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There's nothing quite like a nature documentary from the BBC

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What's the proper name for Top Gear, Michael Palin type of "hosted" shows? Is it variety show? I have been trying to google a list of best BBC travel shows. The problem is BBC is a common word UK use for both news and educational resource. Google will bring a ton of non tv stuff, or drama mini series. Maybe someone can google it for me?
 
tino said:
What's the proper name for Top Gear, Michael Palin type of "hosted" shows? Is it variety show? I have been trying to google a list of best BBC travel shows. The problem is BBC is a common word UK use for both news and educational resource. Google will bring a ton of non tv stuff, or drama mini series. Maybe someone can google it for me?
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Normally just refered to as 'travel documentaries'.
 
Michael Palin is back.

ibaCNR7gQNeXvF.jpg

Brazil With Michael Palin

Michael Palin has travelled the world for the past 25 years, earning him a reputation as the man who's been everywhere. But there’s one big gap in his passport: Brazil. The fifth-largest country on earth with an abundance of resources and a melting pot of peoples, it’s a nation that's risen almost out of nowhere to become a 21st-century superpower, and is next in line to host both the World Cup and Olympic Games. In this four-part series, Palin sets off to discover a country whose time has come.

Michael begins in the north east – where Europeans first settled and grew rich on slave labour. Here, the mix of indigenous people, African slaves, and relatively few Europeans created many of the characteristic elements of Brazilian life: food, dance, music and a multiplicity of religions.

In Sao Luis, European and African religious rituals come together in typically Brazilian celebrations, and Michael heads to the city’s backstreets to find out about a ceremony based on a 200-year-old slave tale.

He visits one of the region's massive beaches – the country’s great public playgrounds – before heading to the monster sand-dunes of the Lencois Maranhenses National Park. In Recife, Michael tours the city’s striking street art and sculptures, and in Olinda, he gets roped onto the dance floor in a country where everybody dances. Journeying inland, he gets a glimpse of the fast-disappearing world of old-style ‘vaqueiro’ cowboys.

In Salvador, Michael has his fortune read by a priest who practises the local religion of Candomble. He tries his hand at African drumming, samples the Bahian cuisine of a legendary local chef, and is introduced to capoeira in one of the city’s shanty towns.

Leaving Salvador, Michael passes sugar-cane plantations on route to a cigar factory, before finishing the first leg of his journey off the coast on a traditional saveiro boat.
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Wednesday 24 October 9.00-10.00pm - BBC ONE
 
BBC is amazing for Documentaries of any kind. I watched "Auschwitz: The Nazis and the Final Solution" and it is incredible.
 
Great looking forward to it.

BTW for those people who gaga over An Idiot Abroad and recommended it to me, I came across a show thats very similar to it, call Madventures.

Only the third season is in English. These two Finnish guys look and talk like the bad guys from District B13, they are so "dudebro" is hilarious. There is no product value and the show feels real. I really enjoy it.
 
The BBC science, nature, history and technology program output (especially love Horizon) along with the likes of Louis Theroux make the TV license cost worth paying alone.

That and the fact that the BBC are usually at the forefront in terms of Broadcasting technology.

BBC1, BBC2 and BBC4 are quality ...... also in the UK, Channel 4 do great documentary work on all subjects (great comedy unit and Movies as well).
 
Jburton said:
The BBC science, nature, history and technology program output (especially love Horizon) along with the likes of Louis Theroux make the TV license cost worth paying alone.

That and the fact that the BBC are usually at the forefront in terms of Broadcasting technology.
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Phenomenal docu-drama on Kenny Everett this week, too. Which BBC4 accompanied with highlights packages of the Television Show. Glorious. I do hope BBC2 picks up BBC4's docudrama mantle now the funding's been cut; the Doctor Who one upcoming is a good sign.

(And on the subject of Palin, I still haven't got around to seeing their Python drama)
 
I really enjoyed the BBC four Indian railways documentaries. A series on hill railways, and on Bombay/Mumbai.
Well worth watching.
 
Attenborough's Ark
David Attenborough chooses the 10 endangered animals from around the world that he’d most like to save from extinction. Tigers and pandas hit the headlines but for David it’s the unusual ones that interest him.

In Attenborough’s Ark, David explains why these animals are so important, and highlights the ingenious work of biologists across the world who are helping to keep them alive.

His top 10 includes Darwin’s frog - the only frog in the world where the male gives birth to its young. There is also the olm - a salamander that can live to a hundred.

There’s also the Sumatran rhino - the smallest and most threatened species of rhino. David tells the story of the first-ever Sumatran rhino to be born in captivity in Asia. After years of failed attempts, a male Sumatran rhino was born at Cincinnati zoo. He was sent to Sumatra, where he was matched up with a native female. The result was a historic baby, which gives hope to the rest of the species.

In Jersey, David introduces his favourite monkey - the mischievous black lion tamarin - which is being bred successfully at Durrell Wildlife Park.

David’s other unusual 'passengers' include the solenodon - an ancient mammal; the northern quoll – a charismatic marsupial at risk from cane toads; marvellous spatuletail - a rare hummingbird; the Sunda pangolin, whose scaly armour is made of keratin; Priam’s birdwing butterfly - the largest on Earth; and Venus’s flower basket – a marine animal made entirely from silica.
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Friday 9 November, 9.00-10.00pm on BBC2.
 
Not really to do with nature documentaries per se, but BBC Four have confirmed a whole host of new programmes.
BBC Four Controller Richard Klein today announced a raft of new commissions, from a year-long focus on comedy and two new series exploring the history and art of France to Dr Michael Mosley experiencing Pain, Pus And Poison, and an insight into the early life and career of the Young Montalbano.

Richard Klein says: “BBC Four is in really great shape at the moment, with share continuing to increase. We’ve had a great critical and audience response to recent programmes, from Food Glorious Food to the Big Science season; and of course, the much anticipated return of The Killing III which launched with over a million viewers.

"Looking ahead, there’s much to look forward to and I’m delighted that we have acquired Parks And Recreation, one of America’s smartest comedy series. To accompany this, the channel is taking a year-long look at comedy, with a drama from award-winning writer Nigel Williams about PG Wodehouse and films celebrating some of our oldest jokes, exploring what makes us laugh and showcasing some of our most popular comedians, from Richard Prior to Simon Amstel.”

Comedy

Parks And Recreation is an ensemble comedy that follows Leslie Knope (Amy Poehler), a cheerful, hard-working, mid-level bureaucrat in the Parks and Recreation Department of Pawnee, Indiana, and her eclectic mix of office mates. In her role as Deputy Director, Leslie works tirelessly to make her quintessentially American town just a little bit more fun and serves on several committees like the Clean Restroom Task Force, the Fun in the Sun Committee and the Task Force to Reduce the Number of Public Restrooms.

Since its premiere, this critically-acclaimed series has received numerous accolades, including an Emmy nomination for Outstanding Comedy Series, three Emmy nominations for Poehler’s performance, honoured by AFI as one of the top 10 Television Programmes of the Year, as well as winning Best Comedy Series at The Comedy Awards.

The intimate story of PG Wodehouse’s fall from grace and how the man who defined Englishness became an exile from his own country is told in a new drama for BBC Four. Starring Tim Pigott-Smith and Zoe Wannamaker, An Innocent Abroad tells the story of how, in the summer of 1941, PG Wodehouse, the master of fanciful plots became a major player in a tale of realpolitik. From an internment camp in Upper Silesia to broadcasting on German radio in Berlin and accusations of treachery, Wodehouse became a pawn in the biggest propaganda battle of the Second World War as the German Foreign Office tried to persuade the Americans to stay out of the war on the eve of Operation Barbarossa and the British to persuade America to join the Allies and save a beleaguered nation.

An Innocent Abroad is written by Golden Globe and Emmy award-winning writer, Nigel Williams (Elizabeth), directed by Tim Fywell (I Capture The Castle) and produced through BBC Northern Ireland Drama by Kate Triggs (Room At The Top). The Executive Producers are Robert Cooper for Great Meadow Productions and Stephen Wright for the BBC.

Fart gags, toilet humour, sex, nagging wives – no, not the set list for a Bernard Manning gig, but subjects that the Sumerians, Romans, Anglo-Saxons and Victorians all made jokes about. In Michael Grade And The World’s Oldest Joke, the presenter traces the history of the joke with a little help from a host of historians, academics, comedy experts and comedians including Ken Dodd, Tim Vine and Barry Cryer. Along the way he discovers what tickled the Tudors, ribbed the Romans and made Renaissance wits roar as he sets out to discover whether jokes come and go with the rise and fall of civilisations or whether we’re still laughing at the same things our ancestors did.

BBC Four celebrates the humour of people from many different walks of life as Some Vicars, Some Scousers And Some Boffins With Jokes share their favourite jokes.

Actor Brian Cox brings his Radio 4 character, Bob Servant, a pompous Dundonian businessman to the small screen in a hilarious new comedy series. The Scottish town of Broughty Ferry doesn’t know what’s hit it. The sudden death of the sitting MP has resulted in a by-election that could change the political map of the UK. Bob Servant has been waiting his whole life for this level of attention and he’s willing to do anything to keep it.

From Storyville comes the definitive biography of legendary performer and stand-up Richard Pryor, authorised by his family and directed by Marina Zenovich (director of the award-winning Roman Polanski: Wanted & Desired).

More Old Jews Telling Jokes returns to celebrate the fine tradition of American Jewish humour as a group of pensioners gather together to tell jokes – largely about Jewish Mothers, Sex, Food, Success, Sex, Rabbis, Husbands & Wives, Sex, Illness, Death and Sex - in this celebration of the oral history of a culture.

In Numb: Simon Amstell Live At The BBC, Simon performs a special version of his stand-up show Numb, which he has toured round the UK and taken to New York. Recorded at TV Centre, it’s a stripped-down, intimate performance, with no set and minimal lighting, a painfully funny exploration of Simon’s inability to connect with people, including family and lovers.

Arts

In Treasures Of The Louvre, Paris-based writer Andrew Hussey travels through the glorious art and surprising history of an extraordinary French institution to show that the story of the Louvre is the story of France.

As well as exploring the masterpieces of painters such as Veronese, Rubens, David, Chardin, Gericault and Delacroix, he also examines the changing face of the Louvre itself through its architecture and design. A medieval fortress, renaissance palace, luxurious home to kings, emperors and more recently civil servants, today it attracts eight million visitors a year. The documentary also reflects the very latest transformation of the Louvre - the Museum’s recently opened Islamic Gallery.

The Riviera: A History In Pictures is a two-part sun-filled series in which Richard E Grant follows in the footsteps of artists who have lived, loved and painted on France’s glorious Côte d’Azur. Richard explores the intertwined relationship between modern art and the development of the French Riviera as an international tourist haven. Travelling from L’Estaque in the West to the Italian town of Bordighera in the East - via St Tropez, Cannes, Antibes and Nice and taking in the careers of Cezanne, Monet, Picasso, Matisse and Picabia – Richard maps the progress of the region from cultural backwater to Bohemian hot spot.

Continuing BBC Four's 'Handmade in Britain' series in collaboration with the V&A, Carved With Love is a fascinating series on the British genius for woodwork. The three-part series tells the story of Thomas Chippendale, a poor Yorkshire carver who worked his way up from humble roots to become the greatest furniture designer in history; Grinling Gibbons, the master carver who worked for Charles II and William of Orange; and the Middle Ages, the golden age of British woodwork.

Science

In Pain, Pus And Poison, Dr Michael Mosley tells the extraordinary story of how scientists learnt to use the world around us to heal our bodies and conquer the common afflictions of pain, pus and poison. He explores how certain chemicals – once invisible and almost magical in their effects - were discovered, captured, understood and finally exploited.

In the three-part series, Michael discovers how a crisis in the French wine industry led to the discovery of what actually causes disease; how a German scientist obsessed with colour found the world's first targeted drug and how, if it weren't for a group of Oxford scientists and American industrialists, penicillin - the most powerful life-saving drug the world has ever seen - might have remained no more than a lab curiosity.

International drama

Hinterland is a gripping new detective series based in the coastal Welsh town of Aberystwyth - set against the backdrop of mountainous hinterland, isolated farms and close-knit villages. A natural crucible of colliding worlds, where history, myth and tradition come face to face with the modern and contemporary - its panoramic vistas and quaint facade hide a multitude of sins - this is a place that lives according to its own rules, a place where grudges fester, where the secrets of the past are buried deep.

DCI Tom Mathias (Richard Harrington, Lark Rise To Candleford) is a brilliant but troubled man on the run from his past. Having abandoned his life in London, he finds himself holed up in a trailer park on the outskirts of town – a place filled with secrets as dark and destructive as his own. Together with hometime girl DI Mared Rhys, he forms an engaging partnership in a thrilling new drama with pace, poetry and scale.

Hinterland is a Fiction Factory production; the Creative Director is Ed Thomas and the Producer is Gethin Scourfield.

The Inspector Montalbano drama series have been a popular fixture of the BBC Four schedule for the past year. Now, in Young Montalbano, viewers will get the opportunity to learn how both the private life and career of the Sicilian detective developed in this new series which gives an insight into his youth. Set in the early 1990s and starring Michele Riondino in the title role, this prequel series, also written by Andrea Camilleri was recently shown to critical acclaim in Italy.
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bbc4 is bringing parks and rec <3 best uk channel.

i can also now tell everyone i know to watch it. well maybe just my little sister but whatever, better than nothing.
 
Can you guys recommend so good science documentaries? I've watched pretty much all the nature documentaries for the past 10 years as the engineering/science stuff:

Earth: The Power of the Planet
Richard Hammond's Engineering Connections
Richard Hammond's Miracles of Nature
James May's Things You Need to Know
James May's 20th Century
Andrew Marr's History of the World
Darwin's Dangerous Idea
Nature's Weirdest Events
Wonders of the Solar System
Wonders of the Universe
Dara O Briain's Science Club

Anything else along these lines? History/Science/Engineering stuff.

Thanks!
 
The Private Life of Plants and Life of Mammals are my favorites. I just picked up Life on Earth and The Trials of Life on Blu-Ray and they look amazing. I hope they transfer the rest of Attenborough's work.
 
ZanzibarBreeze said:
The Private Life of Plants and Life of Mammals are my favorite. I just picked up Life on Earth and The Trials of Life on Blu-Ray and they look amazing. I hope they transfer the rest of Attenborough's work.
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All of Attenborough's Life Collection will eventually be remastered for Blu-ray just as Life on Earth and Trials of Life have.
 
Edmond Dantès;47477950 said:
All of Attenborough's Life Collection will eventually be remastered for Blu-ray just as Life on Earth and Trials of Life have.
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Great. I wonder why they skipped The Living Planet, which obviously fits between Life on Earth and Trials of Life. Anyway, if it's coming soon it's no big deal.
 
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