The BEST episodes of Channel 4 (UK) Documentaries season 2005

#1 - Prince Eddy: The King We Never Had

Season 2005 - Episode 15 - Aired 11/1/2005

This revealing film uses newly discovered letters written by Prince Eddy himself to explore whether his early death saved Britain from a monster, or cheated the nation of a good king. For the first time, Eddy's own words serve in his defence in a fresh investigation of the remarkable kind Britain never had.

#2 - Riddle of Einstein's Brain

Season 2005 - Episode 28 - Aired 1/17/2005

#3 - John Peel's Record Box

Season 2005 - Episode 6 - Aired 11/14/2005

The box contains a small private collection of the British radio DJ John Peel who died in 2004 at the age of 65. Peel's main archive contained more than 100,000 vinyl records and CDs. This smaller collection is 143 singles, some of them doublettes, stored in a wooden box representing some of his favourites. According to the documentary, there are no singles by Peel's favourite group, The Fall, because he kept them in a separate box. The film features interviews with John's wife Sheila Ravenscroft, radio DJs and artists including Mary Anne Hobbs, Sir Elton John, Ronnie Wood, Roger Daltrey, Feargal Sharkey, Jack White, Michael Palin and Miki Berenyi.

#4 - Torture: The Guantanamo Guidebook

Season 2005 - Episode 25 - Aired 2/28/2005

Guantanamo Guidebook films seven British volunteers - three Muslims and four white Britons - locked up in a makeshift detention center at a warehouse in east London as they are subjected for over a period of 48 hours to a range of torture techniques known to be used at the Guantanamo Bay by US interrogation experts, Reuters said. The show, produced by the Production company Twenty, is seeking answers on whether the torture methods applied by US investigators at the US navy base in Cuba, Iraq and Afghanistan can be justified in efforts to combat terrorism. We want the viewers to watch techniques that we know are used at Guantanamo and really to raise questions about whether torture is justified and if it works and what does it say about our values as a western society, a spokesman for the British station told Agence France Presse (AFP) Tuesday, on condition of anonymity.

#5 - Opus Dei and the Da Vinci code

Season 2005 - Episode 24 - Aired 12/12/2005

#6 - X-Rated: The TV They Tried to Ban

Season 2005 - Episode 4 - Aired 3/6/2005

Documentary charting the most controversial TV moments of the last 40 years. Introduced by Tim Roth.

#7 - The Search for the Northwest Passage

Season 2005 - Episode 23 - Aired 3/24/2005

A look at the search for the fabled Northwest passage, the legendary path through the ice across the Canadian Arctic, and the attempts made by wealthy British explorer Sir John Franklin and penniless Norwegian Roald Amundsen.

#8 - You're Fayed

Season 2005 - Episode 22 - Aired 3/31/2005

Keith Allen spends some time getting to know Mohammed Al Fayed.

#9 - The Unseen Eric Morecambe

Season 2005 - Episode 21 - Aired 1/3/2005

Documentary about the life of comedian Eric Morecambe, particularly his private family life. Family members and friends and colleagues talk about their memories of him.

#10 - Tutankhamun Exhumed

Season 2005 - Episode 20 - Aired 5/28/2005

#11 - The Real Da Vinci Code

Season 2005 - Episode 19 - Aired 2/3/2005

Tony Robinson examines the claims made in Dan Brown's best-selling novel, "The Da Vinci Code."

#12 - The Ultimate Game Show Moments

Season 2005 - Episode 18 - Aired 7/4/2005

A look at the funniest moments from UK TV quiz shows.

#13 - The Real Amityville Horror

Season 2005 - Episode 17 - Aired 10/24/2005

A look at the events surrounding American folklore's strangest murder mystery - investigating what really happened on the night Ronald DeFeo apparently gunned down his entire family, and examining the alleged haunting of the Amityville house for years afterwards. Featuring exclusive interviews with George Lutz and many of the original participants in this story.

#14 - Tony Robinson's Titanic Adventure

Season 2005 - Episode 16 - Aired 12/19/2005

Tony Robinson accompanies James Cameron, the Oscar-winning writer, director and producer of the blockbuster film Titanic, on a poignant farewell to the most spectacular shipwreck in history. Nearly 10 years after Cameron's first visit to the wreck, this is his last.

#15 - The Devil and Daniel Johnston

Season 2005 - Episode 27 - Aired 1/1/2005

Daniel Johnston entered the wider public consciousness when Nirvana's Kurt Cobain appeared at the 1992 MTV awards wearing a Daniel Johnston T-shirt featuring a line drawing of a frog-like creature with eyeballs on stalks and the slogan "Hi, how are you?". It was the artwork from a demo tape Johnston had made in his bedroom as a teenager in the early 1980s. The son of respectable, middle-class Christian parents from Texas, the precocious Daniel gets heavily into music, comic books, home movies and a girl called Laurie. These might seem like the staples of any American adolescence, but as he shoots to fame via MTV and the fledgling grunge scene, he begins to lose his grip on reality and finds himself heading for manic depression, drug use, violence, religious fanaticism and a life spent in and out of mental institutions.

#16 - Peter Cook And Dudley Moore - The Lost Tapes

Season 2005 - Episode 14 - Aired 12/26/2005

Peter Cook and Dudley Moore are commonly regarded as the greatest comic double act that Britain has ever produced. However, it is less commonly known that in 1971, at the height of their careers, they spent eleven months in Australia touring their latest stage show, Behind the Fridge and writing and starring in two TV specials which have never been seen in Britain...

#17 - Attack Of The 50ft Woman

Season 2005 - Episode 13 - Aired 10/15/2005

This film looks at ‘giantessphilia’, described as one of the world’s most bizarre syndromes. It that draws on some of men and women’s deepest desires to conquer and be conquered. While most admit that tall women represent power and strength, some men have taken this desire and created a sub-culture of Amazonian women who perform ‘services’ that go way beyond the average man’s comprehension. This film examines what is it about the image of the 50ft woman that draws men in and plays on their deepest psychological needs, and what the women who perform these services get from doing so.

#18 - Cinema Iran

Season 2005 - Episode 12 - Aired 5/4/2005

Tracing the history and influence of Iranian cinema and its filmmakers.

#19 - The Real Silence of the Lambs

Season 2005 - Episode 9 - Aired 10/27/2005

Serial killer Ed Gein shocked the US to its core in the mid 1950s as the dismembered corpses of 15 women were found in his isolated Wisconsin farmhouse. Worse still, he'd made trinkets and trophies out of the dead women's bodies. Alfred Hitchcock's Psycho, The Texas Chain Saw Massacre, and The Silence of the Lambs and, of course Ed Gein, which follows on Channel 4, were inspired by Gein's ghoulish crimes. The Real Silence of the Lambs asks what could have driven a mild-mannered farm boy to such levels of depravity?

#20 - The Curse of The Omen

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

Documentary examining the alleged jinx said to have plagued the filming of The Omen, including eyewitness accounts of bizarre accidents, injuries and deaths during the production. From mid-air terror as consecutive flights carrying members of the production encounter disaster to crazed dog attacks, bizarre car crashes and hotel bombings, plus a host of tragic accidents that defy coincidence.

#21 - 100% English

Season 2005 - Episode 7 - Aired 11/1/2005

A looked at the genetic makeup of English people who considered themselves to be ethnically English and found that while all had an ethnic makeup similar to people of European descent, a minority discovered genetic markers from North Africa and the Middle East from several generations before they were born. The presenter was Andrew Graham-Dixon. The test results were interpreted by DNAPrint Genomics, based in Sarasota, Florida

#22 - X-Rated: The Ads They Couldn’t Show

Season 2005 - Episode 5 - Aired 10/8/2005

Documentary looking at controversial or banned pieces of advertising, which were explicit, controversial or shocking in some way. Advertising executives, producers and censors discuss some of them. Also looks at some of the embarrassing adverts that western celebrities have done in Japan, and and the increase in "viral campaigning" on the web and e-mail systems.

#23 - A-Z of Your Head

Season 2005 - Episode 2 - Aired 5/10/2005

In a mad, mad world, where a sense of belonging and conformity is king, rates of anorexia, schizophrenia, exam-stress and depression are on the rise, illustrating the importance of acknowledging and addressing the issues of the mentally ill. This compelling documentary, A-Z of Your Head, focuses on young people and the mental health disorders that blight their lives and gives a voice to those who are left to deal with their own madness every day. These are the stories that never get told, yet are utterly gripping, and lay bare what it feels like to be labelled 'mad'. Produced by Lambent Productions for Channel 4. Produced and Directed by Lisa Fairbank.

#24 - The Unseen Spike Milligan

Season 2005 - Episode 8 - Aired 12/24/2005

An affectionate and frank insight into the life of troubled genius Spike Milligan, arguably the most influential British comic of the last 50 years

#25 - Paradise Found - Islamic Architecture and Arts

Season 2005 - Episode 3 - Aired 10/29/2005

We imagine many things when we think of this word. However, we do not think about Islamic Architecture, which influenced the art of Europe so profoundly. This documentary tours through the Muslim world, in search of that "atmosphere of Paradise," hidden away in mosques and palaces. In this film renowned art commentator Waldemar Januszczak makes an epic journey of discovery across the Muslim world, revealing awe-inspiring architecture and art objects that evoke the history of Islam. Along the way he meets local historians and experts - as well as an array of weavers, calligraphers, potters, and jewelers - who contribute their knowledge of this fascinating art-historical field. Much of the discoveries includes objects and buildings that have previously received little if any attention on film, like the 10th century Egyptian jug carved out of a single piece of rock crystal – one of only three known in the entire world ; the stunning architecture of the Uzbekistan's Samarquand ; the incredible and surreal mud mosques of West African Mali ; the inspired urban planning of the ancient city of Isfahan in Iran and the world's first great and possibly greatest mosque in the Syrian capital Damascus. The result is a stimulating introduction to a set of globally significant aesthetic traditions.