The BEST episodes of BBC Documentaries season 2009
Every episode of BBC Documentaries season 2009, ranked from best to worst by thousands of votes from fans of the show. The best episodes of BBC Documentaries season 2009!
Documentaries produced by or for the BBC.
#1 - Darwin's Struggle: The Evolution of the Origin of Species
Season 2009 - Episode 74 - Aired 2/2/2009
Documentary telling the little-known story of how Darwin came to write his great masterpiece, On the Origin of Species, a book which explains the wonderful variety of the natural world as emerging out of death and the struggle of life. In the twenty years he took to develop a brilliant idea into a revolutionary book, Darwin went through a personal struggle every bit as turbulent as that of the natural world he observed. Fortunately, he left us an extraordinary record of his brilliant insights, observations of nature, and touching expressions of love and affection for those around him. He also wrote frank accounts of family tragedies, physical illnesses and moments of self-doubt, as he laboured towards publication of the book that would change the way we see the world. The story is told with the benefit of Darwin's secret notes and correspondence, enhanced by natural history filming, powerful imagery from the time and contributions from leading contemporary biographers and scientists.
#2 - Jackie Stewart: The Flying Scot
Season 2009 - Episode 92 - Aired 4/11/2009
Sir Jackie Stewart is one of Britain's all time great sporting personalities - winner of three Formula 1 world championships and 27 grand prix, and ranked as one of the ten greatest racing drivers of all time. With his black cap and sideburns, he became an unmistakable icon in the glorious era of style, glamour and speed of the 1960s and 70s. Venturing beyond the world of motor sport, this documentary is an insight into the triumphs and tragedies of Stewart's eventful life, and includes contributions from friends and colleagues such as Niki Lauda, Emerson Fittipaldi, Sean Connery, Murray Walker and Edsel Ford, as well as the last ever interview with the late Ken Tyrrell, without whom Stewart's career might have taken a very different turn. Produced by Stewart's youngest son Mark, the film is enriched with family photographs, home movies and scrapbooks kept by Lady Helen Stewart that document her husband's career.
#3 - Why Beauty Matters
Season 2009 - Episode 107 - Aired 11/28/2009
Philosopher Roger Scruton presents a provocative essay on the importance of beauty in the arts and in our lives.
#4 - Fish! A Japanese Obsession
Season 2009 - Episode 3 - Aired 3/23/2009
Charles Rangeley Wilson, author, journalist and BBC 2's Accidental Angler, travels to Japan to explore the Japanese people's passionate relationship to fish.
#5 - The History of the Future: Cars
Season 2009 - Episode 135 - Aired 3/12/2009
Phill Jupitus looks at how we thought the car of the future was going to turn out and finds out why it didn't happen that way, focusing on the classic era of the 1950s and 60s, a time when they hadn't quite yet worked out how to make cars fly and instead just made them look like they could.
#6 - The Beatles on Record
Season 2009 - Episode 117 - Aired 12/12/2009
In 1962 an unknown group from Liverpool entered Abbey Road Studios to record their debut single. During the next eight years they created what is arguably regarded as the greatest collection of studio recordings of the 20th century. This film charts how The Beatles developed as musicians, matured as songwriters and created a body of work that sounds as fresh now as the time it was recorded.
#7 - Jim Clark: The Quiet Champion
Season 2009 - Episode 109 - Aired 4/18/2009
Portrait of Jim Clark, one of the most talented and intriguing characters of the 1960s. From unlikely beginnings on a farm in Scotland, the introverted and media-shy Clark emerged to become the most successful racing driver of his time, and forged a reputation as one of the all-time great heroes of motor sport. Using previously unseen archive footage, testimonials from friends, family and former colleagues, the film tells the extraordinary but tragic story of an enigmatic racing legend.
#8 - The Maharajas' Motor Car: The Story of Rolls-Royce in India
Season 2009 - Episode 53 - Aired 3/8/2009
Documentary telling the story of Rolls-Royce in India through the fortunes of India's princes.
#9 - The Lost Libraries of Timbuktu
Season 2009 - Episode 49 - Aired 2/12/2009
Aminatta Forna tells the story of legendary Timbuktu and its long hidden legacy of hundreds of thousands of ancient manuscripts. With its university founded around the same time as Oxford, Timbuktu is proof that the reading and writing of books have long been as important to Africans as to Europeans.
#10 - 10 Things You Need to Know About Losing Weight
Season 2009 - Episode 42 - Aired 5/27/2009
Every year millions of people in Britain try to lose weight, and most fail. We are constantly bombarded with advice about dieting and the latest slimming fads. But what really works? In this programme, medical journalist Michael Mosley investigates the latest scientific breakthroughs in slimming, uncovering ten of the simplest ways you can shed those pounds. From the slimming secrets of soup to our brain's response after skipping meals, what he discovers may completely change the way you think about diets, health and losing weight.
#11 - Synth Britannia
Season 2009 - Episode 26 - Aired 10/16/2009
Documentary following a generation of post-punk musicians who took the synthesiser from the experimental fringes to the centre of the pop stage. In the late 1970s, small pockets of electronic artists including the Human League, Daniel Miller and Cabaret Volatire were inspired by Kraftwerk and JG Ballard and dreamt of the sound of the future against the backdrop of bleak, high-rise Britain. The crossover moment came in 1979 when Gary Numan's appearance on Top of the Pops with Tubeway Army's Are Friends Electric heralded the arrival of synthpop. Four lads from Basildon known as Depeche Mode would come to own the new sound whilst post-punk bands like Ultravox, Soft Cell, OMD and Yazoo took the synth out of the pages of the NME and onto the front page of Smash Hits. By 1983, acts like Pet Shop Boys and New Order were showing that the future of electronic music would lie in dance music. Contributors include Philip Oakey, Vince Clarke, Martin Gore, Bernard Sumner, Gary Numan and Neil Tennant. With Moogs turned up to 11, a 1970s/80s journey through the BBC's synthpop archives from Roxy Music to New Order. Track listing: Roxy Music — Do the Strand Tubeway Army — Are 'Friends' Electric? Sparks — Beat the Clock The Human League — The Path of Least Resistance Orchestral Manoeuvres in the Dark — Messages Ultravox — Vienna Depeche Mode — New Life New Order — Temptation Soft Cell — Say Hello, Wave Goodbye Japan — Ghosts Yazoo — Don't Go Tears for Fears — Mad World Eurythmics — Love is a Stranger Heaven 17 — Temptation Howard Jones — What Is Love? Pet Shop Boys — Opportunities
#12 - Cleopatra: Portrait of a Killer
Season 2009 - Episode 6 - Aired 3/23/2009
Cleopatra - the most famous woman in history. We know her as a great queen, a beautiful lover and a political schemer. For 2,000 years almost all evidence of her has disappeared - until now. In one of the world's most exciting finds, archaeologists believe they have discovered the skeleton of her sister, murdered by Cleopatra and Mark Antony. From Egypt to Turkey, Neil Oliver investigates the story of a ruthless queen who would kill her own siblings for power. This is the portrait of a killer.
#13 - High Flyers: How Britain Took to the Air
Season 2009 - Episode 81 - Aired 10/28/2009
A documentary celebrating the golden age of air travel, when in the 1920s and 1930s Britain ruled the skies, and style and glamour were a passport to adventure.
#14 - Charles Darwin and the Tree of Life
Season 2009 - Episode 1 - Aired 2/1/2009
In this programme, David Attenborough asks three key questions: how, and why, did Darwin come up with his theory of evolution? Why do we think he was right? And why is it more important now than ever before? David starts his journey in Darwin's home at Down House in Kent, where Darwin worried and puzzled over the origins of life. David goes back to his roots in Leicestershire, where he hunted for fossils as a child, and where another schoolboy unearthed a significant find in the 1950s. And he revisits Cambridge University, where both he and Darwin studied, and where many years later the DNA double helix was discovered, providing the foundations for genetics. At the end of his journey in the Natural History Museum in London, David concludes that Darwin's great insight revolutionised the way in which we see the world. We now understand why there are so many different species, and why they are distributed in the way they are. But above all, Darwin has shown us that we are not set apart from the natural world, and do not have dominion over it. We are subject to its laws and processes, as are all other animals on earth to which, indeed, we are related.
#15 - Cruickshank on Kew: The Garden That Changed the World
Season 2009 - Episode 61 - Aired 4/28/2009
As the Royal Botanic Gardens in Kew prepare to celebrate their 250th anniversary, Dan Cruickshank unearths some of the surprising stories that shaped the famous gardens. His travels take him from the royal gardens to the corridors of power and the outposts of the Empire as he pieces together Kew's story, uncovering tales of bravery, high adventure, passion and drama.
#16 - Fleetwood Mac: Don't Stop
Season 2009 - Episode 78 - Aired 11/1/2009
Fleetwood Mac, one of the biggest-selling bands of all time, are back on the road again. Their story, told in their own words, is an epic tale of love and confrontation, of success and loss. Few bands have undergone such radical musical and personal change. The band evolved from the 60s British blues boom to perfect a US West Coast sound that saw them sell 40 million copies of the album Rumours. However, behind the scenes relationships were turbulent. The band went through multiple line-ups with six different lead guitarists. While working on Rumours, the two couples at the heart of the band separated, yet this heartache inspired the perfect pop record.
#17 - Why Reading Matters
Season 2009 - Episode 103 - Aired 2/9/2009
Science writer Rita Carter tells the story of how modern neuroscience has revealed that reading, something most of us take for granted, unlocks remarkable powers. Carter explains how the classic novel Wuthering Heights allows us to step inside other minds and understand the world from different points of view, and she wonders whether the new digital revolution could threaten the values of classic reading.
#18 - Show Me the Mummy: The Face of Takabuti
Season 2009 - Episode 159 - Aired 10/19/2009
In 1835 the mummified remains of Takabuti were unwrapped in Belfast. Now for the first time in thousands of years, her true face is revealed. In October 2006, the Ulster Museum closed its doors to allow major refurbishment to take place. Its contents were stored away in a dark, secret location. Light was soon to be shed, however, on one of the museum's most beloved exhibits, the mummy Takabuti. Show Me The Mummy: The Face Of Takabuti, takes advantage of the mummy's retreat from public life by gathering together a crack team of top scientists and historians to help piece together the remarkable history of the mysterious Takabuti. Borderline Productions & Straight Forward Productions for BBC Northern Ireland
#19 - Synth Britannia at the BBC
Season 2009 - Episode 164 - Aired 10/16/2009
With the Moogs turned up to 11, a 1970s and 80s journey through the BBC's synthpop archives from Roxy Music and Tubeway Army to New Order and Sparks.
#20 - 1929: The Great Crash
Season 2009 - Episode 13 - Aired 1/24/2009
A documentary exploring the causes of the 1929 Wall Street Crash. Over six terrifying, desperate days in October 1929, shares crashed by a third on the New York Stock Exchange. More than $25 billion in individual wealth was lost. Later, three thousand banks failed, taking people's savings with them. Surviving eyewitnesses describe the biggest financial catastrophe in history. In 1919, the US had emerged victorious and dominant from World War One. Britain and its European allies were exhausted financially from the war. In contrast, the US economy was thriving and the world danced to the American tune. Easy credit and mass production set the tone in the roaring twenties for an era of consumption like none that had ever been seen before. The stock market rose and investors piled in, borrowing money to cash in on the bubble. In 1928, the market went up by 50 per cent in just 12 months. The crash was followed by a devastating worldwide depression that lasted until the Second World War. Shares did not regain their pre-crash values until 1954. This is the story of a financial disaster that we hoped could never happen again.
#21 - Ian Hislop's Changing of the Bard
Season 2009 - Episode 137 - Aired 5/16/2009
an Hislop takes an amused look at one of the most peculiar offices in the British establishment, that of Poet Laureate. Its 341-year history produces a gloriously eccentric picture of who we are, how we are ruled, what we want to say about ourselves and just how hard it is to do that in verse. We know that Poets Laureate write about royal weddings but Hislop discovers a whole lot more, such as 534, John Masefield's brilliant poem on the launch of the Queen Mary from the Clydebank shipyards and Nicholas Rowe's New Year's Ode for 1716 dedicated to the Princess of Wales's labour pains. There was Colley Cibber, the Laureate so ashamed of his poor output he adopted a pseudonym and wrote poems attacking himself, and Alfred Tennyson, who wrote the nation's favourite laureate poem, Charge of the Light Brigade. The film also throws light on the shadowy process by which the appointment is made. Lord Gowrie, the arts minister in Mrs Thatcher's cabinet, reveals how Ted Hughes came to be Thatcher's choice for Laureate, when many people were still hostile towards him due to his wife Sylvia Plath's suicide. A visit to the National Archive unearths a hilarious list by C P Duff, a top civil servant, ranking the poets of the day for the benefit of one very confused prime minister, and Candida Lycett Green reveals to Ian just how much whisky it took before her father, John Betjeman, could summon up a poem to celebrate Princess Anne's wedding. Ian gets to the bottom of the bizarre tradition of the payment in sherry (650 bottles of the stuff), and after trying a glass or two himself, poetic inspiration strikes and he concludes the film with his very own ode to Carol Ann Duffy, our newest Poet Laureate.
#22 - Desperately Hungry Housewives
Season 2009 - Episode 142 - Aired 4/28/2009
Anorexia and bulimia were once more commonly associated with teenage girls but are now on the increase among older women. This film goes into the seemingly perfect world of four housewives who are struggling with the fallout from their eating disorders. They may seem to have it all with their nice houses, perfect children and middle class lives, but behind the wisteria, they are having a constant battle with their food and eating. Jane in her early fifties now has the bone density of a 92 year old; 36-year-old Zoe has turned to Cognitive Behavioural Therapy to reclaim her life from anorexia; bubbly Tracey is bulimic and spends her nights binging and vomiting in secret from her children; and young mum Georgia tries hard to lose her baby weight, but will her obsession with weight see her falling back into the anorexic danger zone?
#23 - Munro: Mountain Man
Season 2009 - Episode 67 - Aired 9/20/2009
Little more than 100 years ago, Scottish mountains standing at more than 3,000 feet were virtually unknown. Today they are familiar terrain to many thousands of climbers, thanks to Victorian adventurer Hugh Munro's determination to list the high peaks which now define the Highlands and Islands of Scotland. This documentary tells the story of the magnificent peaks that bear his name and the people who have been possessed by them.
#24 - Krautrock: The Rebirth of Germany
Season 2009 - Episode 29 - Aired 10/23/2009
Documentary which looks at how a radical generation of musicians created a new German musical identity out of the cultural ruins of war. Between 1968 and 1977 bands like Neu!, Can, Faust and Kraftwerk would look beyond western rock and roll to create some of the most original and uncompromising music ever heard. They shared one common goal - a forward-looking desire to transcend Germany's gruesome past - but that didn't stop the music press in war-obsessed Britain from calling them Krautrock.
#25 - What Darwin Didn't Know
Season 2009 - Episode 10 - Aired 1/26/2009
Documentary which tells the story of evolution theory since Darwin postulated it in 1859 in 'On the Origin of Species'. The theory of evolution by natural selection is now scientific orthodoxy, but when it was unveiled it caused a storm of controversy, from fellow scientists as well as religious people. They criticised it for being short on evidence and long on assertion and Darwin, being the honest scientist that he was, agreed with them. He knew that his theory was riddled with 'difficulties', but he entrusted future generations to complete his work and prove the essential truth of his vision, which is what scientists have been doing for the past 150 years. Evolutionary biologist Professor Armand Marie Leroi charts the scientific endeavour that brought about the triumphant renaissance of Darwin's theory. He argues that, with the new science of evolutionary developmental biology (evo devo), it may be possible to take that theory to a new level - to do more than explain what has evolved in the past, and start to predict what might evolve in the future.