That’s unpossible to answer.
too many episodes (41 seasons) to get edjumacated by.
good nature was “Kings of Camouflage” (Cuttlefish)
good tech “Earth from Space”
good earth “Magnetic Storm”
An excellent Programme.
The BBC and WGBH had a co-production arrangement, not sure if it’s still running, Horizon still is.
My favourite Horizons were the ones I worked on in Sound Post-Production for the BBC at Ealing Studios.
Imagine two a couple of twelve hour subsequent day bookings to produce the final domestic and international TX mixes.
And the joy of discussing the whole concept of the original Programme ideas with the Director, Joy, concept not a name!
Peter
The late, once-great Omni magazine was announced, put in production and actually had first issues printed under the name Nova, before someone pointed out that Nova was already a well-known science-splainin’ brand name. There was a hasty remodel of the magazine to Omni. I have two full page ads for the forthcoming magazine that ran a month apart in Penthouse, one for Nova and the next (identical except for name) for Omni.
ETA: Decent link to the pages here.
I love NOVA. I sometimes show these in my class:
Lightning!
Secrets of Lost Empires: Medieval Siege - this one’s all about trebuchets–very cool.
Absolute Zero
One that aired earlier this year and was really interesting was Ancient Computer.
That was the one that immediately popped into my mind. As a kid I was a sucker for shows like In Search Of. That Nova episode taught me how to be a skeptic.
I came into the thread to mention this one! No many how many times I see it, I watch it in slack-jawed amazement.
I just watched it on YouTube. I think that was the episode I saw back in the 70s, but I can’t be sure—there seem to be some things missing, such as von Daniken pitching a tantrum and demanding that the film crew leave his office. I must have seen that somewhere else and conflated the two. The Easter Island footage and the sequence about the guy who made tourist trinkets weren’t exactly as I remember them, but they were close enough that I’m very sure that I’ve seen this episode of NOVA. Asimov was nowhere to be seen, but Sagan was, and he ripped off several snappy shots at von Daniken’s theories.
A lot of good mentions here so far. Marathon Challenge was inspiring for me in that it really cemented my interest in running. In that episode, they took a bunch of couch-potatoes and regular folk, put them thru a training program with a trainer and coach, and had them run the Boston Marathon. The premise was to see if anyone could run a marathon with the right prep. There was also a lot of content around the science of running and what happens to your body as you train. Each of the participants completed the course.
Johnny Carson once quipped that In Search Of was starting to run out of ideas for viable episodes. “Last week,” he said, “they went in search of Leonard’s car keys.”
Best recent episode: recreating Dambusters
Also liked a lot:
Trebuchets
Search for Longitude
I think it was Nova - Story of the Endeavor
Brian
Mystery of the Megaflood, about how the interesting geography of eastern Washington state was carved out in a series of rapid flood bursts.
This area is called the Channeled Scablands, or also the Ice Age Floods National Geologic Trail. It’s roughly 125 miles west of Spokane, near Mansfield, WA and Sun Lakes - Dry Falls State Park.
These flood bursts carved out the Grand Coulee and the Columbia River Gorge, suddenly and violently, with each flood burst lasting a matter of days. Imagine all five Great Lakes held back by an ice dam that fails catastrophically, and all that water draining from western Montana (Glacial Lake Missoula) to the Pacific in about 3 days.
We visited last July and it’s a broad expanse of interesting lands:
Glacial erratics like Yeager Rock, Douglas County, Washington.
(Image: “IMGP5930.RESIZED” on this page)
Yeager Rock is a few miles east of Mansfield, WA and right next to Highway 172 (on the north side, just east of I Road NE). There are several in the fields there but Yeager Rock is the largest that we saw, and it’s the most accessible. Very impressive – the massive rock towers above your car, and it stands alone in a large, flat field.
Umatilla Rock (in Sun Lakes - Dry Falls State Park)
Steamboat Rock State Park, and several other Washington State Parks in that area.
The show is a little over-dramatized and the narrator’s tone of voice is a little over the top, but it’s an interesting show.
As soon as I read the title of the thread, It’s About Time popped into my mind. I was visiting my parents and saw this show once at their place, and never again. I have tried to locate it on Netflix, YouTube and elsewhere with no luck yet.
One description I’ve found at this NOVA site says
I’ve always been fascinated by the concept of time and have read any number of Sci-Fact books on the subject, but this NOVA was extra special in the breadth of coverage with a humorous approach. Excellent graphics and animations.
The concept of “chronons” and that time is particulate were especially intriguing. I’d love to see it again, or, better still, an update that would include more recent thinking and findings.
Anyway, we watch NOVA as often as they have new shows. Even repeats if they’re new material that’s particularly dense or complex.
The Secrets of the Viking Sword. It’s about the mysterious Ulfberht swords. It goes into how the Norsemen might have gotten such good steel, where the name might have come from, and why it was shape like it was, but a lot of time was spent on how it might have been made. They had a modern blacksmith recreate one starting with iron ore, charcoal, sand, and glass. Seeing something go from dirt to sword was very interesting.
As a kid, I loooved NOVA! In fact, I still do.
NOVA is everything the cable channels (History, Discovery, Science) should be, but aren’t… not even close.
So many great episodes, but difficult to get online (or used to be, when I looked). There was a NOVA site, but my last time trying it was met with failure. Too bad they aren’t on Netflix… or are they???
Quite enjoyed those. Personally, my favorites are the rather fluffy "NOVA:ScienceNow"s, formerly with the incomparable Neil deGrasse Tyson, and currently with… um. That guy. David Pogue, who isn’t bad (but who is also no NdGT–but then, who is?). For standard issue NOVA, it’s a bit hit or miss for me, depending on whether I find the topic interesting. Watched one last night on the dangers of asteroids that wasn’t half bad for background-watching while I did other stuff.
I totally forgot that B29 Frozen in Time was Nova. I’m not too proud to admit I teared up watching that.
Looking at the episode list, the first title that jumps out at me is “Parallel Worlds, Parallel Lives” (but maybe that’s just because I’m an EELS fan).
I’m going to be watching a lot of Nova in the next few weeks.
Some are. Try TV Documentaries and then sub-genre Science and Nature.
I felt like a wannabe renfester but I really enjoyed Secrets of the Viking/Samurai Sword. Again, ancient civilizations.