The BEST episodes of BBC Documentaries season 2008

#1 - The Birth of Israel

Season 2008 - Episode 9 - Aired 5/4/2008

Documentary examining the the events leading up to the Israeli war of Independence in 1949, its continuing impact on Arab/Israeli relations and the implications for the Middle East peace process.

#2 - Shroud of Turin: Material Evidence

Season 2008 - Episode 5 - Aired 3/22/2008

This year sees the 20th anniversary of the Carbon 14 dating of the Shroud of Turin that deemed the most famous relic in Christendom a fake. But since then, despite many attempts, no one has been able to determine who the forger was or how the forgery might have been done. This documentary sets out to discover exactly what it is about the image on the Shroud of Turin that has defied imitation and explores new evidence that may challenge the Carbon 14 verdict.

#3 - Ian Fleming - Where Bond Began

Season 2008 - Episode 7 - Aired 10/19/2008

Former Bond girl Joanna Lumley investigates the life of Ian Fleming to coincide with the centenary of his birth and the UK release of the 22nd Bond movie, Quantum of Solace. On a journey which takes her from London to Jamaica, driving Aston Martins, firing Berettas and being surrounded by 24 million pounds' worth of diamonds, Joanna discovers how Fleming poured his personal experiences of war-time espionage, love, luxury and death into his most alluring literary creation, James Bond.

#4 - Blondie: One Way or Another

Season 2008 - Episode 60 - Aired 12/13/2008

Blondie is perhaps the most commercially successful band to emerge from the 1970s punk scene. The original lineup consisted of Deborah Harry (vocals), Clem Burke (drums / percussion), Jimmy Destri (keyboards), Chris Stein (guitar / bass guitar) and Gary Valentine (bass guitar / guitar). New York City-based Blondie was formed in 1974, honing its musical skills at the famous punk rock club, CBGBs, and eventually emerging on top of the new wave scene and then crossing over to the pop music mainstream. Their self-titled first album, Blondie, reflected a punk ethos and 1960s girl group sensibilities or, the Ramones meets the Ronettes, as one music critic opined. Blondie made six albums from 1976 to 1982, the most successful being Parallel Lines, considered by many music critics to be one of the best rock albums of all time. Within this time span, from the late seventies to the early eighties, Blondie constituted a major force on the rock/pop scene, producing a string of hit singles internationally. The most well-known of these singles are the reggae-inspired "The Tide Is High," the rap song "Rapture," and the disco-flavored "Heart of Glass" and "Call Me." More recently, in 1999, the single, "Maria," debuted at number one in the United Kingdom, making this song the sixth number one single for the group there. With this hit single, Blondie reached yet another milestone–the first band to have had a number one single in each of the last three decades in the United Kingdom. And the new album, The Curse of Blondie, and its first single "Good Boys" build on that success. So Blondie continues to make music history and the band's legacy grows. The members of Blondie are true pioneers in every sense of the word. Mark Radcliffe narrates a documentary about New York band Blondie, from their early beginnings in Bowery clubs like CBGBs alongside other up and coming bands like The Ramones, Patti Smith & Talking Heads. The documentary tracks their years of international success, t

#5 - The Big Bang Machine

Season 2008 - Episode 2 - Aired 9/4/2008

Professor Brian Cox visits Geneva to take a look around Cern's Large Hadron Collider before this vast, 27km long machine is sealed off and the experiment begins. When up and running, it is capable of creating the conditions that existed just a billionth of a second after the Big Bang. Brian joins the scientists who hope that the LHC will change our understanding of the early universe and solve some of its mysteries.

#6 - The Medici: Makers of Modern Art

Season 2008 - Episode 107 - Aired 12/10/2008

Documentary in which Andrew Graham-Dixon reveals how the Medici family transformed Florence through sculpture, painting and architecture and created a world where masterpieces fetch millions today. Without the money and patronage of the Medici we might never have heard of artists such as Donatello, Michelangelo or Botticelli. Graham-Dixon examines how a family of shadowy, corrupt businessmen, driven by greed and ambition, became the financial engine behind the Italian Renaissance.

#7 - The Jet Stream and Us

Season 2008 - Episode 25 - Aired 2/17/2008

Documentary tracing how human understanding of the jet stream - a ribbon of fast moving air high in the atmosphere - has grown. It has been responsible for bewildering effect on bomber pilots in World War II, turbocharging modern transatlantic flyers, the infamous 1987 hurricane and the devastating floods of recent years. Scientists now believe this powerful weather phenomenon is now changing its pattern of behaviour and could have an even bigger impact on our climate and the way we live our lives.

#8 - Merlin the Legend

Season 2008 - Episode 43 - Aired 9/20/2008

A look at the mythical roots in art and literature of Merlin - magician, hero and historical mystery. Merlin is the archetypal wizard, Welsh and Celtic in origin but with connections across the water in Cornwall and middle Europe, and, of course, the Arthurian legends. Clearly, Merlin is the distant relative of Dumbledore and all those weird and wonderful wizards in literature.

#9 - How to Build a Cathedral

Season 2008 - Episode 36 - Aired 4/21/2008

The great cathedrals were the wonders of the Medieval World - the tallest buildings since the pyramids and the showpieces of Medieval Christianity. Yet they were built at a time when most of us lived in hovels. Architectural historian Jon Cannon explores who were the people that built them and how were they able to achieve such a bold vision.

#10 - The Story of Asthma Island

Season 2008 - Episode 48 - Aired 12/9/2008

Documentary about how Tristan da Cunha, the most remote inhabited island in the world and a seven-day boat trip from Africa, could hold the key to unlocking one of the great mysteries of modern medicine - the genetic basis for asthma.

#11 - Ian Hislop Goes Off the Rails

Season 2008 - Episode 47 - Aired 10/2/2008

Ian Hislop brings his customary humour, analysis and wit to the notorious Beeching Report of 1963, which led to the closure of a third of the nation's railway lines and stations and forced tens of thousands of people into the car and onto the road.

#12 - Hadrian

Season 2008 - Episode 55 - Aired 7/19/2008

As the British Museum prepares to launch its spectacular exhibition on the Emperor Hadrian, Dan Snow takes us on a journey around Hadrian's vast empire. Immortalised in the UK after building a Wall on the edge of his Empire, which bears his name to this day. Hadrian's Wall, as it is known, is just a tiny portion of a massive structure Hadrian had built to protect the Roman Empire, with similar, sister walls running through northern Europe and still more in north Africa. His legacy also includes the Pantheon in Rome. Hadrian brought the Empire to an unparalleled period of peace and prosperity. At the heart of this great Empire, however, lay a mystery - Hadrian's relationship with a young man, Antinous. The friendship led to Antinous being deified by Hadrian following his death, in strange circumstances, on the Nile. Dan Snow uncovers the genius and the dark side of Hadrian: peace-maker, frontier-builder, star-crossed lover, architect - and ruthless oppressor of the jews. But still, Dan concludes, Hadrian was one of the greatest Roman emperors.

#13 - In Search of Spanish Flu

Season 2008 - Episode 22 - Aired 10/6/2008

Documentary in which a team of top UK virologists exhume the body of statesman, military officer and diplomat Sir Mark Sykes from a country churchyard in an attempt to detect the genetic footprint of one of the most dangerous viruses the world has ever seen, the Spanish Flu. It may be that an aristocrat who died nearly 90 years ago holds the key to preventing a modern bird flu pandemic.

#14 - Page Three Teens

Season 2008 - Episode 11 - Aired 6/18/2008

Documentary following Chelsea White, a teenager considering a career as a Page 3 girl. She began modelling when she was six but at 17 is too old to be a teenage model and too small for the catwalk. Inspired by Kelly Brook and Jordan believing topless modelling is a fast route to fame and fortune, but it is illegal to do a glamour shoot until the age of 18. For the two months leading up her birthday Chelsea goes on a journey to learn what the glamour industry is really like, seeking advice from agents, photographers and the current queen of glamour, Keeley Hazell, on whether or not she should bare all.

#15 - Addicted to Boob Jobs

Season 2008 - Episode 10 - Aired 7/21/2008

Fashion journalist Louise Roe goes on a journey to discover why women have boob jobs not just once but, in some cases, again and again. She meets four women in their twenties who have gone under the knife to get the perfect pair of boobs.

#16 - The Harp with Catrin Finch

Season 2008 - Episode 1 - Aired 4/4/2008

Harpist Catrin Finch takes a musical journey to discover the ancient and fascinating history of the harp in Wales and the world, with interviews and performances from internationally-renowned guests including Alan Stivell, Carlos Orosco, Alemu Aga, Isabelle Perrin and Elinor Bennett.

#17 - Caledonia Dreamin'

Season 2008 - Episode 100 - Aired 2/11/2008

Documentary charting the success of Scottish pop bands in the 1980's and 90's.Featuring acts such as; Orange juice, The Associates , The Bluebells and The Proclaimers

#18 - Portillo on Thatcher: The Lady's Not for Spurning

Season 2008 - Episode 72 - Aired 2/25/2008

Former cabinet minister Michael Portillo assesses the legacy and continued influence of Margaret Thatcher on the Conservative Party. He talks with former colleagues about the highs of the Thatcher years and the lows that followed for the Tories, speaking frankly about his own personal regrets and the damage Thatcher inflicted on the party in the wilderness years after John Major's premiership.

#19 - Marc Bolan: The Final Word

Season 2008 - Episode 99 - Aired 8/2/2008

Thirty-one years after his death, the elfin, glam rock star Marc Bolan 's rise to fame is retold with a mixture of rare concert footage, home movies and contributions from friends.

#20 - Pop! What Is It Good For?

Season 2008 - Episode 98 - Aired 1/8/2008

Writer and pop addict Paul Morley explores and celebrates the beauty and mystery of the pop single.

#21 - Hey Mr DJ - The Rise And Rise Of The Disc Jockey

Season 2008 - Episode 97 - Aired 9/6/2008

#22 - The Bonzos

Season 2008 - Episode 96 - Aired 5/28/2008

Documentary using archive footage, eye-witness testimony and contributions from some of the world's most distinguished historians to tell the story of the British wartime operation that rescued Hitler's hoard of looted art. During the war, the Fuhrer amassed about 2,000 old masters, stripped from the greatest galleries and museums in Europe. The Bonzos were the covert group sent to retrieve these treasures

#23 - Clowns

Season 2008 - Episode 95 - Aired 4/8/2008

Daisy Asquith investigates the mysterious world of children's entertainers. The idea for the film came to her whilst on a typical seaside holiday where a different children's entertainer would set up in the hotel ballroom at six o'clock each evening and perform a different act. From animal petting to sea shanties to balloon buffoonery, it seemed an almost thankless task. Kids screaming, crying, badgering and demanding whilst performers attempted to maintain their professional cool and pull yet another hankie from their sleeve or fall face down again, knowing it's guaranteed to make a four-year-old laugh. She started to wonder who these people were, how they ended up here, whether this was their life-long ambition and how they knew what the children wanted. Then those creeping doubts and stereotypical fears stated to rear their ugly heads: don't you have to be a bit weird to do this sort of thing, are they all failed adult entertainers and do they all still live with their mothers? Back home, Daisy started to investigate further and soon found all her preconceptions challenged in a world of pirates and pumpkins, comedy handshakes and rabbits in hats. This is a film about what she found.

#24 - Auntie's War on Smut

Season 2008 - Episode 94 - Aired 3/18/2008

Documentary about the evolution of innuendo on the BBC and how it led to the collapse of the corporation's prim and proper attitudes.

#25 - What Happened Next? Living in the Past

Season 2008 - Episode 128 - Aired 5/20/2008

Remember Living in the Past? It was the 1970s documentary series in which six families spent a year living in the Iron Age, working, sleeping and eating as their ancestors would have done 2,300 years before. Thirty years on, What Happened Next? catches up with the people who took part. Some still sport neolithic beards, while others nurse ancient grievances - one man describes building a house from mud and wood during the wettest spring of the century as "sheer hell".