Hacker Cinema
Nature
1982 · TV series · documentary · 53 min episodes · 45 seasons
Created by Thomas Lovejoy, George Page
Consistently stunning documentaries transport viewers to far-flung locations ranging from the torrid African plains to the chilly splendours of icy Antarctica. The show's primary focus is on animals and ecosystems around the world. A comic book based on the show, meant to be used an as educational tool for kids, was briefly distributed to museums and schools at no cost in the mid-2000s.
8 positive1 neutralfrom 9 commenters
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9 comments on Hacker News
The BBC has some extremely good content... nature documentaries (David Attenborough), science shows (Horizon), archaeological/history (Digging for Britain), comedy (Ghosts), comedy/news/current affairs (Have I Got News For You). The US does big budget shows very well, but for a wide variety of content I really miss the BBC when I can't access it. I'm obviously biased though.
I grew up watching Big Bird as the lead character, and I think this analysis is spot on.
I don’t have kids of my own yet, so I’m out of touch with how the show is being run these days, but if Elmo is the lead now, this definitely sounds like a step back in quality level.
I guess it makes sense from a business perspective for the creators. I’m sure it helps the bottom line. Kids go nuts for Elmo.
Regardless, it makes me happy to see PBS expand their reach. The quality level across the board is astounding! If it was the only network I had access to I would be happy.
Nova science is unreal! ‘Nature’ episodes are best in the business for nature docs. Many of the Masterpiece series are great... and don’t sleep on all the cooking shows. For a publicly funded organization, it’s absolutely mind blowing the quality of product they put out.
A real treasure.
How It's Made, Nova, and Nature. To a (slightly) lesser extent, 60 Minutes and Frontline.
The term documentary covers (imho) a continuum, from academic style nonfiction on one end to a gray area between infotainment and fiction on the other.
Crap, wrong link. This is the kin recognition root growth study: https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC2104794/
PBS's Nature did a whole documentary on plant behavior, which includes the author of that study: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=CrrSAc-vjG4&t=38m00s
There was a great episode of PBS' Nature on corvids' cognitive abilities and tool use:
http://www.pbs.org/wnet/nature/ravens-discover-the-brainpower-of-the-bird-in-black/1507/
Only slightly related is the excellent Arkady Renko novel Wolves Eat Dogs which is partly set in the Chernobyl exclusion zone (and touches on the wolves that have taken over that area):
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wolves_Eat_Dogs
Also, there was a great episode of Nature of PBS about this too:
http://www.pbs.org/wnet/nature/radioactive-wolves-introduction/7108/
PBS's Nature has a good episode on beavers. Worth checking out:
http://www.pbs.org/wnet/nature/leave-it-to-beavers-leave-it-to-beavers/8836/
The PBS documentary series Nature has a really awesome episode about penguins using this technology. Really amazing footage.
Not sure if the episode is streamable anywhere, but here is the site: http://www.pbs.org/wnet/nature/category/episodes/by-animal/penguin/
This reminded me of a NATURE episode I saw, where it was all about one Fig Tree, and all of the species that live on it, nurture it, depend on it. It was fantastic.