The BEST episodes of NOVA season 20
Every episode of NOVA season 20, ranked from best to worst by thousands of votes from fans of the show. The best episodes of NOVA season 20!
Helps viewers of all ages explore the science behind the headlines.
#1 - Shadow of the Condor
Season 20 - Episode 14 - Aired 11/2/1993
NOVA soars with the condor, an extraordinary bird that lives a tenuous existence in the California mountains and the Andes of South America. Footage includes never-before-photographed nesting sites in the cliffs of Patagonia.
Watch Now:Amazon#3 - Diving for Pirate Gold
Season 20 - Episode 7 - Aired 2/23/1993
These days, piracy on the high seas often involves sonar, magnometers, metal detectors and other high-tech equipment for finding and plundering sunken ships. NOVA explores the swashbuckling seafaring pirates of old and their present-day successors.
Watch Now:Apple TV#4 - The Real Jurassic Park
Season 20 - Episode 15 - Aired 11/9/1993
With help from director Steven Spielberg, author Michael Crichton and a host of scientific experts , NOVA investigates what it would take to recreate the dinosaur theme park in Jurassic Park. It won't be as easy as it was for Hollywood.
#5 - Roller Coaster!
Season 20 - Episode 16 - Aired 11/16/1993
NOVA takes viewers on the ride of their lives as it explores the science of roller coasters, where physics and psychology meet. New rides of the future may take place entirely in the mind—with virtual reality.
#6 - Murder, Rape and DNA
Season 20 - Episode 8 - Aired 3/2/1993
Wherever we shed our body cells, we leave an indisputable identity card: our DNA. NOVA investigates the new science of DNA typing which is putting increasing numbers of murderers and rapists behind bars.
Watch Now:Apple TV#7 - Stranger in the Mirror
Season 20 - Episode 20 - Aired 12/28/1993
NOVA explores the nature of human perception through the puzzling condition called visual agnosia, the inability to recognize faces and familiar objects, made famous in Oliver Sacks' book, The Man Who Mistook His Wife for a Hat.
#8 - The Best Mind Since Einstein
Season 20 - Episode 19 - Aired 12/21/1993
A profile of the late Richard Feynman—atomic bomb pioneer, Nobel prize-winning physicist, acclaimed teacher and all-around eccentric, who helped solve the mystery of the space shuttle Challenger explosion.
#9 - Great Moments from NOVA
Season 20 - Episode 18 - Aired 12/7/1993
Bill Cosby guides viewers through the most exciting footage from two decades of NOVA in a 20th anniversary salute. Real-life action, adventure, mystery, drama and non-stop discovery fill this 90-minute special.
#10 - Mysterious Crash of Flight 201
Season 20 - Episode 17 - Aired 11/30/1993
US federal investigators are called in to determine the cause of a mysterious jetliner crash in Panama. Nothing about the accident makes sense, until a key clue emerges.
#11 - Dying to Breathe
Season 20 - Episode 13 - Aired 10/26/1993
NOVA covers the tense vigil of three people with terminal lung disease as they await the most complex of all organ transplants—a new lung. Months of waiting end in a few frenzied hours of intricate surgery.
#12 - Secrets of the Psychics
Season 20 - Episode 12 - Aired 10/19/1993
Magician James "The Amazing" Randi tests the claims of mind readers, fortune tellers, faith healers and others with purported paranormal powers. As a magician, "I know how people are deceived," Randi says.
#13 - Wanted: Butch and Sundance
Season 20 - Episode 11 - Aired 10/12/1993
Forensic sleuth Clyde Snow and a posse of experts travel to Bolivia in search of the remains of Butch Cassidy and the Sundance Kid. They find Hollywood and legend got a few things wrong.
#14 - The Lost Tribe
Season 20 - Episode 9 - Aired 3/30/1993
NOVA covers both sides of the stormy controversy over the Tasaday tribe. When these isolated cave dwellers were discovered in the Philippines in 1971, they were hailed as a Stone Age relic. Now, many anthropologists denounce them as fakes.
Watch Now:Apple TV#15 - Can Science Build a Champion Athlete?
Season 20 - Episode 6 - Aired 2/16/1993
Athletes are training smarter, running faster, jumping higher and generally outperforming their predecessors—thanks to high technology. NOVA covers the record-setting trend for improving sports performance with science.
Watch Now:Apple TV
#16 - In the Path of a Killer Volcano
Season 20 - Episode 5 - Aired 2/9/1993
NOVA covers scientists on the brink of a sputtering, shaking, impatient volcano, trying to forecast when it will go off. When it does, Mt. Pinatubo in the Philippines goes big time, producing the largest volcanic eruption in 80 years.
Watch Now:Apple TV#17 - Nazis and the Russian Bomb
Season 20 - Episode 4 - Aired 2/2/1993
NOVA tells the story of the German scientists abducted to the Soviet Union after World War II to help build an atomic bomb. The success of the crash program in 1949, with the explosion of the first Soviet nuclear weapon, shocked the world.
Watch Now:Apple TV#18 - The Deadly Deception
Season 20 - Episode 3 - Aired 1/26/1993
For four decades, 400 African American men from Macon, Alabama were unwitting participants in a government study of untreated syphilis. NOVA tells the story of this notorious human experiment. George Strait, ABC News Medical Correspondent, hosts.
Watch Now:Apple TV
#19 - The Hunt for Saddam's Secret Weapons
Season 20 - Episode 1 - Aired 1/5/1993
After an agreement was made by members of the United Nations, which mandated Iraq to end its pursuit in creating weapons of mass destruction, an international group of advisors and inspectors are on a mission to find and stop any threats that may remain. From nuclear and chemical weaponry, to missiles and guns, the team must face real dangers while searching for any illegal weapon activity in Iraq
Watch Now:Apple TV#20 - Can Bombing Win a War?
Season 20 - Episode 2 - Aired 1/19/1993
The Gulf War was fought in 38 days of non-stop bombing and four days of swift ground action. Did bombing win it? NOVA looks at the history of strategic bombing and asks whether bombing has now achieved preeminence in warfare.
Watch Now:Apple TV