The BEST episodes directed by Simon Winchcombe

End of the Viking Age
star
8.07
95 votes

#1 - End of the Viking Age

Vikings (2012) - Season 1 - Episode 3

Neil Oliver explores how the Viking Age finally ended, tracing the Norse voyages of discovery, the first Danish kings, and the Christian conversions that opened the door to European high society. He also uncovers the truth about England's King Canute - he was not an arrogant leader who thought he could hold back the waves, but the Viking ruler of an entire empire of the north and an early adopter of European standardisation.

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Ice Station Antarctica
star
8.00
28 votes

#2 - Ice Station Antarctica

Horizon - Season 2016 - Episode 8

Antarctica is the last great wilderness. It's the coldest, windiest, driest and most isolated place on Earth. And every winter, for over three months of the year, the sun never rises. But it's also home to the British Antarctic Survey's Halley Research Station. A veteran of living and working at Halley in the early eighties, BBC weatherman Peter Gibbs makes an emotional return to the place he once called home. A place that, during his time, was key to the discovery of the ozone hole. The journey starts with an arduous 12-day, 3000-mile voyage onboard the RRS Ernest Shackleton. Once on the ice shelf, Peter is delighted to finally arrive at the futuristic research station and marvels at the cutting edge science being done at Halley today. From vital discoveries about how our lives are vulnerable to the sun's activities, to studying interplanetary travel and the threat of man-made climate change. But Peter's journey is also something of a rescue mission. The research station's home is a floating ice shelf that constantly moves and cracks, and the ice shelf has developed a chasm that could cast Halley adrift on a massive iceberg.

Britain's Greatest Pilot: The Extraordinary Story of Captain Winkle Brown
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8.00
1 votes

#3 - Britain's Greatest Pilot: The Extraordinary Story of Captain Winkle Brown

BBC Documentaries - Season 2014 - Episode 128

Former Royal Navy officer and test pilot Captain Eric `Winkle' Brown has flown more types of aircraft than anyone in history and is regarded as one of the best pilots Britain has produced. In this programme, the 95-year-old chats to James Holland about his flying experiences and encounters with Nazis, as well as other adventures in the run-up to and during the Second World War, illustrated by archive and personal photographs.

Dawn of the Driverless Car
star
7.00
28 votes

#4 - Dawn of the Driverless Car

Horizon - Season 2017 - Episode 10

The car has shrunk the world, increased personal freedom and in so many ways expanded our horizons, but there is a flipside. Fumes from car exhausts have helped to destroy our environment, poisoned the air we breathe and killed us in far more straightforward ways. But all that is going to change. This episode of Horizon enters a world where cars can drive themselves, a world where we are simply passengers, ferried about by wholesome green compassionate technology which will never ever go wrong. And it is almost here. Horizon explores the artificial intelligence required to replace human drivers for cars themselves, peers into the future driverless world and discovers that, despite the glossy driverless PR (and assuming that they really can be made to work reliably), the reality is that it might not be all good news. From the ethics of driverless car crashes to the impact on jobs, it might be that cars are about to rise up against us in ways that none of us are expecting.