The BEST BBC Two shows of all time
Every BBC Two show, ranked
We've compiled the average episode rating for every BBC Two show to compile this list of best shows!
#1 - Civilisations (2018)
Explore the visual culture of societies from around the globe, revealing alongside the magnificent objects made in the West the wealth of treasures created by other cultures, from the landscape scrolls of classical China and the sculpture of the Olmecs to African bronzes, Japanese prints and Mughal miniatures.
View Episode Rankings#2 - Cunk on Britain
Philomena Cunk's landmark mockumentary series taking us through Britain's history.
View Episode Rankings#3 - Madagascar
Over 80% of Madagascar's animals and plants are found nowhere else on Earth. Discover what made Madagascar so different from the rest of the world, and how evolution ran wild there.
View Episode Rankings#4 - Robot Wars
Robot Wars is a British game show modelled on a US-based competition of the same name. Teams of amateur and professional roboteers make their own robots to fight against each other in both friendly and tournament matches.
View Episode Rankings#5 - Rick Stein's India
Rick Stein sets out on a journey around India to discover the different cuisines celebrated the world over.
View Episode Rankings#6 - How to Grow a Planet
In this TV programme Professor Iain Stewart journeys from the spectacular caves of Vietnam to the remote deserts of Africa and sees how plants first harnessed light from the sun and created our life-giving atmosphere. He describes how the plant kingdom has transformed a lifeless planet into our living world
View Episode Rankings#7 - I, Claudius
Based on Robert Graves' epic novels about the decline of Roman civilisation in the first century AD, this award-winning drama redefined the boundaries of television when it was broadcast in 1976. Jack Pulman's brilliant script conveys the unrelenting depravity during the reigns of the four Emperors who succeeded Julius Caesar: Augustus, Tiberius, Caligula, and Claudius. The star-studded cast includes Derek Jacobi as Claudius, John Hurt as Caligula and Brian Blessed as Augustus.
View Episode Rankings#8 - Wartime Farm
In a new eight-part series, historian Ruth Goodman and archaeologists Alex Langlands and Peter Ginn take on their biggest challenge yet - to turn back the clock and run Manor Farm exactly as it would have been during the Second World War. They will face one of the biggest challenges ever seen in the history of the British countryside - what Churchill called ‘the frontline of freedom’.
View Episode Rankings#9 - The Story of India
For over two millennia, India has been at the centre of world history. But how did India come to be? What is India? These are the big questions behind this intrepid journey around the contemporary subcontinent. In this landmark series, historian and acclaimed writer Michael Wood embarks on a dazzling and exciting expedition through today's India, looking to the present for clues to her past, and to the past for clues to her future. The journey takes the viewer through majestic landscapes and reveals some of the greatest monuments and artistic treasures on Earth. From Buddhism to Bollywood, from mathematics to outsourcing, Michael Wood discovers India's impact on history - and on us.
View Episode Rankings#10 - The Catherine Tate Show
Comedy legend Catherine Tate plays all her best-loved characters in this riotous sketch show. Expect sulky teens, offensive nans and the most tactless women in the world.
View Episode Rankings#11 - Wild China
Created in co-operation with China's own national broadcast service, Wild China examines the country's rarely documented range of wildlife. Take a look at some of China's most impressive natural sites such as the ancient Han kingdom, the Mongol steppes, the Silk Road and the Tibetan Plateau.
View Episode Rankings#12 - I'm Alan Partridge
This classic BBC comedy comes courtesy of Steve Coogan. Alan is a fictional self-obsessed DJ who has had several TV jobs in the past (including chat show 'Knowing Me Knowing You') and has failed to bounce back from his long dead career. Each episode normally sees Alan resorting to embarrassing anecdotes, insulting someone without noticing and failing to revive his career.
View Episode Rankings#13 - Horizon
Amazing science stories, unravels mysteries and reveals worlds you've never seen before.
View Episode Rankings#14 - Cambridge Spies
The true story of Britain's most infamous spies as it follows them from their iniitial recruitment by the KGB in the mid 1930's, as students at Cambridge University, through the end of their careers in the 1950's. The series attempts to look beyond their crimes by focusing on their dedication to their cause and to each other and how they belived they were serving their country. Four-part drama telling the story of Guy Burgess, Donald Maclean, Anthony Blunt and Kim Philby.
View Episode Rankings#15 - The Peter Serafinowicz Show
The Peter Serafinowicz Show is a BBC Two comedy sketch show written and starring Peter Serafinowicz. The show is a mixture of sketches based on parodies of British television, using Peter's and other actor's impression notable television personalities.
View Episode Rankings#16 - South Pacific
South Pacific is a British nature documentary series on the natural history of the South Pacific region, including many of the coral atolls and New Zealand. Both wildlife and human cultures developed in a unique variety, largely determined by such natural conditions as huge distances, sea depths, currents and winds.
View Episode Rankings#17 - The Trap: What Happened to Our Dream of Freedom
The Trap: What Happened to Our Dream of Freedom is a BBC documentary series by British filmmaker Adam Curtis, well known for other documentaries including The Century of the Self and The Power of Nightmares. It began airing on BBC Two on 11 March 2007. The series consists of three, one-hour programs which explore the concept and definition of freedom, specifically "how a simplistic model of human beings as self-seeking, almost robotic, creatures led to today's idea of freedom." What does freedom actually mean today? This series of films by BAFTA-winning producer Adam Curtis argues that our freedom is a limited kind of freedom. It shows how a simplistic model of human beings as self-seeking, almost robotic, creatures led to today's idea of freedom. This model was apparently derived from techniques developed by nuclear strategists during the Cold War. Genetic biologists, anthropologists, radical psychiatrists and free market economists took it further until it became a new system of invisible control.
View Episode Rankings#18 - Life on Earth
Life on Earth (1979) is an epic 13-programme series, presented by David Attenborough, offering a chronological account of the flora and fauna of planet Earth over a period of 3,500 million years. Whether recounting the first journey from the sea to the land, the development of insects and flowers, or "The First Forests" and "The Lords of the Air", Attenborough's enthusiasm is infectious. He guides us through The Infinite Variety of life from microbes to marsupials, via an unforgettable meeting with mountain gorillas, to conclude with The Compulsive Communicators, mankind itself. Three years in the making, involving 1.5 million miles of travel and featuring some of the most beautiful, breathtaking and ambitious photography then seen on television, Life on Earth was the first natural history blockbuster. It redefined TV by showing that an epic, serious wildlife documentary could be a massive success. As such, it remains a true television landmark and paved the way for further entries in what became known as his Life series.
View Episode Rankings#19 - Coast
The nation's love affair with the coast will be reawakened for this entertaining and ambitious exploration of the entire UK coastline. Every part of the 9,000-mile coast is covered to explore how we've shaped it - and how it shapes us. Hosted by a team of history and geography experts who investigate everything from life on a nuclear submarine; rebuilding the Titanic using computer images; the story behind the first Butlins holiday camp; and the birth of the Severn Bore. Discover the curious, sometimes dysfunctional, relationship between the British and the seas.
View Episode Rankings#20 - The Hollow Crown
The Hollow Crown brings together four filmed adaptations of Shakespeare's History Plays - Richard II, Henry IV parts 1 and 2, and Henry V. Starting in the year 1399, this continuous story of monarchy follows events during sixteen years of dynastic and political power play. Kings, with their families and followers, are threatened by rebellion and conflict. The story takes us from the Royal Court at Westminster to battlefields in England and France. These rich films are woven with the finest of Shakespeare's poetry and are filmed in the architecture and landscape of the period.
View Episode Rankings#21 - Fawlty Towers
Hotel owner Basil Fawlty's incompetence, short fuse, and arrogance form a combination that ensures accidents and trouble are never far away.
View Episode Rankings#22 - Dara Ó Briain's Science Club
Combining lively and in-depth studio discussion with exploratory films and on-the-spot reports, Dara Ó Briain's Science Club takes a single subject each week and examines it from lots of different and unexpected angles, from sex to extinction, Einstein to space exploration and brain chemistry to music. It brings some of the world's foremost thinkers together to share their ideas on everything, from how to avoid asteroid impact to whether or not we are still evolving.
View Episode Rankings#23 - Gardeners' World
Gardeners' World is a long-running BBC television programme about gardening that continues to this day. The first episode was filmed in 1968, presented by Ken Burras and came from Oxford Botanical Gardens. Most of the episodes of the show are 30 minutes long, though there are many specials that last longer.
View Episode Rankings#24 - The Day Today
The Day Today is a surreal British parody of television current affairs news programmes. It is an adaptation of the radio programme On The Hour. The series is composed of six half-hour episodes and a selection of shorter, five-minute slots recorded as promotion trailers for the longer segments. Only six episodes were made, and were originally broadcast in January and February 1994 on BBC2. The Day Today won many awards and Chris Morris won the 1994 British Comedy Award for Best Newcomer. All six episodes are available on BBC video and DVD.
View Episode Rankings#25 - Wonders of the Universe
Having taken on the Wonders Of The Solar System, Professor Brian Cox takes the next step – the laws of the Universe in Wonders Of The Universe. In another epic series, Brian visits some of the most dramatic parts of the globe to explain the fundamental principles that govern the laws of nature – light, gravity, energy, matter and time. With the world's most profound science at its heart, Wonders Of The Universe reveals how the story of humanity is intimately entwined with that of the complex story of the origins of the universe.
View Episode Rankings#26 - Later... with Jools Holland
Jools brings together hot, legendary and undiscovered artists for live studio performances, interviews and musical magic.
View Episode Rankings#27 - The Smell of Reeves and Mortimer
Possibly Vic and Bob's finest hour, The Smell Of Reeves And Mortimer displays the madcap duo at their most surreal, anarchic best with characters such as the bra-wearing men Pat Wright and Dave Arrowsmith; awful folk duo Mulligan and O'Hare and flatulent farceurs the Petomanes. Among the many other highlights were occasional visits from Slade, the 1970's glam-rock group, brilliantly imitated by Reeves, Mortimer, Paul Whitehouse and Mark Williams, plus hosts of other guests including Little Britain's Matt Lucas, Caroline Aherne, Charlie Higson and Sting.
View Episode Rankings#28 - The Power of Nightmares
This documentary argues that during the 20th Century politicians lost the power to inspire the masses, and that the optimistic visions and ideologies they had offered were perceived to have failed. The film asserts that politicians consequently sought a new role that would restore their power and authority. Writer Adam Curtis, who also narrates the series, declares in the film's introduction that “Instead of delivering dreams, politicians now promise to protect us: from nightmares”. To illustrate this Curtis compares the rise of the American neoconservatives and radical Islamists, believing that both are closely connected; that some popular beliefs about these groups are inaccurate; and that both movements have benefited from exaggerating the scale of the terrorist threat.
View Episode Rankings#29 - Charlie Brooker's Weekly Wipe
The writer and broadcaster offers a satirical look at the latest news from politics, the media and the internet, casting a critical eye over trends in TV, cinema, computer games and social media. Charlie will be joined in the studio each week by guests and there will be regular contributions from American comedian Doug Stanhope.
View Episode Rankings#30 - Atlantic: The Wildest Ocean on Earth
Cillian Murphy narrates a documentary examining the lives of animals and people pitting themselves against the world's wildest ocean, unveiling the natural forces that underpin life in the Atlantic, from the world's most powerful currents, ferocious hurricanes and huge chains of undersea volcanoes.
View Episode Rankings#31 - Great British Railway Journeys
Michael Portillo takes to the tracks with a copy of George Bradshaw's Railway Guidebook. Portillo travels the length and breadth of the country to see how the railways have changed it, and what of Bradshaw's Britain remains.
View Episode Rankings#32 - Auschwitz: The Nazis & The Final Solution
The history of the Final Solution phase of the Nazi Holocaust, particularly with the most infamous of the death camps.
View Episode Rankings#33 - House of Fools
Set in Bob Mortimer’s home, every episode of House Of Fools sees Bob frustrated by his uninvited lodgers, visitors and guests who constantly fill his house. Led by Vic - Beef, Bosh and Julie knit together each week to wreak havoc on Bob. Vic Reeves is the long term and mostly unwanted guest in Bob’s house, always treating the place like his own, with little regard for Bob’s wishes. Living alongside them is Bob’s Norwegian son, Erik, who has absolutely no time at all for his ‘moron’ father and next door is Julie, who lives in a haze of imagined fantasies. Adding to the chaos is a constant stream of unwelcome visitors to Vic and Bob’s flat. Amongst them is Beef a lady-obsessed lothario, not to be confused with Bosh, a Geordie ex-con, who has designs on moving in as well.
View Episode Rankings#34 - Ways of Seeing
Ways of Seeing is a 1972 BBC four-part television series of 30 minute films created chiefly by writer John Berger and producer Mike Dibb. Berger's scripts were adapted into a book of the same name. The series and book criticize traditional Western cultural aesthetics by raising questions about hidden ideologies in visual images. The series is partially a response to Kenneth Clark's Civilisation series, which represents a more traditionalist view of the Western artistic and cultural canon.
View Episode Rankings#35 - Not the Nine O'Clock News
Not The Nine O'Clock News was a satirical show broadcast on BBC2 (UK) from 1979 to 1982. Noted for its topical sketches and skits, it made stars of Rowan Atkinson, Mel Smith, Griff Rhys-Jones and Pamela Stephenson. The show required a large number of writers, and to this end operated an "open door" policy, accepting sketch ideas from anybody who wanted to contribute. With a large number of contributing writers, there was plenty of material to go round, and only the best ideas made it to the screen; thus the series was able to maintain a remarkably high quality of material across four series. The series ended in 1982, partly due to the various cast members wanting to pursue their own projects instead.
View Episode Rankings#36 - Great Barrier Reef
Stretching a full 2000 kilometres in length and made up of 3000 individual reef systems and hundreds of islands, Australia’s Great Barrier Reef is breathtakingly beautiful. Selected as a World Heritage Site in 1981, it is one of the wonders of the natural world. These programmes offer a definitive guide to the secrets of the reef - how it was created, how it works, the intricate relationships between its inhabitants and how climate change and other factors might shape its future. Using the latest specialist filming and visual techniques, the series captures the magic of the reef as it has never been seen before.
View Episode Rankings#37 - Heston Blumenthal: In Search of Perfection
Culinary alchemist and three Michelin-starred chef Heston Blumenthal once again demonstrates his incomparable approach, revolutionising some of the nation's favourite dishes.
View Episode Rankings#38 - Worricker
Since September 2011, the public every day reads of encroachments on their liberty which are justified in the name of security. David Hare's trilogy, ripped from the headlines, focuses on the internal divisions and arguments which have been raging inside an increasingly controversial intelligence community.
View Episode Rankings#39 - How Do You Want Me?
Following their marriage, Ian and Lisa move back to the village where she grew up, a village still dominated by her family. In order to try to fit in, Ian takes a job as the village photographer, a profession for which he is not really cut out.
View Episode Rankings#40 - Louis Theroux: By Reason of Insanity
Louis immerses himself in the world of Ohio's state psychiatric hospitals, meeting patients who have committed crimes - at times horrifically violent - while in the grip of severe mental illness.
View Episode Rankings#41 - The Incredible Human Journey
Dr Alice Roberts travels the globe to discover the incredible story of how humans left Africa to colonise the world - overcoming hostile terrain, extreme weather and other species of human. She pieces together precious fragments of bone, stone and new DNA evidence and discovers how this journey changed these African ancestors into the people of today.
View Episode Rankings#42 - Yes, Prime Minister
Yes, Prime Minister is the sequel to the popular British series Yes Minister. It aired from 1986 to 1988 and is the story of the continuing battles between Jim Hacker, who is now Prime Minister, and Sir Humphrey, who has been promoted to Cabinet Secretary.
View Episode Rankings#43 - Yes Minister
This is the story of the endless battles between the Government in the form of Jim Hacker, a brand new Cabinet Minister and the Civil Service of his department run by Sir Humphrey Appleby. Stuck in the middle of it all is civil servant Bernard Woolley.
View Episode Rankings#44 - The Story of Science: Power, Proof and Passion
Michael Mosley takes an informative and ambitious journey exploring how the evolution of scientific understanding is intimately interwoven with society's historical path.
View Episode Rankings#45 - Elizabeth R
Historical mini-series documenting the reign of Elizabeth I. Each episode focuses on one dramatic period in the lengthy reign of the Virgin Queen, including her ascension to the throne, her various marital intrigues, her problems with her cousin Mary, Queen of Scots, and the threatened invasion of the Spanish Armada. The series is dominated by a tour de force performance by Glenda Jackson, who won an Emmy for her portrayal of Elizabeth.
View Episode Rankings#46 - University Challenge
Academic quiz show where teams of students from UK universities answer questions on all manner of subjects
View Episode Rankings#47 - Terry Jones' Medieval Lives
"Monty Python" veteran Terry Jones hosts "Terry Jones' Medieval Lives", a series that delves into the lives of different medieval occupations, including kings, knights, and minstrels.
View Episode Rankings#48 - Human Universe
Professor Brian Cox asks the biggest questions we can ask. Are we alone? Why are we here? What is our future? Join him in a stunning celebration of human life as he explores our origins, our place and our destiny in the universe.
View Episode Rankings#49 - Patagonia: Earth's Secret Paradise
Documentary series delving into a rarely seen South American wilderness, home to surprising creatures who survive from the mighty Andes Mountains to Cape Horn.
View Episode Rankings#50 - Stewart Lee's Comedy Vehicle
The show marks the triumphant television return of one of the finest stand-ups working in Britain today, enthralling a live audience with his uniquely cynical and hilariously condescending take on the world around him. Each episode sees Stewart exploring a different theme in a stand-up routine, often illustrated with sketches featuring an ensemble cast. They are performed in a way that deconstructs comedy itself; literally a vehicle for Lee's idiosyncratic style. Starring alongside Stewart are: Tony Law, Tara Flynn, Paul Putner, Kevin Eldon, Miles Jupp, Simon Munnery, Job Angus and Michael Redmond. Peter Serafinowicz provides voiceovers.
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