The BEST episodes of BBC Documentaries season 2005

#1 - 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.

#2 - 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.

#3 - 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.

#4 - 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.

#5 - Ebony Towers: The Black Intelligentsia

Season 2005 - Episode 55 - Aired 3/7/2005

Thirty years after the introduction of affirmative action, American universities have seen a new generation of black academics, including a brain drain from Britain. What are the implications on both sides of the Atlantic?

#6 - 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.

#7 - 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

#8 - 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.

#9 - 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.

#10 - The Avengers Revisited

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

#11 - 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.

#12 - 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.

#13 - 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.

#14 - 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.

#15 - 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.

#16 - 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.

#17 - 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.

#18 - 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.

#19 - 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?

#20 - 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.

#21 - Doctor Who: A New Dimension

Season 2005 - Episode 76 - Aired 3/26/2005

Documentary about the 2005 revival of Doctor Who, featuring cast interviews, behind the scenes footage and a look at the Doctor’s past.

#22 - The Somme

Season 2005 - Episode 56 - Aired 11/14/2005

Drama-documentary recounting the events of the 1st July 1916 and the Battle of the Somme on the Western Front during the First World War. Told through the letters and journals of soldiers who were there.

#23 - Conan Doyle for the Defence

Season 2005 - Episode 57 - Aired 12/25/2005

Documentary exploring the lesser-known side of Arthur Conan Doyle, who solved real crimes as chilling and baffling as those investigated by his creation Sherlock Holmes. His two most infamous cases involved tracking down a madman who mutilated horses and brought terror to a quiet, leafy English village, and the brutal murder of a wealthy spinster which led Doyle to expose corruption at the heart of Britain's justice system. Driven by a deep sense of justice, Conan Doyle strove to prove the innocence of two wrongfully convicted men, so confirming the belief in minds of many that Sherlock Holmes and Conan Doyle were one and the same.

#24 - The Improbable Mr. Atlee

Season 2005 - Episode 58 - Aired 1/10/2005

Professor David Reynolds tells the story of Labour's postwar government and examines the achievements of Clement Attlee, including the introduction of the NHS in Britain.

#25 - 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.