YMMV / Planet Earth: Dynasties

• Tear Jerker:
  • Sienna, one of two adults left in her pride, has an unfortunate existence. Less than 10 minutes in, she's seriously injured by an unknown animal during a night hunting alone. She spends the next several weeks barely surviving off of scraps before she returns home. Soon afterwards, it's assumed she ate poisoned meat and died off-screen.
  • Charm is forced to abandon her 1-year old cub because he's too weak after being poisoned by farmers. She visits him the next day but leaves him to die because she must put the others before him. All the while. Charm keeps on stopping to stare at her dying son.
    • In the behind-the-scenes, it is revealed that the camera crew also tried to save the young lion but unfortunately by the time they got a vet to him it was already too late to save him.
  • In the emperor penguin episode, a group of penguins become trapped in an ice ravine. Some manage to escape - but only by abandoning any chicks with them. Fortunately this one has a happy ending behind the scenes: after some discussion the crew went in to cut ridges into the ice so the trapped penguins could climb out more easily.