The BEST episodes of BBC Documentaries season 2005

#1 - We Have Ways of Making You Talk

Season 2005 - Episode 59 - Aired 4/5/2005

We Have Ways of Making You Talk is a documentary examining interrogation techniques and they’re consequences. Does water boarding work? What is the history behind that technique? These and other questions will be answered in this intriguing and sometimes disturbing documentary. Filmed in France, Israel, USA, Algeria, Argentina, Uruguay, South Africa and the UK, this BBC documentary explores the history of modern interrogation techniques and the rise of modern torture using revealing interviews with state interrogators and state torturers. The legacy of this history continues to shapes our present, especially in the United States, and some of these techniques have now become routine in the war on terror – be it the use of dogs, water-boarding, or sexual humiliation. This long, unbroken line of inhuman cruelty connects Nazi Germany to Abu Ghraib, and is an essential issue in today’s political landscape.

#2 - The Body of Marilyn Monroe

Season 2005 - Episode 27 - Aired 8/17/2005

This documentary focuses on Marilyn's health problems, including endometriosis and depression, and her addiction to prescribed drugs.

#3 - Michelangelo: A Film

Season 2005 - Episode 10 - Aired 12/20/2005

Film about the drawings of Michelangelo and the way that they illuminate this life, his artistic development, his religion and his inner torments. The film is presented Neil MacGregor Director of the British Museum and is filmed on location in Florence and in the Sistine Chapel. Michelangelo's drawings are some of the greatest of all time.

#4 - John Wyndham: The Invisible Man of Science Fiction

Season 2005 - Episode 26 - Aired 10/15/2005

Drama documentary on the life of author John Wyndham. With contributions from writer Brian Aldiss, Keith Roberts (plant biologist), Amanda Rees (science historian), Keith Budge (headmaster, Bedales), Steve Jones (geneticist), Sam Youd (writer), David Ketterer (Wyndham's biographer), Sister Bede (family friend), Dan Rebellato (dramatist), Armand Leroi (geneticist), Maire McQueeney (literary guide), Nick Davies (zoologist), Matthew Smith (parapsychologist), Gerald Hodgett (Penn Club resident), Linda Partridge (biologist), and Tom Kirkwood (gerontologist).

#5 - Shepperton Babylon

Season 2005 - Episode 61 - Aired 8/11/2005

A sardonic look at the dark secrets of the British Film Industry of the 1920s and 30s, where scandal and sordid behaviour was almost as rife as in Hollywood.

#6 - Hiroshima

Season 2005 - Episode 5 - Aired 8/8/2005

It was the defining moment of the 20th Century - the scientific, technological, military, and political gamble of the world's first atomic attack. This drama-documentary attempts to do what no other film has done before - to show what it is like to live through a nuclear explosion, millisecond by millisecond.

#7 - James May's Top Toys

Season 2005 - Episode 16 - Aired 12/21/2005

A celebration of the toys which have survived across the decades, presented by a man who still plays with them. When James May was three, his father gave him a toy car for Christmas, and a life behind the wheel and under a bonnet became his destiny. Forty-two-year-old James takes us on a tour of his childhood mind as he rifles through his boy toy favourites which include Meccano, Lego, Scalectrix, Airfix and, his all time number one toy, the train set. His love of engineering and building things has shaped the ingredients of his entire toy cupboard. There's not a microchip in sight. He still plays with his toys - still loves building things with his various sets. Each toy prompts a story - a history told via archive, anecdote and obsessive collector.

#8 - The Avengers Revisited

Season 2005 - Episode 53 - Aired 11/10/2005

#9 - Clear The Skies: 9/11 Air Defense

Season 2005 - Episode 38 - Aired 10/18/2005

The documentary Clear the Skies explains how in the aftermath of the attack on the World Trade Center, fighter pilots were sent into the sky to ground every plane that was in the air. There were nearly 5,000 aircraft in the air that needed to be brought back down to the ground. The film includes interviews with pilots and government officials.

#10 - Ian Fleming: Bondmaker

Season 2005 - Episode 51 - Aired 8/28/2005

A look at the life of Ian Fleming from when he was in Naval Intelligence as a Commander until his death in 1964. This docudrama gives an insight into what Fleming was really like and how he wrote the Bond novels.

#11 - Churchill's Forgotten Years

Season 2005 - Episode 50 - Aired 9/1/2005

In 1945, Winston Churchill was cast out of office by the British electorate. It was a terrible blow for the man who had just led his country to victory in the Second World War. But he refused to accept defeat, fighting back to become Prime Minister once more and writing a monumental history of the war. Professor David Reynolds tells the moving story of Churchill's wilderness years, in which old age and illness could not overcome his undiminished ambition.

#12 - After the War: Churchill's Defeat

Season 2005 - Episode 49 - Aired 8/24/2005

1945 - The year of Winston Churchill's greatest victory and his most devastating defeat. Just weeks after VE Day, a General Election saw him and his government rejected and the Labour Party swept to power.

#13 - The Magic Factory - Alton Towers

Season 2005 - Episode 48 - Aired 3/23/2005

Alton Towers, the second most paid for tourist attraction in the UK, spent £12 million on the ride 'Oblivion' - the world's first vertical roller-coaster and the subject of this documentary.

#14 - 25 Years of the Comedy Store - A Personal History by Paul Merton

Season 2005 - Episode 47 - Aired 1/11/2005

Documentary directed by Paul Merton which traces the history of the Soho club, which served as the birth place of alternative comedy in the 1980s. Talking heads include Jack Dee, Clive Anderson, Alexei Sayle and Keith Allen.

#15 - Richard the Lionheart and Saladin: Holy Warriors

Season 2005 - Episode 46 - Aired 3/26/2005

Using the latest research into the original Christian and Muslim ancient sources and the insight of leading experts from both east and west, this drama-documentary challenges the popular view of Richard the Lionheart and Saladin's epic clash for control of Jerusalem. Richard emerges as a man who earned the name Lionheart for his murderous brutality as much as his chivalry. Equally, Saladin was not demonised in Europe, but revered for his displays of mercy towards the crusaders. Filmed on location in the Middle East, Richard the Lionheart and Saladin: Warriors of God recreates the heroic encounter between these two great men. It traces their very different origins, their struggle to understand each other, and the mutual respect that emerged as they battled for the destiny of the world's most sacred city.

#16 - Nelson's Trafalgar

Season 2005 - Episode 45 - Aired 6/22/2005

Drama documentary with Michael Portillo exploring the beliefs and passions that drove Horatio Nelson's life, as reconstructions illustrate his military genius, scandalous lifestyle and heroic death.

#17 - VJ Heroes Scotland's Jungle War

Season 2005 - Episode 43 - Aired 8/13/2005

Seventy years ago, Scottish regiments fought a forgotten war in the malaria-infested jungles of the far east. This documentary remembers the men who fought at close range with the Japanese and witnessed some of the greatest events of the 20th century.

#18 - The Secret Life of Arthur Ransome

Season 2005 - Episode 42 - Aired 9/17/2005

To generations Arthur Ransome's books, including Swallows and Amazons, were an integral part of growing up. But was there a darker side to the author? In this drama-documentary, the enthusiastic Griff Rhys Jones follows a trail that begins in Russia, reveals close links with many leading Bolsheviks, an affair with Trotsky's secretary and previously unreleased KGB documents about Ransome. But was Ransome actually spying for the British secret service all along?

#19 - California Dreamin': The Songs of The Mamas & the Papas

Season 2005 - Episode 41 - Aired 3/1/2005

Documentary charting the formation, instant rise and success of Californian pop group the Mamas and the Papas. Interviews with the band, coupled with performance and archive footage, show the group in their heyday, and the band give detailed accounts of the writing and recording of their hit songs, as well as their personal responses to (and problems with) instant fame and success.

#20 - The Story of 1

Season 2005 - Episode 40 - Aired 9/28/2005

Terry Jones hosts this documentary on the number one. It looks at early evidence of counting, the use of numbers for simple arithmetic in Sumeria, the development of large numbers and their use for engineering in Egypt, the worship of numbers by Pythagoras and the theoretical mathematics of the Archimedes. It also looks at the use of numbers by the Romans, the development of Arabic numerals in India, the discovery of the number zero, the development of algebra in the Islamic world, the decline of Roman numerals in the west, and the development of the binary system.

#21 - Namibia Genocide and the Second Reich

Season 2005 - Episode 39 - Aired 8/15/2005

A hundred years ago, three quarters of the Herero people of the German colony of Namibia were killed, many in concentration camps. Today, the descendants of the survivors are seeking reparations from the German government. This film tells for the first time this forgotten story and its links to German racial theories. This powerful documentary by David Adetayo Olusoga took a sensitive and uncompromising look at the tragic circumstances leading to the massacre of three quarters of the Namibia population in German concentration camps built in Africa. The program included graphic reconstructions and did not shirk from showing disturbing scenes which revealed the savagery of European colonial ideology put into practice. The documentary also showed the 2004 footage of Germany's ambassador to Namibia expressing regret for their killing of thousands of Namibia's Hereros during the colonial era. Unsurprisingly, the Germans refused to agree to the justifiable calls for reparations. The program also explored the current call for land reforms where most of Namibia's commercial land is still owned by European farmers who make up 6 percent of the country's population of 1.8 million. Throughout it included interviews and powerful testimony from African survivors, descendants and reparation movement representatives thus making this a compelling program which both educated the audience whilst treating the sensitive subject matter with the respect it deserved.

#22 - We Want the Light: Jews and German Music

Season 2005 - Episode 73 - Aired 1/29/2005

What is the complex but fruitful relationship between Jewish people and German music? This award-winning film focuses on a pianist who played over 100 times in the Theresienstadt concentration camp.

#23 - The Rabbits of Skomer

Season 2005 - Episode 71 - Aired 11/2/2005

Documentary about the wild rabbits which live on sea cliffs on the Pembrokeshire coast alongside seabirds like puffins and seagulls. They come in many shades, owing to their intriguing history, and each spring the island of Skomer itself is transformed by wild flowers, creating one of Britain's most beautiful natural spectacles. The green and brown island turns blue and pink for a couple of spectacular weeks under a carpet of bluebells and red campion.

#24 - The Owls and the Orchard

Season 2005 - Episode 52 - Aired 11/23/2005

Short documentary taking a look at a devoted pair of little owls who set up home in an old orchard in rural Herefordshire. From spring blossom to autumn apples, it follows a year in the life of the parent birds, their baby owls and the old fruit trees.

#25 - Cold War, Dirty Science

Season 2005 - Episode 54 - Aired 10/19/2005

Weapons of Mass destruction are seen as a singularly modern concern. But this film reveals the secret story of Britain's development of WMD after the second World War, half a century before Bush and Blair and 'the axis of evil'. During the decade following WWII, British scientists plan - not for peace - but for a war which will be fought with chemical and biological weapons of mass destruction. This film exposes the dangerous, top secret tests, which were not just performed on British citizens, but actually put the British public at risk