"The Planets"

[brian]

Okay, so it's not SF/F...but who cares.

Anyone else ever see "The Planets" series by the BBC a while back? Bought the DVD a couple of weeks back - it really is a superb set. No extras - just wonderful stuff about the history of space exploration and the future of our solar system. Excellent stuff.

[mac1]

Superb show. Truly facinating viewing. Strangely enough I watched episode 5 - "Star", just the other day. After reading your post on the planet being blown away, I decided to watch it as research into the Solar Winds. Another good BBC series to watch out for on DVD or otherwise is Space (with Sam Neill). Especially interesting was Episode 3 "Black Holes". It is incredible that scientists have actually seen black holes now, for years they were simply an unproven theorey. I also find it fascinating that something the size of a pea can tear apart an entire star. The have really made some great space documentary series over the years.

[brian]

Yes, it really is quite a superb series. Seems almost like there's nothing left out...

Wasn't so sure about the "Space" series, but got a friend buying that for himself anyway, so we may swap for a bit. Think it'll appeal to the kids more, but I can't imagine it beats "The Planets" on the topic of, uh...the planets.

[mac1]

The Planets was definately the better of the two. Aside from the superb content, the episode are 50 minutes long as opposed to Space's 30 minutes, and their are 8 episodes in total as opposed to Spaces 6. Thats about 6 hours 40 minutes, compared to Space's 3 hours, The Planets had far more volume at least. Also its far easier to sum up the topic of the planets in a series, than it is to evaluate the entire topic of space. In this sense The Planets was always going to be much closer to complete. Your probably right, your kids probably will enjoy Space, as it does tend to look at our Universe with a beautiful childlike sense of wonder. Perhaps this is what I liked about it, there just aren't enough people with a sense of wonder anymore. Space is an awe-inspiring topic, not enough people seem to appreciate that anymore. Another series worth tracking down is PBS's Universe 2001. It was very similar to The Planets actually, covered quite a broad spectrum of topics, but suffered from being a little too American in places. In fact I think it may have actually been based on the BBC's The Planets. I noticed some remarkable similarities between the aforementioned episode 5 of The Planets "Star", and an episode of Universe 2001 called "Stars". They gave almost exactly the same data, used some of the same archive footage, and even travelled to some of the same locations. But despite its somewhat apparently balant copywrite infringements, Universe 2001 was still a damn good show (not all the episodes were rip-offs :-), at least I don't think so anyway). Is it just me or does the world seem far less interested in space now, than it was prior to the gargantuanly overanticipated Y2K?

[brian]

My four year old daughter wants to have her room re-decorated so that it's covered with space and stars and planets. What am I doing to my kids?

[X Q mano]

You are leading by example, and leading them well!

[nemesis]

Good educational material.