Pale Blue Dot

BBC: The Planets

This week I watched the BBC's eight-part documentary series on The Planets. We find here excellent production value, from the stunning archival footage to the original music by Jim Meacock. The narration by Samuel West is appealing, as are the many insightful interviews with scientists.

This is an older series (1998) and that is its main drawback, since advances in solar (and extra-solar, for that matter) exploration have been plentiful in the decade since this came out. I really enjoyed the ample presentation of the Russian viewpoint (coverage of Russian space missions, interviews with prominent scientists and politicians), which is not only highly relevant to a chronicle of our understanding of the planets, but typically lacking in American-produced documentaries.

On the whole, then, this series is certainly worth your while. Part of the fun, in fact, can be to see how things that the episodes speculate about turned out in the intervening years. Case in point, the Cassini–Huygens spacecraft launched in 1997, designed to study Saturn and its moons (official NASA website). In 2006 it discovered lakes of liquid hydrocarbon on Titan, a tremendous find. (Not to mention finding three news moons of Saturn in 2004! Methone, Pallene and Polydeuces).



BBC: Art of Eternity

A fascinating exploration of pre-perspective early Christian and Byzantine art in three one-hour episodes. I highly recommend this one, for the amazing aesthetic works it reveals and places in historical context. The official BBC website has some great links.