PASADENA, Calif. -- In 2007, Discovery Channel's "Planet Earth" showed off this big, blue marble of a planet while revealing the benefits of watching nature specials shot and telecast in high definition: Vibrant colors and startling detail.

The same production team returns to show off the world's living creatures in even finer close-up in "Life," a BBC co-production premiering Sunday, 8-10 p.m., on Discovery Channel.

Fans of nature programming may be disappointed that Oprah Winfrey has taken over narration duties in this American presentation from British naturalist Sir David Attenborough, who narrated "Life" when it aired in Britain -- it appears the possibility of spiking the ratings with a popular American icon trumps a lifetime of knowledge at Discovery -- but it's not as if Discovery executives have asked Jessica Simpson to narrate.

Besides, it's the visuals that bring life to "Life."

Four years in the making, "Life" will air two episodes every Sunday night through April 18. Sunday's first hour, "Challenges of Life," serves as an overview of the more flora-and-fauna-specific episodes that follow.

Cheetahs hunt together, taking down an ostrich. A panther chameleon devours a praying mantis in extreme close-up. An ibex goat clambers up a cliff side in an attempt to escape a red fox. Stalk-eyed flies extend their eyes, literally "bugging out," to attract a mate ("females love a bug with really long stalks," Ms. Winfrey says).

Additional "Life" episodes include "Reptiles and Amphibians" (9 p.m. Sunday), "Mammals" (8 p.m. March 28), "Fish" (9 p.m. March 28), "Birds" (8 p.m. April 4), "Creatures of the Deep" (9 p.m. April 4), "Hunters and Hunted" (8 p.m. April 11), "Insects" (9 p.m. April 11), "Plants" (8 p.m. April 18), "Primates" (9 p.m. April 18) and "Making of 'Life'" (10 p.m. April 18).

"This series is not about how cheetahs or how elephants or how whales behave," series producer Mike Gunton said at a January press conference. "It's how a particular cheetah, how a particular lion, how a particular humpback whale is behaving at one particular time in its life. That's very important because that gives real drama and real impact."

Mr. Gunton said given the program's potential scope on a planet that contains "somewhere between 10- and 30-million different species," producers' goal was to capture new events.

"We were very keen to show things that people hadn't really seen before," he said. "One of the attractions of these huge great series that the audience has for them is that they're seeing things that surprise them."

To that end, the production used ultra-high-speed cameras that can shoot up to 3,000 frames per second, picking up things the human eye would miss. Shooting in HD also improves visuals.

"I filmed the Vogelkop bowerbird, and one of the concerns was that was in a very thick, deep jungle and it's only really through HD that we could film that and represent the vibrant colors involved in the structure that this bird builds," said producer Stephen Lyle. "We purposely built a blind quite a distance away, covered it in foliage and had this incredibly long lens, which shuts down the amount of light that you can get through the lens, but the HD allows us to do that."

Producers say "Life" includes many caught-on-film firsts, including the bugging-out flies, a spatuletail hummingbird courtship display and a giant starfish devouring a dead giant Pacific octopus.

More than 70 cinematographers shot "Life," using different approaches depending on the situation and wildlife involved.

"If you're filming Komodo dragons, you have one approach working with a very unpredictable, very dangerous animal," Mr. Gunton said. "If you're working with butterflies, you can get much closer."

He said filmmakers often spend time with scientists in advance of filming to learn what to expect from the animals.

"We're very, very careful not to disturb them, they stop doing this behavior, and we are in the business in this particular series of getting just amazing behavior," Mr. Gunton said.

Cinematographer Roger Munns was tasked with filming male humpback whales as they pursued female whales. Because the bubbles from a scuba tank would distract and annoy the whales, Mr. Munns had to take a deep breath and dive underwater to commence filming.

"A female would be far enough ahead and these 10 bull males would be steaming after her with one thing on their mind," he said. "My job was to basically jump in front of that train of humpbacks on a single breath of air, competing with humpbacks that can do the same thing for 20 or 30 minutes. I can do about two minutes.

"I kind of liken it to putting yourself on a freeway with the oncoming traffic and having 10 trucks just steaming toward you," Mr. Munns said, "and you just kind of hope that the drivers of those trucks see you and get out of the way."

"Whilst holding you breath at the same time," Mr. Gunton added.

An animated version of Steelers quarterback Ben Roethlisberger made an appearance on Wednesday's "South Park."

Mr. Roethlisberger, currently facing allegations of sexual assault in Georgia for an incident at a nightclub (and a civil suit over an alleged sexual assault in Nevada), was shown at a meeting for sex addicts in an episode tied to the Tiger Woods sex scandal. Other attendees included President Bill Clinton, actor David Duchovny and late-night talk show host David Letterman.

When elementary school student Butters said he could not stop thinking about a woman's private parts, animated Roethlisberger responded, "I heard that!"

Animated Roethlisberger was shown wearing Steelers' black and gold, the No. 7 and a goatee.

Later in the episode when the sex addiction counselor asked how to avoid getting caught, the animated Roethlisberger said, "Don't [have sex with] girls in the public bathrooms."

Viewers tell me all the time that local TV news "is a joke" and then one of the stations has to go and feed that fury. On Monday, WTAE's 5 p.m. news was the culprit.

Based on phone calls and e-mails, it's obvious that some viewers (mostly men) undress the women of TV news with their eyes. WTAE's Ashlie Hardway played into those fantasies by using her wardrobe as a prop for a report on local college teams in the NCAA tournament.

Ms. Hardway began her stand-up report wearing a WVU sweatshirt and then stripped it off to reveal a Pitt T-shirt underneath.

Just a few minutes later, a tease for a report on a city that is banning use of deodorant -- it turned out to be in Detroit, not local -- left meteorologist Stephen Cropper at a loss for words as the newscast segued from the deodorant ban tease to a weather tease.

"Wow. Hey, outside we're talking about 40s now, 60s around the corner. That caught me by surprise," Mr. Cropper said as braying laughter echoed from others in the studio.

KDKA-TV news anchor Kristine Sorensen is pregnant with her third child. She is due to give birth in early August. Ms. Sorensen is married to KDKA reporter Marty Griffin. ... Verizon's FiOS TV has added local channels, including City Channel Pittsburgh (Channel 44), which includes coverage of City Council and school board meetings; Public Safety Pittsburgh (Channel 45) and independent non-profit public access station PCTV (Channel 47). ... WPXI will broadcast a second "Jobs Summit" special at 7 p.m. Wednesday in an effort to connect local people who need jobs with local companies that are hiring. ... International correspondent Christiane Amanpour will leave CNN to become the new anchor of ABC's "This Week" beginning in August. ... FX's "Justified" premiered to strong ratings Tuesday, drawing 4.1 million viewers, which makes it the second-highest-rated series premiere in the network's history behind "The Shield." ... Syfy will revisit West Virginia-set, Western Pennsylvania-lensed "The Mothman Prophecies" with the TV movie "Mothman" (9 p.m. April 24) starring Jewel Staite ("Firefly"). ... C-SPAN has made a library of 160,000 hours of free, searchable video available to the public at c-span.org/videolibrary.

In today's online TV Q&A, there are responses to questions about "NUMB3RS," "Defying Gravity" and "Ugly Betty." Tuned In Journal includes posts on "Justified," "FlashForward" and "The John McIntire Show." Read online TV content at post-gazette.com/tv.

In this week's Tuned In podcast, includes conversation about "Justified," new seasons of "Nurse Jackie" and "United States of Tara" and "Damages." Listen or subscribe at post-gazette.com/podcast.

TV columnist Rob Owen's Tuned In+ is featured exclusively on PG+, a members-only web site from the Pittsburgh Post-Gazette. Our introduction to PG+ gives you all the details.