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[Tom Hiddleston] The night.

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A shadowy world that hides more than half the animals on our planet.

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Until now, cameras only offered a glimpse into their lives.

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But with next-generation technology,

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we can see the night as clear as day.

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With cameras a hundred times more sensitive than the human eye...

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we can now capture the beauty of night...

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in color.

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Alien landscapes.

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Strange creatures brought to life by the darkness.

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Unseen behaviors.

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Now we can follow the lives of animals

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in Earth's last true wilderness.

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The night.

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Winter in the Arctic.

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By day, the sun barely rises.

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And soon it will set.

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Plunging this frozen world into darkness for over a month.

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And for one arctic resident, it's a time of great change.

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This polar bear mother has twins.

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She'll look after them for two years,

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teaching them all the skills they'll need to survive.

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They follow her everywhere.

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No easy task.

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There's lots to learn.

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At the start of winter, there's so little food around,

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polar bear moms can lose a kilo of weight each day.

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Weak and hungry,

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just keeping her cubs safe through the freezing nights ahead

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will be her greatest challenge.

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And this family is not alone.

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Along the Arctic coastline, other hungry bears are gathering.

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Waiting for the temperature to drop so low

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that even the sea will freeze solid.

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Then they'll head out onto the sea ice to hunt for seals,

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a vital source of food for these ravenous bears.

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But until the big freeze comes,

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the mother and her cubs,

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and all the other bears, must play a waiting game.

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[growls]

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As the arctic winter draws in...

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the nights get longer.

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And this frozen landscape transforms.

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Filming just by the light of the moon...

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low light cameras capture this icy world

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like never before.

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Offering an intimate glimpse

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of what polar bears get up to under the stars.

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Tonight, the mother's first job is to suckle her hungry cubs.

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[cub grunting]

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Her milk is more than 30% fat...

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helping the cubs develop the thick blubber they'll need to survive the winter.

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Next, it's time for a midnight clean.

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Rolling in the snow is how polar bears wash their thick fur.

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[bear snorts]

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The cubs copy their mom.

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[bear grunts]

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A regular snow bath keeps their coats well insulated.

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And tonight, they'll need all the warmth they can get.

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[wind gusting]

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In the arctic winter,

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storms can strike with little warning.

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And for young cubs, these blizzards can prove fatal.

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-[wind gusting, whistling] -[bear growls]

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But polar bears aren't the only animals

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that are active through the freezing winter nights.

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In snowy forests on the edge of the Arctic Circle,

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an equally tough little creature emerges in the moonlight.

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The mountain hare.

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To avoid predators, they only come out after dark.

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By the start of winter, their coat has changed from brown to white.

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The perfect camouflage.

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This young male is having a midnight snack.

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With limited food around, he must feed while he can.

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But he's not the only hungry hare here.

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Rivals must be seen off.

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Competition for food and mates can be fierce.

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Their chasing can hit speeds of 40 kilometers an hour.

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But when his rival won't back down...

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the gloves really come off.

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Few punches hit the target.

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It's all about who looks the toughest.

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Tonight, he emerges victorious.

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Giving this nocturnal champion

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the best chance of getting through the long winter nights ahead.

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Back on the coastline,

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the polar bear mother and her cubs hunker down

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as the temperatures plummet.

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During winter nights, polar cyclones blow in off the ocean

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with a wind chill of minus 50 degrees Celsius.

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[winds gusting, whistling]

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Polar bear cubs are vulnerable to the severe cold.

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Only one in two make it through their first winter.

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But night cameras show the mother has an ingenious solution.

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-[paws scrape] -[bear grunts]

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She digs.

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Slowly carving out a shelter

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for her cubs to take refuge from the storm.

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[winds gusting]

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Polar bear families can spend up to four nights

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holed up in dens like this.

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It's the only way mothers can keep their precious youngsters alive.

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[mother bear grunts]

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The family must lie low...

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until the blizzard has passed.

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[wind gusts fade]

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The storm subsides.

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And the family emerge to find the winds have brought great change.

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Where once there was ocean,

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now there's ice.

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As far as the eye can see.

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The mother leads her cubs towards the sea ice for the first time.

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To start the next chapter of their lives.

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In the weeks ahead,

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she'll teach them how to survive this frozen landscape

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through the long arctic winter.

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But she's not the only polar bear mother

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exploring this frozen landscape in the darkness.

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Far out on the sea ice,

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another mom has bigger parenting challenges.

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[growls]

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At four years old, her youngsters are nearly fully grown.

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Mischievous teenagers.

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[growls]

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Low light cameras catch something unusual.

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The cubs taking a nighttime dip.

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They're already excellent swimmers.

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But at this age, the hardest part is learning how to get out.

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The first cub has got the hang of it.

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But for his brother...

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it's more of a challenge.

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[bear grunts]

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Finally.

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[snorts]

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At least no one was watching.

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Even with such big cubs, the mother must be on her guard.

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At four years old, they're testing their boundaries.

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And with large males around, that can be dangerous.

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She'll have to keep them close in the nights ahead.

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Throughout the long, dark winter,

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the night skies over this frozen world

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become the backdrop for Earth's most magical light display.

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The aurora borealis.

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Energy from solar storms

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colliding with our atmosphere to make ribbons of light...

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more than a hundred kilometers high.

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They blaze both night and day.

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But we can only see them against the dark night sky.

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By late winter,

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the darkness starts to give up its hold.

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And the sun rises briefly above the horizon

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for the first time in weeks.

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In the first hours of twilight,

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the mother and her older cubs arrive in a frozen glacial bay.

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Whilst mom heads off to hunt for seals...

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the four-year-olds are free to play.

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[growls]

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But not for long.

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A lone bear is also in the bay.

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Solitary polar bears can be highly aggressive.

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But the cubs are curious.

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Approaching a stranger is risky.

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[bear snorts]

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A fight could lead to serious injury.

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[growls, roars]

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[growls]

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But then, what seemed like aggression...

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suddenly becomes more playful.

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It turns out the stranger is a young female.

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And this is all a romantic play fight.

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Polar bear rough-and-tumble.

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Such tender social behavior has rarely been seen before.

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With her cubs rapidly growing up,

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this mother's work is almost done.

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She's devoted the last four years of her life to looking after them.

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In the coming days, her boisterous cubs will leave her.

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And next year, these young bears

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will face the long, dark nights of winter on their own.

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-Ready? -[man] Yeah.

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[Tom Hiddleston] Filming polar bears at night would test the crew to their limits.

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And when a polar storm struck on night one,

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they got a sense of the challenges they'd face

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in the dark weeks ahead.

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[man] It's about minus 30 out here at the moment.

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And, uh, I think we're finding the limits

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of what the cameras and equipment can, uh, put up with.

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So, we've got a long ride home in this.

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[Tom Hiddleston] With the storm chasing them all the way,

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they had to rely on their GPS to find their way back to shelter.

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The next night, and the search for bears was hijacked

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by arctic conditions once more.

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[Trowell] Ready!

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[engine revs]

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Currently stuck in the ice. All this is surface water.

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[Tom Hiddleston] Where fresh water runs off the land and onto the sea ice,

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it can melt, turning it to slush.

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The crew became trapped.

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Every move sank them deeper, closer to the ocean beneath.

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[man yells]

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[Trowell] This is definitely the hardest shoot I've been on.

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Just bad weather and no polar bears.

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[Tom Hiddleston] And things were about to get worse.

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Overnight, the sea ice, which the bears need to hunt on,

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suddenly sheared off and disappeared.

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Blown away, far from the shore, taking the polar bears with it.

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Even in the frozen depths of winter,

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the sea ice here is shrinking.

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A change in climate is making the future for polar bears uncertain.

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Three weeks into filming,

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the crew needed a change of luck.

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And there was the smallest glimmer of hope in the unlikeliest of places.

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[man 2] Well, we've gone looking for the bears today,

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but looks like a bear's come looking for us.

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And made a beeline for our toilet.

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[Trowell] Wow. You can actually see teeth marks

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and the claw marks where the bear's been.

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Could be a nasty surprise while you're on the toilet.

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[Tom Hiddleston] The next night, they caught the culprit red-handed.

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Luckily, it was unoccupied at the time.

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With bears about, things were finally looking up for the crew.

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And soon, their immense efforts were rewarded.

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[man 2] Day 20, and we finally got bears.

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And not just one bear.

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Got a mother and two cubs.

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Finally.

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[crew laughs, chattering]

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[Trowell] Oh, my God. They look beautiful, man.

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[Tom Hiddleston] After many arctic adventures,

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the crew were finally able to capture unique footage

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of polar bears under moonlight.

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And reveal the secrets of the arctic night like never before.