Did anyone else catch the first two episodes last night? My 6 year old son and I watched it and were hooked. Really clear discussion with wonderful CGI animation explaining the origin of the Earth and solar system, emerging from swirling cosmic dust post-Big Bang and the origins of life on Earth.
Really cool. Here is a link to the related website. There is another episode tonight.
I watched about the first 30 minutes, where they were talking about what the moon does for us and how it was created. it was very interesting.
then I had to help the wife with something on the computer and it looked like it was going to be about origins of life.
From what I saw, I thought it was well done, and interesting, also.
Damn, I was planning to watch that, but it was a “collapse into bed after feeding the cats and quickly lose consciousness” night. I guess it will be rerun?
Aside from the bit about the cats, this same thing happened to me… 
Pretty cool series; I didn’t know that the collision theory of the formation of the Moon was pretty much accepted as fact now. The second part got a little repetitive though; how many times do we need to see the scene of meteors smashing into the young earth to get the idea that it was a hostile environment?
I agree with you, but my 6 year old son loved that part…
I enjoy the Nova series very much and have most of the season Tivo’ed. The problem is I don’t take the time to catch up and when I do I am always 2 or 3 episodes off as I like to go in broadcast order.
I think I will skip ahead this time and check this one out.
I caught a bit of the first episode last night, before falling asleep.
My only beef with the Nova four-parters:
Why can’t they show them over four weeks? I don’t like to watch 2 hours of TV at night (why watch TV when you can play CoH?), and I’m generally not home Wednesday night.
Grumble-grumble.
I’d rather watch four hours straight, or at least have it on consecutive nights. I hardly ever manage to get through a miniseries without missing an episode or two.
I’ll agree that the CGI was nice enough, but as noted above they kept bringing back the same clips. We got it the first five times! I would have liked to see more of the disk forming rings and clumping together, instead of those close-ups of dust grains and shots of lava with meteorites falling into it.
I was surprised to see one of my old astronomy professors was one of the commentators on the show (the Univ of Washington guy that looks like Michael J Fox’s dad in Teen Wolf, can’t remember his name…). I had him for “Moons and Planets” class back in '91 or so, and at the time the “moon resulting from a collision” theory was very fresh and new. I recall him telling us about it in lecture and to ignore what the established textbook at the time was saying.
I watched the whole two hours. Was it me or did I get the feeling that anyone over the age of 8 would need to intentionally ignore the overly dramatic (and sometimes even condescending) tone and manner of the host, or else be put off?
Also, much of the computer animation was misleading, and sometimes even plain wrong. It was as bad as Star Trek CGI. Excuse me for being picky, but if you’re going to do a science program, and create computer animation to represent facts, then don’t just do it half-assed… get the details right. Especially if you’re gonna use each animated clip twenty freakin’ times in each hour. Otherwise, you’re going to nullify any educational value of the animations.
For instance, when meteors impact the primordial earth, or when planetesimals collide, the frame shakes and there are thunderous booming sounds. OK, first, the speed of sound is finite. So you’re going to see the strike, and then see the shock wave approaching, and only then will you hear the impact and feel the ground shake.
And second, of course, there is no sound in space.
And the most glaring example was the Earth/nemesis collision that created the moon. First they show a head on collision, spewing chunks out radially from the planet, and then cutting to a picture of an accretion disk… as if it just forms by itself or something. I think, “ok, well that’s not very accurate, but at least it’s not misleading.” Then they go and show a PC running the animated results of computer models that I’ve seen before, with a glancing blow and the earth spewing out molten material in a spiral, like a lawn sprinkler, and hey… it even explains the formation of the accretion disk. Now I’m thinking “why the hell show the uninformed artist’s version, then follow it with a picture of a PC monitor running a scientifically accurate and insightful one? Who the hell is producing this program?”
I used to respect NOVA a lot more than this… But just like Scientific American, it’s losing its cred. It’s pop science, dumbed down, and not dumbed down for the audience, but dumbed down because the producers don’t appear to know any better.
It’s not quite as bad as Discovery Channel. Yet. But I have been conditioned to hold NOVA to higher standards. And this series didn’t meet them.
Somehow, I’m not motivated to watch the rest of it.
Was it just me or was the asteroid belt WAY too dense (in the same way as such things are depicted in any science fiction movie).
That being said, it was entertaining for me and my 9-year-old son.
That’s pretty much what I thought about his speaking style, too. I know he has great credentials and I respect that, and his style probably works for kids, but it got really, really annoying.
I don’t know exactly what you’d call his style - sing-song maybe? He might try an old trick that Olivier used - emphasize just one word in a sentence or phrase, rather than every second or third word.