My favourite was 'Knocking on Heaven's Door - Space Race'. Completely fascinating!

The Wonders of the Universe while of some merit also rather summed up all that is wrong with the contemporary documentary - overblown, overbudget, overloud and on a flipping declared "journey" of discovery.

Of the picks above Bob Monkhouse proved quite fascinating. The good stuff was on BBC4, from Rich Halls cranky films about Americana to a clever "faux" documentary about postcards. The best though was from Prof Jim Al-Khalili who's Everything and Nothing and Shock and Awe: The Story of Electricity were both er illuminating and absorbing entertainment with a commendably low key tone for the most part.

"BBC2 produced an unmissable series, The Normans,"

About 97% of the population missed that.

And what did Sky give us? Nazis, super-volcanoes, aliens using nazca lines, atlantis and amusing animals lighting their own farts, I presume. That's what the History and Discovery channels are for, aren't they?

Believe in better. Ha! Believe in crud.

SKY MUST DIE.

Sri Lanka's Killing Fields was the most chilling yet revealing documentaries of the year. It elicited a very strong response from a large range of people. Shame the Sri Lankan government apologists and LTTE sympathisers went into total damage limitation mode after renewed calls for war crimes investigations. If neither side have anything to hide, then why not allow an indepedent investigation?

According to the Facebook page, there's going to be a follow up to this in the new year.

About 97% of the population missed that.

3% did not - good for them too.

As for Niall Ferguson, his "top of the world, ma!" schtick is wearing thin by now...

Jerusalem: The Making of a Holy city on BBC 4, Frozen Planet and All watched over by machines of loving grace for me.

SKY MUST DIE.

Yeah, good luck with that Dylan.

Was gonna watch 'Civilisation: is the West history?' but then I realised neoliberal Niall Ferguson was presenting so though better of it. Channel 4 have a nasty habit of paying dodgy right wing revisionist nut jobs to present their programmes.

Good to see you are open to other points of view.

Inside the Human Body. Enough said.

The Story of Film

The best TV for me 'Downton Abbey' on ITV. Both first and 2nd series were stunning. Shame about the adverts.

Totally agree with Dylanwolf, Sky brought more of the same rubbish. They did manage to rebrand the Virgin TV channels into Sky Living etc. Bravo was closed down and more re runs of Game Shows added to the old Challenge TV. Sky Three was removed from Freeview and replaced with all the repeats that are least attractive on the new Pick TV.

Its not all bad though as Murdoch's media Empire did deliver some really interesting live programming on BBC Parliament. That was good viewing, seeing them trying to cover up and lie to select committees. So 10 out of 10 for boasting the BBC Parliament channels ratings.

BBC's Dr Who was further dragged down by an actor who has not acting ability and stories that seem to get worse while the production values get better. Shame really!

So its Downton Abbey and Live select committee exposing the Murdoch Empire. Judge Judy couldn't have been more entertaining.

Bruce Parry's arctic series. That was 2011 right?

Most thought-provoking for me was The Invasion of Lampedusa, BBC3, about a tiny Italian island between Tunisia's east coast and Sicily and its subsequent 'invasion' from thoise seeking to escape the former.

Lampedusa had already traditionally been used as a gateway to Europe for asylum-seekers, and the island had an infrastructure to process the apllicants before transferring to various European countries. Following the revolution, however, the island and its islanders found themselves faced with wave after wave of fresh refugees. Those who landed on the island had usually been kept miles away from the locals in a camp / detention centre. But when the refugees start to spill out, and into the centre, and when at one point the number of asylum-seekers exceeds that of the indigenous populatiion, attitudes change, ideals polarise and normality unravels pretty damn quickly.

Heart-breaking at times when the port becomes blockaded; yet impossible not to find empathy for the angry Lampedusans or their hard-working, genial mayor. Racial intolerance and tolerance itself come to the fore in a fascinating tale, ended only after Sarkozy steps in to exploit the whole thing towards his own agenda.

Horizon's special on the big bang sceptics with its bouncing, string universe theorists was also one the year's most amusing highlights.

I loved Adam Curtis' last offering, even though it was more bonkers than his previous ramblings. I don't know why, but although I agree with pretty much everything he says, he still manages to make it sound like a vast conspiracy theory.

Can we please ignore Niall Ferguson. The man's an idiot. How he holds a professorship at one of the world's foremost university, is a mystery that may never be solved. He may sound less offensive, but his world view is no different to Richard Littlejohn. I won't go on to say what I'd like to say, because he sues people who call him.......what he plainly is.

Loved the BBC's dinosaur gubbins. Especially the hour spent learning how Greek myths were an attempt to explain fossilised bones by bronze age man.

In fact, if it hadn't been for the soaring music, and the "I'll be going on a journey....," the Beeb would be the runaway winners.

There is no need to mention Niall Ferguson in all this, documentaries are supposed to be factual and educational not an ideological tirade.

'Poor Kids' was the one for me. The most poignant and moving portrait of Darkest Britain since Dickens.

Enjoyed last night's 'After Life: The Strange Science of Decay' on BBC4. Definitely worth watching on iPlayer.

Forget the TV coverage of the EU Crisis and in particular Greece. Where are the programmes showing that babies and children are being dumped in bins and into care when the families can't afford to feed them anymore?

Good old City of London and the hedge funds. Now thats what good PSB TV should be covering.

BBC has become a mouth piece for Downing Street. They are elected so no corruption there!

The BBC and Channel 4 should be ashamed of themselves. Start reporting the world as it really is. All the wildlife programmes add up to nothing if you ignore reality.

I agree, Brian Cox is a nice bloke, but I'm irritated by a symphony orchestra blazing away over a screenshot of a galaxy with " It's amaaaaaazin!" every 30 seconds, but with no factual information forthcoming. Horizon produced genuinely enlightening science programmes. David Attenborough defies belief in producing another truly breath taking series when you thought he must have dried up by now. When he eventually shuffles off this mortal coil, the national IQ will drop 10 points.

Brian Cox and Adam Curtis jumped the shark in 2011.

Civilization and The Normans were great. Attenborough never disappoints.

Horizon - since it was mentioned - is a pathetic joke of a program about science.

Hilarious to read the hatred of the Guardianistas for Niall Ferguson. How dare they put on telly a man who does not share your own ideological dogma about history.

Civilisation?

Niall Ferguson's appalling, monotonous, uptight delivery to camera will take a lot of beating.

His apparently right-wing 'agenda' was also blunted by his nerdy, oddly fitting chinos (?) and his growled and weirdly unconvincing intensity.

Have a look at Clarke's Civilisation or Bronowski's The Ascent of Man ( both BBC box sets) to see how sustained cultural narrative should really be done.

Until another provider can provide us with HBO and FX shows a couple days later than they are shown in the US... no.

What is HBO??? According to Wikipedia they do documentaries through AU (American Undercover) with such intelligent and intellectual subjects as "Autopsy", "Real Sex", "TaxiCab Confessions" and "Strippers: The Naked Stages" not exactly Bronowski is it?

What is FX???? Wikipedia tells me it is Fox so I'll just rest my case.

If you want the crud these stations spew out then go to the US and get it.

I found Living with the Amish on Channel 4 to be both timely and fascinating.

It rose far above the potential taint of its 'reality TV' style to be truly thought provoking.

The very personal - and sometimes quite moving - experiences of the English and Amish protagonists raise some big, important questions, relevant to anyone interested in human happiness, and even more so in a world d/riven by corporate consumerism and religious fundamentalism.

Powerful stuff.

"What is HBO???"

Thats a question worth finding out on your own. Start with The Wire, Game of Thrones, Sopranos, Curb your Enthusiasm etc....

I do apologise. I hadn't realised The Wire, Game of Thrones and so on were FACTUAL programmes. Murdoch is never getting my money. Sky must Die.

Ferguson rattled through our industry, protestant work ethic, thrift, individualism, and urge to build empires, before coming to his personal conclusion – it doesn't matter if the West is eclipsed, it has triumphed because the rest of the world has copied!

I don't have a television and if that is Ferguson's conclusion then I haven't missed much, there have been thousands of years of copying by East and West, technology has travelled both ways.

We are so lost we have no idea what we are talking about.

Bad has become good, that is how lost we are.

Also, the story of Ireland was hugely interesting. The presenter, Feargal Keane, was passionate and interesting without being too enthusiastic (cough Brian Cox). I really would recommend this series, if it isn't available on BBC iplayer it should be found on the rte player.

Well said re Ferguson. I stopped reading his books when I got to page 213 of the Penguin Edition of the Ascent of Money where he describes Chile's Allende as "...a Marxist President...whose attempt to turn Chile into a Communist state had ended in total economic chaos...".

How, if Feguson was a serious historian rather than a right wing stooge, could he have forgotten to mention that Allende was democratically elected, that the US was extensively involved in facilitating the coup which replaced Allende and that the US subsequently supported the fascist dictator, Pinochet, whose regime murdered many thousands of Chilean people.

Readers truly interested in history should take a look at original source materials. The Wikipedia page American involvement in chile has links to the US national security archives and declassified documents relating to the coup against Allende.

Feguson of course knows the history of US involvement in Chile but the fact that he delibertely misrepresents it in a book intended for a non academic audience shows that he is no real historian.

What is HBO??? According to Wikipedia they do documentaries through AU (American Undercover) with such intelligent and intellectual subjects as "Autopsy", "Real Sex", "TaxiCab Confessions" and "Strippers: The Naked Stages" not exactly Bronowski is it?

What is FX???? Wikipedia tells me it is Fox so I'll just rest my case.

If you want the crud these stations spew out then go to the US and get it.
Dylan giving us a wonderful example of cherry picking facts to support an argument, a very typical lefty tactic.

While you were on wikipedia, looking at the HBO documentary section, you also saw this...

In 2004, guided by human rights activist Ansar Burney, an HBO team for Real Sports with Bryant Gumbel used a hidden camera to document slavery and torture in secret desert camps where boys under the age of five were trained to race camels.....The documentary won a Sports Emmy Award in 2004 for "Outstanding Sports Journalism" and the 2006 Alfred I. DuPont-Columbia University Award for outstanding broadcast journalism.

In 2006, film director Spike Lee made a four-hour documentary on Hurricane Katrina called When the Levees Broke: A Requiem in Four Acts, which was broken up into two parts. Also in 2006, documentary artist Lauren Greenfield directed a feature length film about four young women struggling with eating disorders in the Renfrew Clinic in Florida, called Thin. 2008 saw the US television premiere of the documentary film Baghdad High, which depicted the lives of four boys attending a high school in Baghdad, Iraq, over the course of one year in the form of a video diary.

But you decided to to just harp on about the American Undercover docos.

Why can't you be honest Dylan? It is a clear admission that you know your views do not stand up to scrutiny nor contain any factual evidence. Otherwise you would have no problem being more truthful.

Sky must Die.

Never ceases to amaze me that it is the so called "progressive" left who are the ones who do not believe in free speech.

They crow on all day about human rights abuses in far flung nations, and yet given half a chance would relish in removing those same rights from people here who hold different views from them.

What is it about Sky that scares you so much Dylan?
Why are you frightened of a viewpoint that does not agree with your own?

Are you afraid of the truth by any chance?

The truth??? Ha,ha,ha,ha..

Free speech isn't available on Sky. Sky is a relentless stream of propaganda promoting their own interests and debasing their opponents. Sky is out to destroy any competition and to dominate the entire market for broadcasting.

Sky uses bullying marketing techniques and blackmails people into buying services they don't want in order to get at the ones the services they do want. Sky is expensive, exclusive and socially corrosive of all virtuous aspects of the human spirit.

Sky hates intellect. Sky hates compassion. Sky hates debate. Sky hates integrity. Sky hates forbearance. Sky hates moderation. Sky hates love. Sky hates modesty. Sky hates imagination, Sky hates freedom. Sky hates respect. Sky hates creativity. Sky hates tolerance. Sky hates Art. Sky hates Science. Sky hates Sport. Sky hates Culture. Sky hates truth.

Sky loves violence. Sky loves celebrity. Sky loves betting. Sky loves smut. Sky loves revenge. Sky loves power. Sky loves domination. Sky loves banality. Sky loves hyperbole. Sky loves exploitation. Sky loves money. Sky loves sleaze. Sky loves extremists. Sky loves scandal. Sky loves degradation. Sky loves belittling. Sky loves trash.

Sky represents everything I hate. In one big package.

Sky Must Die.

Dylanwolf

30 December 2011 08:54PM
Response to Acidfairyy, 30 December 2011 08:33PM

What is HBO??? According to Wikipedia they do documentaries through AU (American Undercover) with such intelligent and intellectual subjects as "Autopsy", "Real Sex", "TaxiCab Confessions" and "Strippers: The Naked Stages" not exactly Bronowski is it?

What is FX???? Wikipedia tells me it is Fox so I'll just rest my case.

If you want the crud these stations spew out then go to the US and get it.

. . . . .

Hey Dylan dont know if you know but thanks to the miracle of commercial satellite technology you dont have to move anywhere - except to pick up your remote control

marukun

31 December 2011 12:42AM
Response to FyodorChomsky, 30 December 2011 04:32PM

Well said re Ferguson. I stopped reading his books when I got to page 213 of the Penguin Edition of the Ascent of Money where he describes Chile's Allende as
"...a Marxist President...HE WAS
whose attempt to turn Chile into a Communist state had ended in total economic chaos...".
IT DID

How, if Feguson was a serious historian rather than a right wing stooge, could he have forgotten to mention that Allende was democratically elected,
HE WAS and Ferguson never denyed it
.... that the US was extensively involved in facilitating the coup which replaced Allende
IT DID
and that the US subsequently supported the fascist dictator, Pinochet, whose regime murdered many thousands of Chilean people.
IT DID

. . . . . ..

Course having met people who supported Pinochet, or should I say hated Allende they take the view that Pinochet was a hero-and not withstanding the USA'a interference, Chile was under Allende very quickly turned into a basket case

Most people would react in horror at any civilian deaths especially the 2000 under Pinochets rogue generals and the caravans of death - it a bit sad that the many more deaths in Cuba that happened under Guevara & Castro never generate the same levels of disgust and horrow on Cif - non?

I loved Wonders of the Universe, the only thing I would have changed is that it was only 4 episodes long. I also enjoyed Frozen Planet but there were too many animals in it for me. Those shots of the clear blue river falling down a hole to nowhere was as amazing as the computer generated 20,000,000,000,000 solar mass supermassive black hole in Wonders.

Those were the only 2 programmes I watched on a television all year! Viva internet.

I think I have a tin foil hat in your size, sir. I can give you a very reasonable price on it.

God forbid that people should be given a choice of what to view, eh?

Through this open world I'm a-bound to ramble
Through ice and snow, sleet and rain
Im a-bound to ride that mornin' railroad
Perhaps I'll die upon that train

Ah! Mr Zimmerman. You genius.

Yeh, well. Aside from my rant (which was great fun. Hey, if I punch holes in this hat it'll make a great colander to wash my lettuce in!) if we stand by and allow Sky to annihilate the BBC, which they will if good men do nothing.

Then, they'll be no quality science, history, art, politics, news, comedy, drama or sport on television or radio.

And that there is will have 20 minutes of adverts for every half-hour of program (ten minutes of which is repeat footage from before the ad-break with two five minutes sections at the start and end to show what happened last time and what will happen next time) and cost £80-a-month to watch.

Then none of us will have a choice. Is THAT what you want?

mmm... I'd need to buy a television too.

I really liked:

The Story of Film: An Odyssey - i was one of the people who really liked Mark Cousins' narration

British Masters - especially the episode on, among other artists, Wyndham Lewis and the Vorticists, really fascinating and Professor James Fox is, well, a fox

Everything and Nothing - Jim Al-Khalili beats Brian Cox hands down

Loved the BBC's dinosaur gubbins. Especially the hour spent learning how Greek myths were an attempt to explain fossilised bones by bronze age man.

Ooh, I forgot about that, that was excellent.

Forget the TV coverage of the EU Crisis and in particular Greece. Where are the programmes showing that babies and children are being dumped in bins and into care when the families can't afford to feed them anymore?

Good old City of London and the hedge funds. Now thats what good PSB TV should be covering.

BBC has become a mouth piece for Downing Street. They are elected so no corruption there!

The BBC and Channel 4 should be ashamed of themselves. Start reporting the world as it really is. All the wildlife programmes add up to nothing if you ignore reality.

Indeed. Panorama get a mention for a very honourable piece of journalism in the above article, but was it not them who made a pathetic piece of faux-expose that basically amounted to "wah wah benefit cheats wah holidays wah plasma TVs wah wah scroungers"? Ideologically driven dribble of the worst kind, Panorama or not. If a tabloid newspaper remodels it's front page to look like a broadsheet, it's still a tabloid. I can still enjoy a lot of the BBC's factual output, but I understand if some people can't; this kind of thing can put decent, principled people off completely.

No-one's mentioned Alice Roberts' rather well done 'Origins of Us'. Is was 2011, wasn't it, or am I still watching recordings from 2010?

Rapture

30 December 2011 07:49PM

Forget the TV coverage of the EU Crisis and in particular Greece. Where are the programmes showing that babies and children are being dumped in bins and into care when the families can't afford to feed them anymore?

. All the wildlife programmes add up to nothing if you ignore reality.

. . . . . . . . . . .

Well Rapture you cant start complaining now.

The BBC has good form for NOT reporting whats really happening - just have a look back at the insane Euro project enthusiasm...

Pro Euro items ran 3 to 1 against the skeptics with the anti's being portrayed as swivell eyed loons and even having Anne Sloman of the Beeb say to a journalist when speaking about the antis "You do realise they're all mad dont you?" nice!

I had friends out fighting in Kosovo and the Balkans prior to it - hearing their version as against what the BBC was reporting put the nail in the coffin - so to speak - for me as to the BBC's 'supposed' truthfullness and impartiality when news reporting- trust me - its mostly garbage.

Remember when Blair got elected and Downing Street was filled with voters (a large number also by pure coincidence BBC employees) waving flags?

Tip of the ice berg

What about Andrew Graham-Dixons Art in America. Part of the BBC4 America season. Along with America on a Plate, this was superb, informative, and highly watchable television. Wonders of the Universe too, thank goodness we have the BBC.

Just in case as per my previous response to you re: BBC impartiality, you dont know who Anne Sloman is....

found a short bio on the web

Biography:
Anne Sloman is the former chief political advisor at the British Broadcasting Corporation (BBC), a position she held from 1996 to December, 2003. As chief political advisor, she was responsible for devising the ground rules that ensure the BBC's fair and impartial political coverage, and advised all BBC journalists and programmers on implementing them. She was also responsible for establishing transparent guidelines for all election coverage,..."

So this woman who quote "was responsible for devising the ground rules that ensure the BBC's fair and impartial political coverage" thought that Euro skeptics were mad

Why I dont trust the BBC part 1

Brian Cox is patronising: he tells me when to be wondrous.

I can decide when to be wondrous.

Course having met people who supported Pinochet, or should I say hated Allende they take the view that Pinochet was a hero

-

So any dictator that murders and tortures people can be considered an hero then?

and not withstanding the USA'a interference, Chile was under Allende very quickly turned into a basket case

A basket case? Do you think this could have something to do with the fact that the CIA was funding coups, strikes by businesses etc, not to mention America cutting back drastically on economic aid and the falling price of copper...

Most people would react in horror at any civilian deaths especially the 2000 under Pinochets rogue generals and the caravans of death

The figure was over 3000 and tens of thousands tortured, but according to you Pinoshit had nothing to do with this, nor the CIA presumably, it was just 'Pinochets rogue generals and the caravans of death'?

it a bit sad that the many more deaths in Cuba that happened under Guevara & Castro never generate the same levels of disgust and horrow on Cif - non?

Never forgetting that Bastista was responsible for over 20,000 deaths and the economy was a 'basket case'

Course having met people who supported Castro, or should I say hated Batista they take the view that Castro was a hero.