Stream It: The Twelve

The Twelve continues Thursday 18 April at 9pm on ITV1 and ITVX..

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Having honed their survival strategies over millennia, mammals have evolved to be masters of the cold. In this episode, we journey across the globe, exploring a frozen world, from icy seas to snow-capped mountains and meet the unique mammals that call them home. For most, the cold is a killer. But for mammals, with their unique physical traits like warm thick fur and rich nourishing milk, and remarkable behaviours like hibernation, conquering the cold is possible.

We begin our journey on the Arctic islands of Svalbard, where polar bears, synonymous with this cold archipelago, dominate this remote frozen world. But as their world warms, and the frozen seas that are their hunting grounds disappear, they are being forced to find new sources of food. For the first time, we follow a polar bear hunting on land as it heads high up into the mountains in a rarely seen long-distance pursuit of Svalbard’s reindeer.

Mammals have been forced to adapt to the cold for millions of years. Whereas other species avoided the series of thick ice sheets that once covered a quarter of all land, mammals were able to survive the freezing conditions, and by adapting their behaviour, many are now completely at home in these inhospitable lands.

One land that has little changed since the last ice age is the tundra of northern Alaska. In this remote, hostile landscape, a mythical and rarely seen mammal endures: the wolverine. They rely completely on snow to survive, providing them meat from animals that have succumbed to the cold and dens in which to raise their young. Whilst other animals either flee or hibernate to avoid the coldest time of year, they stay active all winter, traversing the vast landscape in search of food. This privileged view reveals a surprisingly caring side of a highly elusive animal.

Knowledge can play a huge role in surviving the cold. Rather than roaming huge distances, some smart mammals will return annually to places they know will provide them with food. In Canada’s northern Yukon, a unique community of bears has been passing knowledge down the generations of a special ice-free river. While most bears are already hibernating, this late flowing river allows chum salmon to spawn into the winter months, giving the bears an opportunity for one last feast before hibernation that they simply cannot resist.

Mammals’ ability to hibernate is a clever way to avoid winter, and deep underground in an abandoned mine, little and big brown bats are well into their hibernation. But not all stay asleep. One sneaky bat wakes in order to mate while the rest of the colony sleeps on.

Bringing newborns into a world of snow and ice has many challenges, but mammals’ unique ability to produce fat-rich milk allows harp seal mothers to have one of the shortest weening periods of all. In just 12 days, off the coast of Greenland, they race to fatten their pups to independence as the icy nursery melts around them.

Far above sea level, the remote Kluane Mountains of North America support the largest ice field outside the poles. In this rugged landscape of rock and ice, pika, a relative of the rabbit, patiently wait for summer. Having stayed awake all winter, surviving on food they collected last year, once summer does return, they will all have just a few weeks to harvest nearly a year’s worth of food before the winter lockdown begins again. But storing your hard-earnt supplies all in one place comes at a risk if you can’t trust your neighbour.

Averaging 4,000 meters above sea level, the thin air of the lofty mountains of the Qinghai-Tibet Plateau in China struggle to retain much heat at all. As a result, life here always feels cold. Snow leopards are the top predator and have lived here for millions of years, but recently their lives have become linked with humans and the domestic yak they herd. It’s too good an opportunity to ignore. But through a community initiative, they have found a way to live alongside each other, even when the yak are taken by the leopards.

Back at sea level, on the shores of Canada’s Hudson Bay, for mammals specialised for life in the cold, a warming world is now the biggest challenge. Here, arctic fox and polar bears wait together by open water where there should be ice. For arctic foxes living here, as food ashore runs out, they would normally move and follow the polar bears onto the ice in order to scavenge off the bears’ kills. But as the winter freeze, and arrival of the ice is delayed, the bears cannot hunt, and life becomes more and more desperate. This has led to the foxes resorting to cannibalism, desperately fighting with each other to feed on the unfortunate foxes that have succumbed to hunger.

Claire’s father is called to the stand. Nathan paints Kate as a sexual predator, who groomed Claire before murdering her. However, Colby throws suspicion back onto Nathan when it’s revealed he had a false online persona, posing as a young girl in order to monitor Claire’s social media. The courtroom is also given a taste of his temper when Colby successfully gets under his skin. Despite trying to focus on the task at hand, some jurors struggle with the mounting pressures of life outside the jury room. Georgina’s husband’s controlling behaviour goes from bad to worse, Jarrod tries to get his scholarship money back, and Alexi is plagued with guilt over Luiz’ death.

About The Twelve

The Twelve begins on the first day of jury selection in a complicated trial.

Twelve ordinary citizens from diverse backgrounds have been summoned to the Supreme Court to decide the fate of a woman charged with murder. Is she guilty or innocent? Is it even a murder? Her fourteen-year-old niece went missing when in her care, but a body has never been found and it isn’t clear what motive she would have for killing her. Her own family is divided about her guilt or innocence, what hope does the jury have of reaching the truth?

Over ten episodes we explore the lives and loves of the people who will decide the fate of the accused, their histories, their conflicts, their families, their secrets: a gentle suburban mum whose husband’s adoration may be hiding coercion, a builder torn away from his responsibilities, a star student struggling with being a role model to his indigenous community, a chronic gambler with money problems, a brash millennial plagued by traumatic memories.

The values they bring and the challenges they confront will shape the different ways they react to the unfolding trial. Being on a jury for a long complex trial is tough and time consuming, the pressures of the trial impact upon the personal lives of the jurors. They are forced to contemplate the darker side of human nature while being forbidden to speak to anyone outside the jury room about the evidence they confront each day. Alliances become friendships, relationships form and come apart as they learn the contradictory details of what may be a horrible crime, or a tragic accident or simply a runaway teen who knows how to hide. When they reach a verdict, it will change the lives of everyone involved in the trial.