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Favorite educational TV shows?

bigred

Penultimate Amazing
bigred
Joined
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This makes up a large part of my TV watching. Far more interesting/entertaining than the rotted cabbage that is prime time TV...

Anyway mine:

Biography (the show and the channel)
History Channel (probably my fav)
Military Channel (mostly when they show "Wings" or the famous battles/campaigns episode)
Home Improvement Channels (HGTV, DIY, etc)

And once in awhile TLC or DISC will have something worthwhile, although they've gotten into some more sensationalist kinda garbage too.
 
Oh, alot of programmes.......

One in particular is a programme called " The Mark Steel Lectures " where the comedian, Mark Steel gives authentic life stories about the following ( at least so far )....

Lord Byron (7 October 2003)
Isaac Newton (14 October 2003)
Sigmund Freud (21 October 2003)
Aristotle (28 October 2003)
Charles Darwin (4 November 2003)
Karl Marx (11 November 2003)


Ludwig van Beethoven (5 November 2004)
Leonardo da Vinci (12 November 2004)
Mary Shelley (19 November 2004)
Thomas Paine (26 November 2004)
Sylvia Pankhurst (3 December 2004)
Albert Einstein (10 November 2004)


Oliver Cromwell (23 February 2006)
Charlie Chaplin (2 March 2006)
Rene Descartes (9 March 2006)
Geoffrey Chaucer (16 March 2006)
Harriet Tubman (23 March 2006)
Che Guevara (30 March 2006)
 
Everyone once in a while there will be some distance learning math or science program on public access.

I also like watching the channels that have the news and other programs in forgein languages.
 
NOVA on PBS. I've been watching it since I was a kid, and it's still interesting and educational.
 
bigred said:
History Channel (probably my fav)

[snip]

And once in awhile TLC or DISC will have something worthwhile, although they've gotten into some more sensationalist kinda garbage too.
Click to expand...
And the History channel doesn't? They run the full gamut, from JFK assassination conspiracy theories to UFOs to signs of the Apocalypse. Not to say I don't watch them a ton, but they have almost as much sensationalist garbage as the Discovery channel.

To add to the conversation, though (rather than just naysaying), "Connections" was great, although I think it had some inaccuracies. Also, "Rough Science" is genius, and I hope they make another season eventually (or someone else uses the concept).
 
bigred said:
This makes up a large part of my TV watching. Far more interesting/entertaining than the rotted cabbage that is prime time TV...

Anyway mine:

Biography (the show and the channel)
History Channel (probably my fav)
Military Channel (mostly when they show "Wings" or the famous battles/campaigns episode)
Home Improvement Channels (HGTV, DIY, etc)

And once in awhile TLC or DISC will have something worthwhile, although they've gotten into some more sensationalist kinda garbage too.
Click to expand...

Spinoff question: I'm sort peculiar in that I don't have TV, but I'd like to get a list of good skeptical shows for people who ask.

What are good skeptical shows? I've seen Mythbusters, and I think it counts.
 
I liked Mythbusters when it was about the experiment. Lately though, it seems to be more about being EXTREEEM or the people involved in the show.
 
Pauliesonne said:
Oh, alot of programmes.......

One in particular is a programme called " The Mark Steel Lectures " where the comedian, Mark Steel gives authentic life stories about the following ( at least so far )....

Lord Byron (7 October 2003)
Isaac Newton (14 October 2003)
Sigmund Freud (21 October 2003)
Aristotle (28 October 2003)
Charles Darwin (4 November 2003)
Karl Marx (11 November 2003)


Ludwig van Beethoven (5 November 2004)
Leonardo da Vinci (12 November 2004)
Mary Shelley (19 November 2004)
Thomas Paine (26 November 2004)
Sylvia Pankhurst (3 December 2004)
Albert Einstein (10 November 2004)


Oliver Cromwell (23 February 2006)
Charlie Chaplin (2 March 2006)
Rene Descartes (9 March 2006)
Geoffrey Chaucer (16 March 2006)
Harriet Tubman (23 March 2006)
Che Guevara (30 March 2006)
Click to expand...
Sounds great; Biography does some historical figures, but (in typical American fashion) focuses more on relatively modern-day celebs.
 
mumchup said:
NOVA on PBS. I've been watching it since I was a kid, and it's still interesting and educational.
Click to expand...
Excellent call (do they still do that same intro w/the horn-sounding synthesizer or whatever?). Grew up w/that also - in fact I think that's the granddaddy of em all.


Jon the Geek said:
And the History channel doesn't? They run the full gamut, from JFK assassination conspiracy theories to UFOs to signs of the Apocalypse. Not to say I don't watch them a ton, but they have almost as much sensationalist garbage as the Discovery channel.
Click to expand...
Really? Hadn't noticed, but I'll take your word for it. I don't recall them doing UFO stuff, but I do recall they had an inordinate amount of WW II stuff - which I love but cmon. I wish they'd do a lot more on ancient history.
 
bigred said:
Really? Hadn't noticed, but I'll take your word for it. I don't recall them doing UFO stuff, but I do recall they had an inordinate amount of WW II stuff - which I love but cmon. I wish they'd do a lot more on ancient history.
Click to expand...
The UFO stuff tends to be during the day. For example: http://www.historychannel.com/globa....jsp?EGrpType=Series&Id=10963893&NetwCode=THC

They also ran a series of "documentaries" about JFK conspiracy theories, including one that claimed that LBJ had his sister killed before moving on to JFK. When the LBJ Foundation started a slander lawsuit, the History Channel ran a show to apologize and debunk the show (which is about as good as you can do once you've run the program to begin with).
 
The "Is It Real?" series which showed on National Geographic channel (here in
the Netherlands anyway) was excellent. It comprised a series of one hour
episodes on topics including "Spontaneous Human combustion", "Police
Psychics", "Alien abduction" and "Ghosts" and showed a refreshingly balanced
view. In each episode, they let the woos on to freely present their garbage
then took a serious look at the "phenomena" from a "rational" perspective.
The series featured people like Randi, Michael Shermer, Joe Nickell and Ray
Hyman on the side of rationality.
 
I don’t have a TV any more either, but always liked Local Heroes in the UK, particularly the reconstruction of experiments. And those pink cycling shorts were always a wonder!
 
Jabberwock said:
I liked Mythbusters when it was about the experiment. Lately though, it seems to be more about being EXTREEEM or the people involved in the show.
Click to expand...
I know what you mean. I'm concerned Discovery Channels's Deadliest Catch series will be jumping the shark (or crab) by next season.

Jon the Geek- Glad to hear I'm not the only Rough Science fan around. I get the feel the show was made by real scientists. That home-spun quality to a show can be a refreshing change of pace vs. the barrage of video and sound effects studios add to shows these days to sustain our attention.
 
NOVA, of course.

Cosmos, when it was running. My dad has the entire series on tape. Gotta copy it.

And, for children, "Zoom" and "Liberty Kids".
 
I'm the only one who has seen "Beakman's show"? I think is a refreshing way of showing basic science to kids... without doing plain stupidities...

See ya!
 
Some favourites:
All of David Attenbourogh's documentaries - the one about fossils, trials of life, the life of mammals, life of birds, blue planet...
I'm excited that he's got a new series now as well. Just waiting for the DVD!
Cosmos was excellent. I'd never seen it, but a couple of weeks ago I watched the full series on DVD. Very emotionally powerful guy that Sagan. Particularly when he talks about the whales, and also the great library.

There is a series in Canada on the Discovery Channel called "Daily Planet" that I watched when I was in high school, though at the time it was called "@discovery.ca". It was a great daily science news show, covering current events from a scientific perspective. Every day also had a segment by a scientist talking about his or her particular specialty. On fridays (I think), for instance, there was "weird and wonderful science", another segment was about chemistry, another about astronomy, etc. They even had a daily answering of viewer mail. I loved that show. I'm not sure how it is these days as it's been a long time since I've lived in Canada, and longer still since I was there with a TV.

Sometimes they strayed into the woo-ish, but on the whole they were pretty decent. Then again at the time I wasn't so much of a skeptic, but the show certainly inspired a real wonder for science - or at least fed it, anyway. Any Canadians out there still watching? Is Jay Ingram still hosting it?
 
stup_id said:
I'm the only one who has seen "Beakman's show"? I think is a refreshing way of showing basic science to kids... without doing plain stupidities...
Click to expand...

I saw it too! My kids and I loved it. It was replaced here with Bill Nigh which was entertaining, but not as much fun.
 
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