Part one was tonight on BBC2 and BBCHD.

It was, without question, the best hour of scientific programming I have ever seen.

I was at work so I recorded it, hope to get it watched tomorrow. Prof Cox could make a phone book sound fascinating, so I'm dying to see what he did with all the amazing stuff that's Out There...

Got to agree with Doug - the best hour of Science TV ever, can't wait for the rest of these.

Showing us Sunset over Gusev and Oppy's Phobos Eclipse shots was pretty nice for all us MER fans but the whole show is wonderfully shot, scripted and produced.

For those of you in the UK who missed it, get it on iPlayer. For the rest of you I'm sure it will be hitting BBC World and the various Science channels before long.

I'm one of those in the UK who managed to miss it! It seems to be a series of five parts, being shown on BBC2 first on Sunday at 9.00 pm then repeated on BBC2 on Tuesday at 7.00 pm. I've already set the recorder .......

...High praise indeed! I'll definitely be watching for this to hit the US.

Seen the #wonders comments on twitter? They are all utterly awesomely positive.

Hmmm. This has "buy it on DVD, then watch it on my laptop, with headphones on, in quiet periods, when no-one can disturb me" written all over it...

Yes it was a very good documentary, just pitty he didn’t mention the italian astronomer Pietro Angelo Secchi who was a pioneer in spectroscopy and was the first to realise that our Sun is a star. Together with the “Star” episode in BBC’s series “The Planets” some great multi-media.
Any idea which spacecraft filmed the Earth’s auroras?
Looking forward to the 2nd episode…

Good show. Nice images and atmosphere, most of them new to me (or at least from a fresh perspective). Impressive locations and night-sky photography.
Looking forward for the next episodes.

I agree, his presenting style and sheer excitement at the subject matter is really refreshing.

I also learnt today that he played keyboards in UK band D:REAM (of 'things can only get better' fame)

Caught the repeat on BBC2 earlier this evening...

WOW... What a magnificent program. Fantastic graphics, great science, poetic descriptions, all held together by Prof Brian Cox, who I swear could make the physics of cleaning a toilet sound fascinating and magical and wondrous. The guy feels absolute and genuine joy when he's talking about the universe, he revels in being a part of it, and if you're an astronomy or space enthusiast it's impossible to watch this program, and listen to him, and not feel like you're suddenly a seven year old again, reading your first astronomy book and learning about the wonders of the universe for the first time.

Has the UK finally got its own Carl Sagan? Time will tell, but the signs are promising.

( If I had one criticism - which is nothing to do with the content of the show, or its presenter - it would be that, again, the BBC is trying its hardest to drown out the narration with the background music. This is becoming increasingly common with BBC programs, both factual and entertainment, and seriously, someone at Auntie needs a slap, because it's getting to the point where it's distracting at best and ********** annoying at worst. There's no point in having someone as knowledgeable as Prof Cox narrating so wonderfully if you can't hear what he's saying because THE MUSIC IS SO LOUD!!!!!!! )

When will this be coming to Canada, any ideas?

From Prof Cox himself (via Twitter):

I think Science Channel starts showing wonders in the US / Canada at the start of August

My mum phoned me tonight to say she had seen 'a teenager talking about space and physics and things' on BBC2 and he reminded her of a young me.

I'm 14 years younger than Prof Cox!

Two things I found gratifying about it:

(i) Contrary to so many documentaries dealing with space matters it didn't feel obliged to show an explosion every 3 minutes to keep people's attention.

(ii) There was much less emphasis on Cox "discovering" facts - so often nowadays these things are framed as journeys of discovery, and in previous examples of his work this, to my mind, has come across as a bit false. If you've got him beaming in mock wonder at being told something you know damn well he already knew then it can trivialise things.
In this - maybe driven by the script or by him maturing as a host - he talked to us about things he clearly knew. The beauty then was that the TRUE scenes of wonderment on his part (eg the eclipse or the aurora) came across as the genuine thing - and all the more powerful for that. Much as - away from astronomy - 30 years ago David Attenborough told us stuff in Life on Earth and then was gobsmacked when he met the gorillas.

I didn't notice any music at all. Seriously.

Watch it again... the river sequence... can hardly hear a word he's saying in some parts. Other places too. But maybe I'm just extra sensitive to it because it's a thing I've noticed creeping into Beeb progs. Glad it didn't spoil it for you.

Probably Polar; site here (getting a bit out of date; some links now dead); some example movies here (scroll down to "The Aurora").

Be aware they actually shot two versions - a UK version starring Cox (who is a really smart and fun
guy), and an 'international' version wherein random scientists do more of the talking. Hopefully the
latter is as good.

stand by for episode 3 'The Thin Blue Line' about atmospheres on 21 March..... obviously
I havent seen it yet, but we did shoot some quite absurd things on an alaskan glacier
last October...

glad to hear that the initial feedback on the series is so good.

Fingers crossed BBC will release it on Blu Ray so that people overseas can see it how it's meant to be seen.

Because clearly we can't understand people with accents and refused to listen to them... I'm not sure how Craig Ferguson got through that rule.

BBC's "Life" documentary has Oprah Winfrey narrating rather than David Attenborough for US audiences.

That's a great shame. I hope all Americans who don't want to be dumbed-down-to will seek out and be able to find the proper versions. I can't imagine the BBC replacing the voice of (say) Carl Sagan with a non-accented announcer - the audience would want the original.

I'd be surprised if it was dumbed down - more just given a bit of cultural alignment. If the series was shot with this approach in mind from the start (which rlorenz seems to be saying) then I'd be pretty hopeful that it will give some others a chance to shine too. And it gives me an excuse to track down the "other" version once I've seen all the UK episodes to see if the others do as good a job at showing just how awesome science and space exploration actually is. All good as far as I can tell.

And I'm now intrigued to see what Ralph got up to in Alaska = Atmospheres and Glaciers? Can't wait.

Right, I'd like to see the other version too. If you see it before me please tell me who does the scene with the can of water, thermometer, sun and umbrella. If anybody does it better than Brian Cox I wouldn't want to miss it.

I found a link to the full episode (BBC version) online; it's very impressive! But I'm rather hesitant to post the link until a mod clarifies UMSF's policy to this sort of thing, there's nothing in the forum guidelines about this!

Do you need a forum guideline to tell you not to use UMSF to break the law?

Really?

I'm sorry, it's a really stupid question in hindsight. I should've just Pm'd you.
I won't mention it again.

It seems to be a very minority opinion, but personally I can't stand it. Tried watching it twice; couldn't make it further than the first ten minutes. I started making a list of all the ways it fails, irritates and annoys me, but stopped at ten; what's the point? I'm sure some of the 14 year olds it seems to be aimed at will love it, and might develop an interest in the subject; great, fantastic, well done Professor Cox and the BBC for that. It's churlish, I know, but I still wonder why no-one ever makes a science documentaries for adults.

Shame you didn't enjoy it, but I have to say that the response to this program among people I know who wouldn't normally look at a "spacey" program on TV has been fantastic. For example, people at work who usually make fun (kindly!) of my passion for astronomy and space exploration have told me "I can see why you love it so much now!" and "That program was really interesting!", etc etc. I don't think it's aimed primarily at people like us who already know a lot about the wonders to be found Out There; it's more for a general if not absolute beginners audience. I think "Wonders" will open the eyes of a lot of people to the wonders of the universe. It will also make Brian Cox a household name, which is no bad thing.

That IS a minority opinion, because whilst you're writing a list of things wrong with it and giving up after 10 minutes I can't think of ANYTHING, and I mean ANYTHING wrong with it and I have NEVER seen so many positive opinions of something on the interwebs. Ever.

Well said, Stu. It's about communicating enthusiasm and using exciting information to do it. I watched it in hope of learning something about how to do that, and it turned out to be a masterclass. Now if I wanted to learn a lot of new facts about the topic of a TV programme I'd watch one about the history of embroidery or something.

Wow, if you liked it Doug, just say so...

If anything it was a bit too good; I'm giving one of my Outreach talks tomorrow afternoon in Kendal Museum - "Earth", for National Science and Engineering Week - and I now feel more than a little "Ha! Follow that!" pressure, to be honest! It's bad enough that Brian Cox is knowledgeable and likeable, but he's suddenly made people think that scientists can be sexy. Guess I'll shatter that illusion tomorrow!

Anyway, all I know is that I have literally been stopped in the street half a dozen times this week, since ""Wonders" aired, by people I know who just wanted to tell me (Universe knows why!) how much they'd enjoyed it. So now, knowing that many of the people in the Museum tomorrow will have seen "Wonders" I'm going to have to stand there knowing that the bar has been raised. Horizon, with its boring stock footage, droning narration and poor production values is dead, and deservedly so. "Wonders" has the potential to inspire and excite a huge number of people. I think this could be quite a moment, to be honest.

I agree. I watched the cosmology one. Repetition, hesitation and deviation throughout. They wouldn't last two seconds on 'Just a Minute'.

The recent Horizon? God it was dreadful. Stock petrol-explosion after stock petrol explosion, every time someone said 'Bang'. It spent a very very long time saying very very little. So much abstract fluffy visual FX - it was like a showreal for 12 year old who just discovered Adobe After Effects.

It was crap.

(BUZZ)

Sorry, you used the word "I" twice...

My turn.

It's a shame Horizon has gone that way. I am sure a lot of us here grew up with Horizon being a regular 'science fix', and we looked forward to the specials after a probe's planetary encounter. They were THE science documentaries to watch. I remember playing video-taped V2 and Magellan Horizons and photographing the screen to make slides for using in my talks (pre Net and Powerpoint and USB sticks and Smartboards and digital projectors... cripes, how did we manage?!). Following the slow death of Horizon has been quite sad. I think Brian Cox just gave it an injection to put it out of its misery.

Heck, I'm jealous of you UKers who had what sounds like a real science program that lasted long enough to deteriorate...

(Nothing against PBS's Nova here in the US, but it sounds as if Horizon was much more in tune with current events.)

In my opinion, Horizon seemed to slide in quality shortly after the time that its rival Equinox started, what with its funkier camera angles and off-the-wall shooting than the staid old Beeb would ever have considered.

I suppose the real problem is that TV producers, researchers and directors are largely from meedja studies and arts environments. There have been more than a few occasions when I've got the distinct impression that a Horizon programme explaining something was written by people who don't quite understand it (or, worse, believe it) themselves.

On a meta-level I thought the recent Horizon worked quite well: while the first fifty minutes was full of boring balloons and explosions, irritating interviews and, indeed, saying nothing about Dark Energy until the last ten minutes, it did suggest Space Filler rather well. Which is what Dark Energy's all about, no?

Andy

(Seemingly unable to type a reply in the box using the latest FF update)

I thought Horizon and Nova were the same program or at least a co production...

Nova may occasionally play some Horizon episodes - but most Nova episodes only make it to Nat Geo channel over here.

Wow, the first episode has certainly elicited some passionate comments!
I thought it was very well put together, and the presenter's enthusiasm is great to see. I agree with some that science documentaries seem to have generally slipped in standard though. I'm looking forward to the next episode very much.

The best science documentary I ever saw was 'The secret treasures of Zeugma' on the BBC in 2000 - all about the flooding of the ancient site of Zeugma in Turkey to make way for a dam/hydroelectric scheme, and the race against time to excavate the fabulous mosaics before the water levels inundated them forever - thoroughly absorbing, and with no whizz-bang frippery (the revelations spoke for themselves). I'd highly recommend it if you can track down a copy.

I would have liked to have seen more real space craft imagery - I think images from SOHO, TRACE and STEREO are so spectacular we don't need CGI

I tihink this a short preview of episode 2 http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/sci/tech/8564405.stm

SOHO, TRACE and STEREO imagery, great though it is - can't fly you through the chronosphere. The CGI - especially for that - was superb.

How about chromosphere?

On the subject of UK space documentaries, one of the best I've ever seen is a 1995 Equinox episode called 'On Jupiter'

I could post a link to this on youtube but I'm not going to unless I get mod approval.

I still have that on tape somewhere

A couple of days ago was aiming to post a summary similar to Doug's regarding the Horizon effort - but my computer threw a wobbly (it survived fortunately ). I really don't know what they are thinking of when it comes to what appears to be a chosen mandate regarding the need for "whacky" visuals even when just having scientists chatting in front of the camera - contrast that with Cox's explanation of the water heating experiment. So much so that I turned off after 20 minutes - it was just unwatchable.
As an aside, on the subject of iPlayer I was chatting to a BBC IT guy last week who works on various of their web pages, and he thought a subscription process was on the cards for viewers from outside the UK, which would be good for stuff such as this or for ex-pats in general.

Here's a very nice (and quite legal!) channel for a bunch of things right up our alley:

http://www.youtube.com/user/SpaceRip

Here's a nice one about Oppy's adventures:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=xC6J57DmsW8