This year the BBC turns 100. Fundamental to Britain and funded by licence fee payers, the BBC has garnered a worldwide reputation for quality. For this special post highlighting the highlights of the corporation's massive contribution to television, I've decided to...
Forces of Nature: Brian Cox dumbs down for BBC1?
Contributed by Pam Tonothy I have a rule: If it’s got Brian Cox in it I have to watch it. There’s just something about his gentle delivery and apparent lack of ego that makes him eminently watchable. Plus, like most of his fans, I rather like science....
Professor Brian Cox explores Science Britannica
I’ve always been a fan of TV programmes that make me think or teach me something new. While science at school left me cold (apart from the one time I managed to electrocute myself in a chemistry lesson - don’t ask), as I get older, the complex and frankly difficult...
Stargazing: LIVE, BBC2
Wonders of the Solar System was the best programme in the history of television. We know this because Chris Evans said so. Whether it still is the best show ever will depend on if Evans’ worthless, capricious endorsement has alighted elsewhere like a vulture...
Earth: Power of the Planet, BBC2
Did we like it? A mostly fascinating exhumation of the potent forces that shape the planet, and how they are symbiotically spun together. It was only marred by some astonishingly out of place rudimentary geological sermonising. What was good about it? • Geology is, on...
Cosmos: The Beginners’ Guide, BBC2
Did we like it? It had the grey-suited stiffness associated with typical Open University lectures masquerading as TV programmes, but Cosmos did strive to enlighten and achieved this with its sober assessment of the possibility of life beyond Earth. What was good about...
The River Cottage Treatment, Channel 4,
Did we like it? Of course. We never tire of the super-likeable Hugh Fearnley-Whittingstall. This series is about where food comes from, adding fascinating commentary on the food we buy as well as how to cook it. What was good about it? • The central idea this week was...
UFOs: The Secret Evidence, Channel 4
What to say if you liked it An admirably empirical analysis of mysterious sightings of UFOs which have occurred over the past 63 years. What to say if you didn’t like it Like a lame vulture arriving late at the feast of an elephant carcass, Nick Cook, deprived of the...
The Theory Of Everything, Channel 4
Around the globe, the world’s top scientists strive ceaselessly to achieve the Holy Grail of modern physics – a TV series that will get more than 0.01 per cent of the population actually understanding what Einstein was on about with all that curved space-time and...