The BEST episodes of NOVA season 17
Every episode of NOVA season 17, ranked from best to worst by thousands of votes from fans of the show. The best episodes of NOVA season 17!
Helps viewers of all ages explore the science behind the headlines.
#1 - The KGB, The Computer and Me
Season 17 - Episode 10 - Aired 10/2/1990
This documentary covers the surprising tale of an average systems administrator who stumbled upon a KGB spy operation. Clifford Stoll carried out one of the first successful digital forensics investigations by tracking down Markus Hess, a KGB hacker, after noticing a discrepancy in the logs of a University of California computer.
#2 - Can the Elephant Be Saved?
Season 17 - Episode 17 - Aired 11/20/1990
Can the Elephant Be Saved? is a 1990 episode from the PBS series NOVA. The mighty elephant is the world's largest land mammal and also faces extinction. Scientists have developed many strategies to help save them, including a ban on ivory. The NOVA team explores the proposed solutions as well as the controversy surrounding them.
#3 - The Big Spill
Season 17 - Episode 5 - Aired 2/27/1990
The 1989 Exxon Valdez oil spill takes a center stage when NOVA heads to Alaska to find out how technology contributed to one of the world's largest oil spills. Cameras board the Valdez with expert scientists to film the supertanker's instruments and to get opinions on how some advanced gadgets, which were designed to protect the ship, failed in preventing the disaster
#4 - The Genius That Was China: Will the Dragon Rise Again? (4)
Season 17 - Episode 9 - Aired 4/10/1990
This episode is part-two of NOVA's instigative report on China and the country's battle in keeping up with western technology. The episode focuses on how the 1989 massacre of Chinese students led to sanctions, which contributed to the country's limited access to western expertise in the computer industry and its products
#5 - What's Killing the Children?
Season 17 - Episode 20 - Aired 12/18/1990
In a small Brazilian town, terror is all too real. Parents watch their children pass away unexpectedly as a brutal illness sweeps through their formerly peaceful village. When the locals cannot find a cure, scientists from the Centers for Disease Control travel from Atlanta to help rescue the children and defeat the disease.
#6 - We Know Where You Live
Season 17 - Episode 18 - Aired 11/27/1990
This NOVA episode examines direct marketing, a phenomenon that affects thousands of people, yet remains mysterious to most civilians. Advertisers are able to keep detailed tabs on their potential consumers, managing to land targeted ads in their mailboxes each week. Researchers uncover the controversial secrets and complex formulas that allow direct marketing to thrive.
#7 - Killing Machines
Season 17 - Episode 16 - Aired 11/13/1990
This episode originally aired in 1990. The NOVA team examines the possible future of robotic weaponry, which promises to expand the horizon of warfare in both positive and negative ways. Conflicts in the Middle East illustrate both the power of cutting edge weaponry, and the frightening drawbacks to overusing this technology
#8 - Earthquake!
Season 17 - Episode 15 - Aired 11/6/1990
Earthquake! is a 1990 episode from the PBS science series NOVA that explores nature's frightening and destructive phenomenon of colliding land plates. Earthquakes can damage entire regions and trigger tsunamis but geologists still struggle to find the key to predicting them. The NOVA team interviews the scientists focused on solving this age-old puzzle.
#9 - The Blimp is Back!
Season 17 - Episode 14 - Aired 10/30/1990
Nova looks at the history and future of dirigible airships, from the early rigid, giant zeppelins to the smaller nonrigid blimps taking to the skies, including the Liteship. Also shown, some unsuccessful hybrids including the Cyclocrane and the ill-fated Piasecki Heli-stat.
#10 - Poisoned Winds of War
Season 17 - Episode 13 - Aired 10/23/1990
NOVA reports on chemical warfare and the cruel effect it has on human beings. In the early 20s, Germany developed an acid bomb, which was used against French soldiers during World War I. Since then, governments have secretly developed chemical bombs, and peace agencies around the world have tried to get them banned without success
#11 - To Boldly Go...
Season 17 - Episode 12 - Aired 10/16/1990
The Voyager program is one of the United State's most ambitious space missions. The two unmanned probes are designed to seek out the boundaries of the known universe, going beyond Jupiter to transmit important scientific knowledge and advance human understanding. This episode of NOVA originally aired in the October of 1990.
#12 - Neptune's Cold Fury
Season 17 - Episode 11 - Aired 10/9/1990
Neptune's Cold Fury is the second episode for season 18 of the show NOVA. In this episode, NOVA takes a look at the mysteries of this planet and why it took 12 years for the Voyager to reach it. Triton is the largest moon of Neptune and this episode examines the photos of it taken by Voyager 2 in 1989. Actor Patrick Stewart hosts
#13 - The Genius That Was China: The Threat from Japan (3)
Season 17 - Episode 8 - Aired 4/3/1990
This episode is part-three of NOVA's instigative report on China and the country's battle in keeping up with western technology. In the nineteenth century, the west won the trade war with Japan, lending the small country access to the world's latest technology. NOVA explores what effect this had in China, and why Tokyo and Beijing seem worlds apart
#14 - The Genius That Was China: Empires in Collision (2)
Season 17 - Episode 7 - Aired 3/27/1990
This episode is part-two of NOVA's instigative report on China and the country's battle in keeping up with western technology. From the fifteenth to the eighteen century, European nations traveled westward to explore new countries to trade with. China excluded itself from its western neighbors, and NOVA wants to know why
#15 - The Genius That Was China: Rise of the Dragon (1)
Season 17 - Episode 6 - Aired 3/20/1990
In The Genius That Was China: Rise of the Dragon (1) episode of the television program NOVA, the show explores the history of the planet's most populous country. As early as the 13th century, China was the dominant technological, industrial and military power in the world. NOVA investigates how it was able to create and maintain its supremacy for hundreds of years.
#16 - The Bomb's Lethal Legacy
Season 17 - Episode 4 - Aired 2/13/1990
NOVA heads to Washington state to examine the Hanfrod Nuclear Reservation, a nuclear waste facility with a lot of problems. The environment and ecology take a center stage, as NOVA investigates how a 45-year mismanaged facility affects the environment and what steps need to be taken to correct the problems at the government agency.
#17 - Disguises of War
Season 17 - Episode 3 - Aired 2/6/1990
In season 7, episode 13 "Disguises of War," Nova examines the various means of camouflage used in warfare to disguise weaponry and troops. The methods of camouflage which are shown range from the basic patterns used in soldier's uniforms to the incredibly complex technology used in stealth bombers to defeat radar detection.
#18 - Race for the Top
Season 17 - Episode 2 - Aired 1/23/1990
If you're like most people, you've never heard of a quark. The top quark is likely the fundamental root of all matter. No scientist has ever been able to observe or document them. Scientists in the US and Europe are attempting to identify the top quark with some of the most massive machinery on Earth
#19 - Poison in the Rockies
Season 17 - Episode 1 - Aired 1/9/1990
Poison in the Rockies from the show NOVA is an episode focused on the damage that decades of mining operations in the Rockies have inflicted on the local environment. It covers other problems such as the acid rain that afflicts the region, but concentrates on the harmful chemicals entering the surrounding states' water supplies from mining drainage
#20 - In the Land of the Llamas
Season 17 - Episode 19 - Aired 12/4/1990
NOVA profiles the llama, alpaca, vicuna and guanaco of South America. At one time nearly extinct, these four members of the camel family are exceptionally well adapted to life in the beautiful high Andes.