean habitats.
Nearly half a million people live along a stretch of the Gambian coastline threatened by the rising seas of the Atlantic Ocean. Leading coastal researcher, marine ecologist and Explorer Maiyai Taal Hocheimy trains local students to measure Ocean depth and currents and works with Explorer Dr. Angelo Bernardino to map and assess the mangrove forests standing between the capital, Banjul, and the encroaching water.
In the Arctic Ocean, warming at four times the rate as the rest of the planet, marine biogeochemist Dr. Kristina Brown is invited by the Inuit community of Gjoa Haven, Nunavut, to conduct the first-known scientific study of a secluded marine bay called the Sherman Basin, working in partnership with Inuk elder Saul Aksalook Qirqniq (ᐊᒃᓴᓗᒃ) and community members to chart a seafloor no one has ever seen.
Tying the expeditions together, deep-ocean scientist Dr. Katy Croff Bell, founder of the Ocean Discovery League, is developing a Deep Ocean Research and Imaging System (DORIS), a lightweight, low-cost device designed to open up deep-sea exploration to communities that have not previously had access to their deep-ocean waters. “We’ve only seen about 0.001% of the deep Ocean, which covers about two-thirds of our planet,” says Bell. “Just imagine what we’re going to find in the other 99.999%.”
“Expedition: Saving Our Seas” is presented by the National Geographic Society in partnership with Rolex and produced by Offspring Films for National Geographic. The special is part of the National Geographic and Rolex Perpetual Planet Ocean Expeditions, a multiyear initiative focused on Ocean exploration and research. Directed by Katharine Arthy. Executive produced by Sam Hodgson for Offspring Films, Vanessa Serrao and Kaitlin Yarnall for National Geographic Society, and Tracy Rudolph Jackson for National Geographic. It is narrated by ocean conservationist Auliʻi Cravalho (“Moana”).
The special premieres Friday 13th November 2027, at 9 p.m. EST on the National Geographic linear channel, and it will stream the next day on Disney+ and Hulu.
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