Speaking to the RTS All Party Parliamentary Group in the House of Commons the veteran natural history broadcaster said that today’s BBC commissioners were reluctant to back lengthy documentaries dealing with serious topics.

“One of the things which BBC Two did very well was to make serious programmes on serious subjects – 13 part series. That requires three years. There’s a great reluctance elsewhere to do those sorts of programmes…

“Today there is a tendency to do shorter series” He added to audience laughter: “’Today we present a new two-part series.’”

The schedule includes BBC One's Attenborough And The Giant Sea Dragon, a one-off special exploring Britain's Jurassic Coast and the recent discovery of gigantic fossils embedded in a cliff face.

Natural history icon Sir David Attenborough will use the latest scanning techniques and 3D imaging to bring back to life the ichthyosaur, and reveal more about the ocean predator's way of life.

Monday

Sarah Beeny’s Four Rooms

More 4, 9pm

RTS award-winning Four Rooms is back with a new host, Sarah Beeny. A cross between Antiques Roadshow and Dragons' Den, the programme sees members of the public try and sell their prized items to stone-faced dealers for a good price.

Monday

Posh Neighbours at War

Channel 4

7.30pm

Quite aside from having a title to die for, the documentary offers an insight into some of the most vicious spates between neighbours in some of the most expensive parts of the country.

In parts of London where properties can cost tens of millions of pounds, the residents are unsurprisingly a bit on edge about noisy neighbours and their property.

Monday

Flowers

Channel 4

10pm

From writer/director Will Sharpe and starring Olivia Colman (Broadchurch) and Julian Barratt (The Mighty Boosh), the eccentric Flowers family are undergoing something of a meltdown. 

Maurice (Barratt) is a children's author, while his wife Deborah (Colman) is a trombone teacher. Both are dealing with their own demons, and are quietly helpless as their marriage falls apart. 

The six-part series comes ten years after Planet Earth redefined history filmmaking.

It will use state-of-the-art technology to help tell the story of our natural world, visiting jungles, deserts, grasslands and cities, and look at how animals survive within them.

Speaking about the new series, Attenborough, who this year celebrates his ninetieth birthday, said: “I am very excited to once again be working with the Natural History Unit on its latest landmark series and am especially looking forward to getting out on location in the next month or so.”

Scott, the son of Antarctic explorer Captain Scott, presented the BBC’s first ever natural history programme live from his studio lounge in Slimbridge, Gloucestershire in Mary 1953.

Today Slimbridge is a centre for science and conservation, and was opened to the public by Scott in 1946 to allow people to get closer to nature and promote the conservation of Britain’s wetlands and wildlife.

Monday

Nature’s Wonderlands: Islands of Evolution 

BBC Four 

9pm

Professor Richard Fortey takes a closer look at the life cycle of islands to find out why they are natural laboratories of evolution.

Monday

Tracey Ullman’s Show

BBC One

10.45pm

Comedian Tracey Ullman returns to the BBC for the first time in thirty years with a new sketch show.