Arrow Media Mars mission doc fronted by Brian Cox to land on BBC Two

Brian Cox presents Arrow Media and Nasa’s Seven Days on Mars

UK pubcaster BBC Two has ordered a feature-length documentary featuring Professor Brian Cox about Nasa’s latest mission to Mars.

Produced by factual indie Arrow Media in conjunction with Nasa, Seven Days on Mars (1×90’) sees the scientist and presenter go behind the scenes at Nasa’s Jet Propulsion Laboratory where he witnesses the workings of the Mars 2020 rover mission.

Nasa’s Perseverance rover and Ingenuity helicopter landed on Mars in 2021 on a mission to discover if there was ever life on the planet.

Ash Potterton

As well as the 90-minute special for the BBC, Arrow Media will also produce a 60-minute version of the documentary with no presenter. Fremantle will distribute both versions internationally.

Exec producing are Arrow Media’s co-founder and creative director Tom Brisley and exec producer Ash Potterton. Michael Lachmann directs.

Cox said: “The nature of origin of life is one of the great unanswered scientific questions. Here on Earth, life was present around 3.8 billion years ago, but the evidence for how it arose has been weathered away and erased by the geological activity of our planet. Mars, however, is a different story. It was decidedly Earth-like at the same time, with rain, rivers and lakes, but it soon entered a geological deep-freeze from which it never emerged.

“If there were martians, the evidence for their emergence from the geology and chemistry of a young, active world may be far better preserved. The Perseverance rover, and the Mars Sample Return missions to follow, may therefore answer a deeper question even than ‘Is there life on Mars?’ They may reveal how life begins across the universe, including here on Earth, and give us unique insight into our own origins.”