The WORST episodes of NOVA
Every episode of NOVA ever, ranked from worst to best by thousands of votes from fans of the show. The worst episodes of NOVA!
Helps viewers of all ages explore the science behind the headlines.
#1 - Ultimate Crash Test: Impact
Season 52 - Episode 11 - Aired 5/14/2025
Surprisingly little is known about the behavior of cars and drivers in uncontrolled, real-world accidents, despite rigorous testing in laboratory-controlled crashes. Now, a first-of-its-kind experiment aims to discover what really happens in a multi-vehicle pileup and how cars and driving could be made safer. In the second episode of this two-part special, forensic analysis is put to the test. Real-life crash scene investigations have very little data to work with, so are they accurate? And what can we learn about car safety when there is actual data to show exactly what happened?
#2 - Methuselah Tree
Season 28 - Episode 18 - Aired 12/11/2001
Marked by striking imagery and a poetic style, the film dramatizes the life cycle of the world's oldest living thing, the bristlecone pine of California's White Mountains.
#3 - Flying Casanovas
Season 28 - Episode 19 - Aired 12/25/2001
The program, with Sir David Attenborough narrating, celebrates the extraordinary antics male bowerbirds get up to when courting a female.
#4 - Volcano Above The Clouds
Season 30 - Episode 17 - Aired 11/18/2003
Join a scientific expedition to the glacier-capped summit of Kilimanjaro, Africa's tallest mountain.
#5 - Hunt for the Serial Arsonist
Season 22 - Episode 14 - Aired 11/14/1995
One out of every three fires in the United States is set deliberately. Firefighters must report the cause and origin of each fire they fight. If the cause of a fire cannot be determined immediately, a fire investigator may be assigned to the case. Investigators sift through the remains of a fire for clues about its cause, and if there is evidence of arson, the investigators also collect information to help police identify and locate the arsonist. In this episode of NOVA, a series of similar arson fires in California raises concern that a serial arsonist might be at work. The program follows the investigative team that solved this incredibly difficult case.
#6 - Treasures of the Great Barrier Reef
Season 22 - Episode 15 - Aired 11/28/1995
The Great Barrier Reef along the northeast coast of Australia is the largest coral formation in the world, covering more than 365,000 square kilometers. Within it exists a unique underwater environment that is continually evolving: the coral itself can vary greatly from one region of the reef to another as it adapts to varying conditions of light, surf, and temperature. In this program, marine biologists and photographers explore the reef using specialized underwater cameras to investigate the diverse and interdependent plants and animals that live there. The program also documents the annual spawning of coral and the geological and biological forces that make it possible for coral reefs to survive. Coral reefs around the world are incredibly fragile; many are endangered by overfishing and excessive use by humans.
#7 - Race to Catch a Buckyball
Season 22 - Episode 16 - Aired 12/19/1995
In 1985 a chemist looking at stardust, paired with one searching for brand new materials, stumbled across what science said could not exist – a third form of carbon. They named the soccer ball-shaped molecules "Buckminsterfullerene" after the architect who invented the geodesic dome. Today "Buckyballs," as the molecules are playfully known, are revolutionizing chemistry and promise countless technological applications. NOVA traces this remarkable tale of serendipity in scientific discovery.
#8 - Can Buildings Make You Sick?
Season 22 - Episode 17 - Aired 12/26/1995
A search for the causes of Sick Building Syndrome. Experts look at various problem buildings, inspecting their air conditioning, lights and carpets for clues to the mysterious maladies afflicting the workers inside.
#9 - Cracking the Ice Age
Season 23 - Episode 20 - Aired 12/31/1996
Did the crash of continents that produced the Himalayan Mountains also trigger the Ice Age?
#10 - The Plane that Changed the World
Season 12 - Episode 21 - Aired 12/17/1985
NOVA joins the 50th anniversary celebration of the DC-3—the plane that revolutionized commercial air travel, served gallantly in World War II and is called the most important plane ever built.
#11 - Making Stuff Safer (4)
Season 40 - Episode 21 - Aired 11/6/2013
The world has always been a dangerous place, so how do we increase our odds of survival? In "Making Stuff Safer," David Pogue explores the cutting-edge research of scientists and engineers who want to keep us out of harm’s way. Some are countering the threat of natural disasters with new firefighting materials and safer buildings. Others are at work on technologies to thwart terrorist attacks. A next-generation vaccine will save millions from deadly disease. And innovations like smarter cars and better sports gear will reduce the risk of everyday activities. We’ll never eliminate danger—but science and technology are making stuff safer.
#12 - At the Edge of Space
Season 40 - Episode 23 - Aired 11/20/2013
Between the blue sky above and the infinite blackness beyond lies a frontier that scientists have only just begun to investigate. In "At the Edge of Space," NOVA takes viewers on a spectacular exploration of the Earth-space boundary that's home to some of nature's most puzzling and alluring phenomena: the shimmering aurora, streaking meteors, and fleeting flashes that shoot upwards from thunderclouds, known as sprites. Only discovered in 1989, sprites have eluded capture because they exist for a mere split-second—40-times faster than an eye blink. NOVA rides with scientists in a high-flying weather observation plane on a hunt for sprites, finally snaring them in 3D video and gaining vital clues to unraveling their mystery. Combining advanced video technology with stunning footage shot from the International Space Station, "At the Edge of Space" probes the boundary zone and offers an entirely new perspective on our home planet.
#13 - Asteroid: Doomsday or Payday?
Season 40 - Episode 24 - Aired 11/20/2013
The asteroid that exploded over Siberia—injuring more than 1,000 and damaging buildings in six cities—was a shocking reminder that Earth is a target in a cosmic shooting range. From the width of a football field to the size of a small city, these space rocks have the potential to be killers. In a collision with Earth, they could set off deadly blast waves, raging fires and colossal tidal waves. But some audacious entrepreneurs look up at asteroids and see payday, not doomsday. Some asteroids are loaded with billions of dollars’ worth of elements like iron, nickel, and platinum. NASA is planning an ambitious mission to return samples from a potentially hazardous asteroid, and would-be asteroid miners are dreaming up their own program to scout for potentially profitable asteroids. Will asteroids turn out to be our economic salvation—or instruments of extinction?
#14 - First Man on the Moon
Season 41 - Episode 23 - Aired 12/3/2014
Everyone knows Neil Armstrong was the first to set foot on the moon. But this modest and unassuming man was determined to stay out of the spotlight. NOVA presents an intimate portrait of Armstrong through interviews with his family and friends, many of whom have never spoken publicly before. Discover and relive his achievements before and after Apollo, from his time as a Navy combat veteran and later as a pioneer of high-speed flight to his leading role in the inquiry into the Challenger disaster and his efforts to encourage young people to take to the skies.
#15 - Secrets of the Lost Red Paint People
Season 14 - Episode 22 - Aired 12/15/1987
NOVA follows archaeologists as they unearth clues, some 7,000 years old, about an unknown, mysterious and advanced sea-faring people who lived along the North Atlantic coast of the United States and Canada.
#16 - Building the Eiffel Tower
Season 51 - Episode 3 - Aired 2/14/2024
Explore the revolutionary engineering behind Paris’s iconic landmark. Completed in just over two years for the 1889 World’s Fair, the iron tower smashed the record for the tallest structure on Earth, ushering in a new age of global construction that reached for the skies. How did the engineers do it? Follow the innovations, successes, and failures that made one of the most famous buildings on the planet possible.
#17 - Hunt for the Oldest DNA
Season 51 - Episode 4 - Aired 2/21/2024
For decades, scientists have tried to unlock the secrets of ancient DNA. But life’s genetic blueprint is incredibly fragile, and researchers have struggled to find DNA in fossils that could survive millions of years. Then, one maverick scientist had the controversial idea to look for DNA not in fossils or frozen ancient tissue – but in dirt. Join the hunt as scientists decipher the oldest DNA ever found, and reveal for the first time the genes of long-extinct creatures that once thrived in a warm, lush Arctic.
#18 - Solar System: Strange Worlds
Season 51 - Episode 10 - Aired 10/9/2024
From a dwarf planet that looks like a deflated football, to a tiny moon with cliffs taller than Mt. Everest, to the spectacular rings of Saturn, discover how the effects of gravity produce the amazing variety of weird worlds in our solar system.
#19 - Solar System: Volcano Worlds
Season 51 - Episode 11 - Aired 10/16/2024
Around our solar system, violent eruptions are shaping distant worlds. Discover the explosive forces that helped create some of the most dynamic worlds in our cosmic neighborhood - and what makes the volcanoes right here on Earth so special.
#20 - Solar System: Icy Worlds
Season 51 - Episode 12 - Aired 10/23/2024
Out in the solar system, ice can get bizarre. Visit strange, frozen worlds - from Uranus's ultra-hot superionic ice, to glaciers of nitrogen ice on Pluto, to carbon dioxide snow on Mars - and discover why the ice here on Earth is so unique.
#21 - Critical Condition: Health in Black America
Season 52 - Episode 9 - Aired 4/30/2025
This two-hour feature documentary produced by acclaimed Oscar-nominated filmmaker Stanley Nelson traces the roots of systemic racism in our medical system and the biological impacts of discrimination on the body to understand why Black Americans experience such disproportionately poor health outcomes - and did long before COVID-19 highlighted the devastating health disparities in our country.
#22 - Ultimate Crash Test: Countdown
Season 52 - Episode 10 - Aired 5/7/2025
Surprisingly little is known about the behavior of cars and drivers in uncontrolled, real-world accidents, despite rigorous testing in laboratory-controlled crashes. Now, a first-of-its-kind experiment aims to discover what really happens in a multi-vehicle pileup and how cars and driving could be made safer.
#23 - Top Gun Over Moscow
Season 23 - Episode 15 - Aired 11/12/1996
Flights in Russia's powerful fighter jets are for sale to foreign travelers. So is the Russian Air Force still in the game?
#24 - The Case of the UFOs
Season 9 - Episode 11 - Aired 10/12/1982
For the first time on television a rigorous, scientific investigation into the fact, fiction, and hoax of unidentified flying objects. With vivid film and accounts from several eyewitnesses including astronauts, NOVA sifts the evidence for and against the existence of UFOs.
#25 - The Case of the Ancient Astronauts
Season 5 - Episode 9 - Aired 3/8/1978
NOVA investigates the theories of von Daniken and others that the Earth has been visited by intelligent beings from outer space. Among claims examined are: that the building techniques used in the Great Pyramid of Cheops are so advanced that only an extraterrestrial intelligence could have built it; and that the engraved stones of Palenque in Mexico depict an ancient astronaut at the controls of a space rocket.