Mad and Bad: 60 Years of Science on TV

0:00:02 > 0:00:06We are going to test this with live ammunition. We're doing the experiment live,

0:00:06 > 0:00:08obviously we can't do this in the studio.

0:00:08 > 0:00:10In your own time.

0:00:10 > 0:00:15From Raymond Baxter live on Tomorrow's World testing a new-fangled bullet-proof vest

0:00:15 > 0:00:17on a nervous inventor...

0:00:17 > 0:00:22to Brian Cox racking up more Air Miles than an overworked flight attendant.

0:00:22 > 0:00:25From Professor Quatermass' Cold War scariness...

0:00:25 > 0:00:28I've been afraid something would happen we couldn't deal with.

0:00:28 > 0:00:32- ..to Dr Who's new spin on gender politics.- Was someone kissing me?

0:00:32 > 0:00:35British television, and, it's hoped,

0:00:35 > 0:00:39the great British public have been fascinated with the brave new world

0:00:39 > 0:00:44offered up by science and scientists since John Logie Baird first thought

0:00:44 > 0:00:48of sending a bicircular electron field through a vacuumated glass cylinder.

0:00:48 > 0:00:50This is transmission studio number three.

0:00:50 > 0:00:55I think the UK probably leads the world in science communication.

0:00:55 > 0:00:59British television does science better than anybody else

0:00:59 > 0:01:02in making it accessible and appealing but still in a complicated way.

0:01:02 > 0:01:06Lift off. We have lift off on Apollo 11.

0:01:06 > 0:01:10We take a fantastic voyage through six decades of British TV science,

0:01:10 > 0:01:13from real science programmes to science fiction.

0:01:15 > 0:01:20I'm a scientist. It doesn't matter what you've been told about this thing. It is NOT harmless.

0:01:26 > 0:01:29What does it tell us about Britain over the last 60 years?

0:01:29 > 0:01:33How much has science on TV shaped our view of the world?

0:01:35 > 0:01:38You may get some idea

0:01:38 > 0:01:42of the frustration and the excitement of scientific research.

0:01:42 > 0:01:46Or has it, in fact, turned us off science,

0:01:46 > 0:01:51made us more fearful of what scientists get up to in their labs?

0:02:05 > 0:02:08When the cat is taken aside and exposed to the hallucinogenic gas,

0:02:08 > 0:02:11the tables are turned.

0:02:11 > 0:02:13This is a cat on, well, acid, LSD.

0:02:13 > 0:02:18It featured in the '60s science programme Horizon,

0:02:18 > 0:02:23and is a reasonable scientific experiment to show how psychotic drugs could be used in warfare.

0:02:25 > 0:02:28Perhaps it now sees the mice as terrifying monsters.

0:02:28 > 0:02:32Or you could say it's the kind of tactic TV producers will resort to

0:02:32 > 0:02:35to make science entertaining to grab the audience.

0:02:35 > 0:02:37The role of a producer

0:02:37 > 0:02:41is to think of an imaginative way of grabbing the audience by the throat,

0:02:41 > 0:02:44and then imparting information almost subliminally.

0:02:44 > 0:02:46The most important thing

0:02:46 > 0:02:49about television - it should always be entertaining.

0:02:49 > 0:02:53You want people to turn on, and stay tuned to the end of the programme.

0:02:53 > 0:02:55And if it's not entertaining they'll turn it off.

0:02:57 > 0:03:02But using science for entertainment has often annoyed the scientific community.

0:03:02 > 0:03:06It's a battle that goes right back to the beginning of motion pictures itself.

0:03:06 > 0:03:08At the beginning of science film-making

0:03:08 > 0:03:12there's this idea that science can provide a type of spectacle.

0:03:12 > 0:03:14They weren't adverse to showing anything

0:03:14 > 0:03:18that was fringe scientific and entertaining. For example,

0:03:18 > 0:03:19in 1908, a guy called Percy Smith

0:03:19 > 0:03:22makes a film called The Acrobatic Fly.

0:03:22 > 0:03:26He puts a macro lens onto his cine-camera.

0:03:26 > 0:03:31He ties down a fly with a piece of silk and passes it various things to juggle.

0:03:31 > 0:03:33It's an absolute sensation.

0:03:33 > 0:03:37The scientific establishment is really rather disdainful of this.

0:03:37 > 0:03:40They say, "It's quite an interesting piece of science,

0:03:40 > 0:03:44"but, really, you shouldn't lower yourself by going to see it, fellow scientists."

0:03:44 > 0:03:48But as film then TV became more pervasive,

0:03:48 > 0:03:51the scientists knew they couldn't keep away.

0:03:51 > 0:03:53Scientists recognised television

0:03:53 > 0:03:56was going to be a powerful influence and a way in which

0:03:56 > 0:03:58their views could be heard

0:03:58 > 0:04:01and their attitudes towards life could be heard.

0:04:01 > 0:04:04Scientists wanted to control the way science was communicated.

0:04:04 > 0:04:08It has a North pole. It has a South pole. It has an equator.

0:04:08 > 0:04:11And it spins about its axis.

0:04:11 > 0:04:15But scientists aren't always the best communicators.

0:04:15 > 0:04:18The atmosphere is extraordinarily interesting at heights very much above

0:04:18 > 0:04:22that which we've accustomed to think there is no atmosphere.

0:04:22 > 0:04:25A lot of scientists are arguably on the autistic spectrum,

0:04:25 > 0:04:30and not necessarily great in front of a camera, and that's just true.

0:04:31 > 0:04:35So over the past 60 years, science on TV has been a battleground

0:04:35 > 0:04:40between scientists and TV makers over how science should look on the box.

0:04:40 > 0:04:44Should information come before entertainment?

0:04:44 > 0:04:46Should presenters be real scientists?

0:04:46 > 0:04:50Popular science or niche science? Science lectures or spectacle?

0:04:54 > 0:04:57It was in the start-up years of TV, the 1950s,

0:04:57 > 0:05:01that the battle over TV science was at its most heated.

0:05:08 > 0:05:13Science has been expanding so violently into our civilisation

0:05:13 > 0:05:18that 90% of all the scientists that have ever been are alive right now.

0:05:18 > 0:05:22In the 1950s, the scientific establishment battled with the BBC

0:05:22 > 0:05:25to make science look like a force for good.

0:05:25 > 0:05:29Serious, proper, and certainly not controversial.

0:05:29 > 0:05:34I think there were a number of well-established institutions and learned bodies,

0:05:34 > 0:05:36like the Royal Society and other bodies,

0:05:36 > 0:05:40and yes, to some extent, there was some resistance from them,

0:05:40 > 0:05:44in the same way there was resistance from the academic community itself,

0:05:44 > 0:05:48about whether science on TV was dumbing down.

0:05:48 > 0:05:52Time and time again we find scientists beating a path to the BBC

0:05:52 > 0:05:54and saying, "You're not doing science properly,

0:05:54 > 0:05:59"you're not doing science well enough. You've got to improve science broadcasting."

0:05:59 > 0:06:02It often looked like the scientists had got their way,

0:06:02 > 0:06:05as reflected in programmes like The Smoking Habit.

0:06:05 > 0:06:10Tonight's programme is about the smoking habit.

0:06:10 > 0:06:15I'd like to say straightaway that it isn't designed to urge you to give up smoking

0:06:15 > 0:06:19or to cut down smoking or change your smoking habits in any way at all.

0:06:19 > 0:06:21That's none of our business.

0:06:21 > 0:06:23Science programmes were usually

0:06:23 > 0:06:28started with a stirring classical music-led title-sequence

0:06:28 > 0:06:33and populated by scientists who were bringing us one step closer to a better future,

0:06:33 > 0:06:35whether we liked it or not.

0:06:35 > 0:06:39To do these projects, you've got to have an emotional drive to do them.

0:06:39 > 0:06:41In a sense, they're things of the spirit

0:06:41 > 0:06:46that you've got to feel that you want to do them. It's rather like the Egyptians building the pyramids.

0:06:46 > 0:06:51The pyramids were obviously no good but they built them, and this may be our pyramid.

0:06:51 > 0:06:52'It's good for scientists'

0:06:52 > 0:06:54there are scientists on the screen.

0:06:54 > 0:06:57It's good for the public to see real scientists standing up

0:06:57 > 0:07:01and talking with enthusiasm and engagement about their work.

0:07:01 > 0:07:03The problem, of course, is squaring the circle,

0:07:03 > 0:07:07the balance between the essential demand of the broadcasters for entertainment.

0:07:07 > 0:07:12It is the audience that matters. What's the point in making a programme no-one watches?

0:07:12 > 0:07:15Science was often presented by scientists in suits,

0:07:15 > 0:07:18very high-brow types that looked like bank managers

0:07:18 > 0:07:23talking to other scientists that looked like bank managers, such as in Science Is News.

0:07:23 > 0:07:26How do you go about detecting a bomb?

0:07:26 > 0:07:30Well, there are several methods and the success of them naturally

0:07:30 > 0:07:33depends on the conditions under which the bomb is let off.

0:07:33 > 0:07:36When a bomb goes off it makes a large bang.

0:07:36 > 0:07:39Here goes a bomb and here's the wave coming across.

0:07:39 > 0:07:42- The line coming towards us? - Yes, that's it.

0:07:42 > 0:07:46Despite the slight stiffness, the programmes were still considered exciting.

0:07:46 > 0:07:51Television at the beginning of the 1950s was really just seen as radio's

0:07:51 > 0:07:55younger sibling, a bit troublesome. It didn't have much money going into it,

0:07:55 > 0:07:59and they'd scarcely started thinking what a programme should be like.

0:07:59 > 0:08:03What they did think was that there was something really fantastic

0:08:03 > 0:08:05about the immediacy of television.

0:08:05 > 0:08:09The fact that you were seeing things that were happening at that moment

0:08:09 > 0:08:11and they really, really liked that sense of danger.

0:08:11 > 0:08:15Now, the first experiment that we're going to conduct

0:08:15 > 0:08:17is to take these men, effectively, up six miles

0:08:17 > 0:08:20and we do this with a compression chamber.

0:08:20 > 0:08:23This compression chamber was much too big to bring into the studio

0:08:23 > 0:08:26and we have it parked downstairs in the garage.

0:08:26 > 0:08:32It was so big, we more or less blocked the whole of Lime Grove this morning when we were getting it in.

0:08:32 > 0:08:37And live broadcasting meant that experiments had to be demonstrated in the studio

0:08:37 > 0:08:38along with live graphics.

0:08:40 > 0:08:46These are special animated diagrams which are operated in front of the camera.

0:08:46 > 0:08:50So there's levers that are pulled and discs that are rotated.

0:08:50 > 0:08:54A throat surgeon makes a small cut in the windpipe,

0:08:54 > 0:09:00so that a special type of tube can be inserted, and is put in like this.

0:09:00 > 0:09:05And here you can see in detail how the tube lies in the windpipe.

0:09:05 > 0:09:09They were big on props. They loved to have dramatic props

0:09:09 > 0:09:14that people could point to. So in Frontiers Of Science

0:09:14 > 0:09:16when they're talking about the Sputnik satellite,

0:09:16 > 0:09:22they've got a huge great globe of the earth, and they were pointing out how the whole thing would work.

0:09:22 > 0:09:25On the scale of the size of the earth,

0:09:25 > 0:09:28I have here five little pins.

0:09:28 > 0:09:30The smallest of them,

0:09:30 > 0:09:33about a 20th of an inch long,

0:09:33 > 0:09:35represents Mount Everest.

0:09:35 > 0:09:395.5 miles high, the highest point on the earth,

0:09:39 > 0:09:42which man succeeded in climbing after many failures.

0:09:42 > 0:09:45Programmes were the science lecture, effectively,

0:09:45 > 0:09:49given by scientists who were used to talking to nervous students keen to pass their degree.

0:09:49 > 0:09:51Their tone reflected this.

0:09:51 > 0:09:57They didn't realise people watching were looking for enjoyment and interest, not to pass their finals.

0:09:57 > 0:10:01And the scientists were also happy to bring their lab work to the studio,

0:10:01 > 0:10:05oblivious to how the TV audience might feel.

0:10:05 > 0:10:11And so here you have six very newborn little mice.

0:10:11 > 0:10:15- They look normal enough. Are they perfectly normal?- Yes, quite normal.

0:10:15 > 0:10:19In other words, your experiment has succeeded in achieving normal mice.

0:10:19 > 0:10:21Well, then, why did you do it?

0:10:21 > 0:10:25We wanted to do this experiment just to show that the technique was all right -

0:10:25 > 0:10:31that you could keep mice in a test tube for two days and that they would develop normally.

0:10:31 > 0:10:35You could see things you just don't see today, unfortunately.

0:10:35 > 0:10:38Science was rarely questioned, whether it was vivisection

0:10:38 > 0:10:41or former Nazi Wernher von Braun's work for the US space programme.

0:10:41 > 0:10:45You can orbit approximately 2,500 pounds of payload,

0:10:45 > 0:10:48which means that we can fire

0:10:48 > 0:10:52good busloads full of astronauts into low orbit...

0:10:52 > 0:10:55The tone was always optimistic and upbeat.

0:10:55 > 0:10:58Science, whatever it did, was good.

0:10:58 > 0:11:01One of the most popular exponents

0:11:01 > 0:11:04of optimistic science on TV in the '50s was Eye On Research,

0:11:04 > 0:11:08presented by someone who could look a camera square in the eye without flinching,

0:11:08 > 0:11:11former Spitfire pilot Raymond Baxter.

0:11:11 > 0:11:14And to give you an idea of just how cold it is,

0:11:14 > 0:11:17if I shake away the surplus oxygen,

0:11:17 > 0:11:21you can see that the water is turned into solid ice.

0:11:21 > 0:11:24Tonight you join us in the Clarendon Laboratory in Oxford

0:11:24 > 0:11:27for a programme on low temperature physics.

0:11:27 > 0:11:29The whole series of Eye On Research

0:11:29 > 0:11:31was done in conjunction with the Royal Society

0:11:31 > 0:11:34as part of the celebrations of their 300th anniversary.

0:11:34 > 0:11:40This was very much the image of science that the high-ups in the Royal Society wanted to put across.

0:11:40 > 0:11:45If this is successful, then I think, for a short time at least,

0:11:45 > 0:11:49the inside of this apparatus will be the coldest place

0:11:49 > 0:11:52in perhaps the whole of the universe.

0:11:52 > 0:11:55This is a most dramatic introduction to our programme.

0:11:55 > 0:11:59Can we go and discuss this major point somewhere more quiet?

0:11:59 > 0:12:00Well, good luck, John.

0:12:01 > 0:12:06But while scientists and TV producers argued over the look of real science on TV,

0:12:06 > 0:12:09the people down the hall in the drama department

0:12:09 > 0:12:13realised they could use science too... To frighten people.

0:12:13 > 0:12:15DRAMATIC MUSIC

0:12:21 > 0:12:23A writer called Nigel Kneale

0:12:23 > 0:12:28was turning science into a nightmare vision in The Quatermass Experiment!

0:12:30 > 0:12:33One morning, two hours after dawn,

0:12:33 > 0:12:38the first manned rocket in the history of the world takes off

0:12:38 > 0:12:40from the Woomera Range, Australia.

0:12:40 > 0:12:44I suppose the earliest scientific thing I remember on the telly has got to be Quatermass.

0:12:44 > 0:12:49I used to sit under the kitchen table and watch it

0:12:49 > 0:12:51with one finger in my mouth

0:12:51 > 0:12:56and the other hand clutching nervously at my trousers,

0:12:56 > 0:12:58watching this tiny little telly

0:12:58 > 0:13:03with all these weird spaceships and old scrunched up aliens in.

0:13:03 > 0:13:07The Quatermass Experiment follows a British space rocket - well, it is science fiction -

0:13:07 > 0:13:11that returns to Earth minus all but one of the crew,

0:13:11 > 0:13:16who's infected by an alien life-form that wants to destroy the world. Don't they always?

0:13:16 > 0:13:17The Quatermass Experiment

0:13:17 > 0:13:21really changed the image of science fiction on television.

0:13:21 > 0:13:24Everything depends on that curve being confirmed.

0:13:24 > 0:13:26- If it is, they may have a chance. - 106259.

0:13:26 > 0:13:30That may bring them right round the Earth instead of smack into it.

0:13:30 > 0:13:33It's all right, I'm not letting myself go.

0:13:33 > 0:13:34'Quatermass was a success'

0:13:34 > 0:13:36because it wasn't like anything else.

0:13:36 > 0:13:39This was a grown-up science-fiction drama.

0:13:39 > 0:13:41- MIAOWING - What is it?

0:13:41 > 0:13:44'Ere, get her somewhere safe. I got to report this.

0:13:44 > 0:13:47'It's about science. It's also cleverly structured.

0:13:47 > 0:13:49'It's a mystery.'

0:13:49 > 0:13:54It wasn't until you got into it you realised, "Oh, wait a minute, this is rocket ships and monster stuff,"

0:13:54 > 0:13:58and by then people were following the story, it was too late

0:13:58 > 0:14:01'to turn off and say, "We don't watch nonsense like that."

0:14:01 > 0:14:03Quatermass got everyone tuning in.

0:14:03 > 0:14:09I think people watched it because they didn't have a choice. There was only one channel in those days.

0:14:09 > 0:14:12If you watched television last night, that's what you saw,

0:14:12 > 0:14:15and if you were on the bus or the tube of wherever you were,

0:14:15 > 0:14:17you would all have seen Quatermass.

0:14:17 > 0:14:21And so there was a kind of national sort of mania.

0:14:21 > 0:14:26"Oh, my God, what's going on? What IS that thing that's going to come out of the pit? Eurgh!"

0:14:26 > 0:14:29- They're not inside.- They must be! Unless they got swept away.

0:14:29 > 0:14:32I checked - that door hasn't been opened till now.

0:14:32 > 0:14:33Victor, where are the others?

0:14:33 > 0:14:36Victor, what happened?

0:14:36 > 0:14:38I'm pretty sure it was live,

0:14:38 > 0:14:41and so trying to do effects

0:14:41 > 0:14:45of ectoplasmic ghastly things coming out and strangling you

0:14:45 > 0:14:49is jolly difficult if you're doing it live.

0:14:49 > 0:14:53It tapped into specific concerns to do with the paranoias of the time,

0:14:53 > 0:14:56the politics of the time, there's a lot of Cold War stuff in there.

0:14:56 > 0:15:00There's also a lot of lingering World War Two material.

0:15:00 > 0:15:03I mean, the image of the rocket scientists,

0:15:03 > 0:15:05particularly for London audiences,

0:15:05 > 0:15:08wasn't that hot because they thought of Wernher von Braun,

0:15:08 > 0:15:12the man who had invented things that had rained from the sky,

0:15:12 > 0:15:15killing their neighbours and knocking their streets down.

0:15:15 > 0:15:19- Well, I seen this great blare of light...- He was out of the house in a flash.- Ah, Mrs Matthews.

0:15:19 > 0:15:23Not a moment's hesitation - just as he was through the Blitz.

0:15:23 > 0:15:28But although space travel was seen as something that could destroy the world,

0:15:28 > 0:15:32the hero who saves our bacon is in fact a scientist - Professor Bernard Quatermass.

0:15:32 > 0:15:35That may mean nothing. The main thing is to get control.

0:15:35 > 0:15:38He's described as British television's first hero.

0:15:38 > 0:15:41Yes, TV's first heartthrob, a scientist.

0:15:41 > 0:15:46The writer modelled him on real-life astronomer Bernard Lovell -

0:15:46 > 0:15:47a science geek no less.

0:15:47 > 0:15:52Quatermass is a maverick scientist taking on the Establishment.

0:15:52 > 0:15:56Sort of a science version of James Dean's Rebel Without A Cause.

0:15:56 > 0:15:58Rebel with a PhD.

0:15:58 > 0:16:01'There's something comforting and paternal about Quatermass.

0:16:01 > 0:16:04'That's who we'd like to think was doing science,

0:16:04 > 0:16:09'even though in all of the serials what he's doing turns out to be really dangerous.'

0:16:09 > 0:16:1330 years ago I'd almost decided to devote my life to land surveying in the Tropics.

0:16:14 > 0:16:16That at least would have harmed only myself.

0:16:16 > 0:16:20Alas, most of the first Quatermass series doesn't exist today

0:16:20 > 0:16:25due to another technological breakthrough, the BBC's tape erasing machine.

0:16:25 > 0:16:29While Quatermass traded on our fears,

0:16:29 > 0:16:32it was down to the BBC science department

0:16:32 > 0:16:35to take a more user-friendly approach to space.

0:16:35 > 0:16:40What science programming needed in the '50s was an eccentric-looking boffin-type

0:16:40 > 0:16:44who had lots of passion, lots of knowledge and a sense of fun about space.

0:16:44 > 0:16:46No, too old.

0:16:46 > 0:16:47Too young.

0:16:47 > 0:16:49Too flippant.

0:16:49 > 0:16:51Too boring.

0:16:51 > 0:16:54Oh, hang on. Go back. No, go back.

0:16:54 > 0:16:56Ah! That's the fella.

0:16:56 > 0:16:58In 1957, they found him.

0:16:58 > 0:16:59Patrick Moore.

0:16:59 > 0:17:02All the indications are that the Russians

0:17:02 > 0:17:03are making such immense progress

0:17:03 > 0:17:06that almost anything may happen at any moment.

0:17:06 > 0:17:08I am very anxious to see what it is.

0:17:08 > 0:17:13He was the first person to permanently pilot a non-fiction astronomy series on TV.

0:17:13 > 0:17:16What do you think are the prospects at the moment?

0:17:16 > 0:17:19I think we're nearly totally obscured, Patrick.

0:17:19 > 0:17:25He pointed his telescope towards TV's longest-running solo-manned show in any genre,

0:17:25 > 0:17:26The Sky At Night.

0:17:28 > 0:17:32Obviously, Patrick Moore was the reason why it was so successful.

0:17:32 > 0:17:38He had this blazing enthusiasm, which came right through your television set.

0:17:38 > 0:17:42When I was young I loved Patrick Moore, and one of my real thrills

0:17:42 > 0:17:47when I started work for the BBC was when I got to meet Patrick Moore.

0:17:47 > 0:17:52Moore is in fact an amateur astronomer, but he showed that passion and enthusiasm

0:17:52 > 0:17:55could achieve more than knowledge.

0:17:55 > 0:17:58Plus a bit of English eccentricity helps.

0:17:58 > 0:18:01It's PG Wodehouse in space.

0:18:01 > 0:18:03I believed that Patrick Moore,

0:18:03 > 0:18:07when he wasn't on the telly doing Sky At Night,

0:18:07 > 0:18:11was looking at the stars every other moment.

0:18:11 > 0:18:15And then, when it was too light, you know, to be looking at the stars,

0:18:15 > 0:18:17he would be reading every available book on them.

0:18:17 > 0:18:20The diamond ring will be appearing in a minute. We've got...

0:18:20 > 0:18:23And there's the diamond ring. An incredible sight!

0:18:23 > 0:18:26'I've always been just myself on television.'

0:18:26 > 0:18:29I've never cultivated anything.

0:18:29 > 0:18:31I just talk as I always do.

0:18:31 > 0:18:35There it is. The ring has appeared. The corolla has vanished.

0:18:35 > 0:18:39And that is the end of this eclipse of the century,

0:18:39 > 0:18:41and, by jove, was it worth seeing.

0:18:41 > 0:18:44'The idea was to put it on the air once every four weeks'

0:18:44 > 0:18:48for three months see how it went. That was 53 years ago and we're still going.

0:18:48 > 0:18:52- Do you think it's any good turning it to moon?- Frankly I don't think it is.

0:18:52 > 0:18:56- I can't see a single star at the moment.- It's totally obscured.

0:18:56 > 0:19:00In the early days, everything was live and things could go wrong.

0:19:00 > 0:19:05I remember once we went down to see George Hole's telescope for the first time.

0:19:05 > 0:19:09We could see Saturn and Jupiter live through a telescope, and five minutes

0:19:09 > 0:19:13before the programme and five minutes after, the sky was clear.

0:19:13 > 0:19:16There's definitely a lightening there. Can you see it?

0:19:16 > 0:19:19It's coming out. There is the moon. I can see it for the moment.

0:19:19 > 0:19:21No, it's gone again.

0:19:21 > 0:19:26In a way, The Sky At Night was Britain's small contribution to the post-war space race.

0:19:26 > 0:19:30A much cheaper budget and we didn't have to start with dogs or monkeys,

0:19:30 > 0:19:33we had Patrick Moore right from the start.

0:19:33 > 0:19:36Sky At Night got a huge boost when it started

0:19:36 > 0:19:39because of when it started. 1957 - it was before Sputnik.

0:19:39 > 0:19:44If I'd come on air in 1957 when we did the first of these Sky At Night programmes,

0:19:44 > 0:19:49and said that within five years I'd be showing you pictures of the first man to go round the earth in orbit

0:19:49 > 0:19:52in a space ship... Well, I think you'd have regarded me as mad.

0:19:52 > 0:19:56The show has racked up nearly 1,000 episodes.

0:19:56 > 0:20:02The look has changed over that time. Well, Moore has changed his ties, occasionally.

0:20:02 > 0:20:06I think Sky At Night works and has a sort of unique place in the ecology of television

0:20:06 > 0:20:11because it's one of the few programmes that still has space to sit the scientist down and say,

0:20:11 > 0:20:15"What's new? Tell us what you're excited by," and so we get these stories.

0:20:15 > 0:20:19Patrick Moore's programme reflected the optimism of the space race.

0:20:19 > 0:20:24You're one of the very few people who's appeared saying this is really worth having.

0:20:24 > 0:20:29In fact, there's only four of you. Do you think, from your knowledge of the moon, having been there,

0:20:29 > 0:20:32it's going to be possible in the foreseeable future

0:20:32 > 0:20:35to set up scientific bases there on anything like a large scale?

0:20:35 > 0:20:39Oh, I'm quite certain that we'll have such bases in our lifetime.

0:20:39 > 0:20:45Yes, Cold War rockets could have nuclear warheads on them, but they could also carry people to the moon.

0:20:45 > 0:20:48Hopefully not the ones with nuclear warheads.

0:20:55 > 0:20:59While The Sky At Night celebrated the space race, at the start of the '60s,

0:20:59 > 0:21:04the BBC drama-makers in the next-door studio wanted to build on the success of Quatermass

0:21:04 > 0:21:08and carry on scaring people about space, with A For Andromeda.

0:21:09 > 0:21:13The plot sees a group of scientists detect a radio signal

0:21:13 > 0:21:16from another galaxy in which are embedded instructions

0:21:16 > 0:21:18for creating a computer,

0:21:18 > 0:21:22which then gives them further instructions on how to build Julie Christie.

0:21:22 > 0:21:25Well, Julie Christie playing an alien called Andromeda.

0:21:25 > 0:21:28Nice or nasty?

0:21:29 > 0:21:30Nasty.

0:21:30 > 0:21:33But what they've done is build an alien

0:21:33 > 0:21:37whose mission is to take over Earth. D'oh!

0:21:37 > 0:21:40The interesting thing about science fiction is...

0:21:40 > 0:21:43this view of a dystopia.

0:21:43 > 0:21:48A lot of science fiction has a vision of the future which is essentially negative.

0:21:48 > 0:21:52And interestingly, that's not really reflected in science documentary.

0:21:52 > 0:21:55Most science documentary is actually quite positive about science.

0:21:55 > 0:22:01Science documentary-makers are not that fond of criticising...

0:22:01 > 0:22:02erm...science itself.

0:22:02 > 0:22:06Interestingly, it was penned by a real scientist,

0:22:06 > 0:22:12world-renowned cosmologist Fred Hoyle. Perhaps using science fiction to express his fears

0:22:12 > 0:22:14about man's advancement into space.

0:22:14 > 0:22:18- You're like children with your missiles and rockets. - Don't count me in on that.

0:22:18 > 0:22:21This was different to the kind of science fiction done

0:22:21 > 0:22:24on the other side of the Atlantic in the '60s, like Star Trek.

0:22:24 > 0:22:26American science fiction,

0:22:26 > 0:22:29which was sort of invented at the period

0:22:29 > 0:22:32where America was attaining world hegemony as a superpower,

0:22:32 > 0:22:37saw the future as wonderful because they saw the future as being great.

0:22:37 > 0:22:40British science fiction has been written by a culture

0:22:40 > 0:22:43that knows it used to have an empire and doesn't any more.

0:22:46 > 0:22:49Like Quatermass, Andromeda was hugely popular.

0:22:49 > 0:22:52It got viewing figures of 12 million.

0:22:52 > 0:22:56It struck a chord - that the ordinary British public were fearful of the future

0:22:56 > 0:22:58and afraid of the progress of science.

0:22:58 > 0:23:02In our culture, of course, we have a fear of science.

0:23:02 > 0:23:06On the whole, we don't understand it and what we don't understand we don't much like.

0:23:06 > 0:23:10But we do like scaring ourselves silly.

0:23:11 > 0:23:13Do I smell nasty?

0:23:15 > 0:23:18You'll have to find that out for yourself, won't you?

0:23:20 > 0:23:25When you look at the representations of science, scientists in fiction,

0:23:25 > 0:23:28all the way back to Frankenstein,

0:23:28 > 0:23:32apart from anything else, fiction is created by artists, and naturally

0:23:32 > 0:23:36they look upon scientists with a certain amount of suspicion.

0:23:37 > 0:23:39Plus, in the 20th century,

0:23:39 > 0:23:42we'd seen our fair share of scary ideas and scary scientists,

0:23:42 > 0:23:44from the atom bomb

0:23:44 > 0:23:47to the experiments carried out by Nazi scientists.

0:23:47 > 0:23:48Add to this the public image

0:23:48 > 0:23:51of wild-eyed, crazy-haired boffins like Einstein,

0:23:51 > 0:23:56it's hardly surprising that British audiences were worried about what scientists got up.

0:23:58 > 0:24:03So if you can't find a scientist you can trust on Earth, who you going to call?

0:24:04 > 0:24:07In 1963, the BBC looked to the planet Gallifrey

0:24:07 > 0:24:13and found an alien scientist who might be able to save the image of scientists.

0:24:13 > 0:24:15Have you ever thought what it's like

0:24:15 > 0:24:18to be wanderers in the fourth dimension? Have you?

0:24:18 > 0:24:20I remember the first Dr Who.

0:24:20 > 0:24:24'The moment I saw that police box land in that junkyard

0:24:24 > 0:24:28'and William Hartnell get out and bumble away,

0:24:28 > 0:24:31'I was absolutely, completely hooked.'

0:24:31 > 0:24:33I know this is absurd, but...

0:24:33 > 0:24:38The series was created with the full intention of bringing science to family drama,

0:24:38 > 0:24:42fulfilling the old BBC code - entertain, inform, educate...

0:24:42 > 0:24:44exterminate.

0:24:44 > 0:24:50'The idea was, you'd have science-based programmes which illustrated physics or whatever.'

0:24:50 > 0:24:52But what the kids liked, what the audience liked,

0:24:52 > 0:24:57and I speak as one of the kids who actually watched this show when it first went out,

0:24:57 > 0:25:00what we liked were the monsters or the weird stuff

0:25:00 > 0:25:05or the things like bigger on the inside than the outside, the concepts there.

0:25:05 > 0:25:09I hated at school the idea of science. Science was boring.

0:25:09 > 0:25:11But this thing on the telly

0:25:11 > 0:25:16which was all about light bending and time only being pretend,

0:25:16 > 0:25:19that was wonderful. I wanted to be right at the heart of that.

0:25:21 > 0:25:27The series brought, er... quantum mechanics to a family audience.

0:25:27 > 0:25:28Science was key.

0:25:28 > 0:25:31The Doctor's good science versus evil alien bad science.

0:25:31 > 0:25:37Like the Daleks, bent on universal domination through science.

0:25:37 > 0:25:42You poor pathetic creatures, don't you realise before you attempt to conquer the Earth

0:25:42 > 0:25:47you will have to destroy all living matter?

0:25:47 > 0:25:48Take them, take them.

0:25:52 > 0:25:56We are the masters of Earth.

0:25:56 > 0:25:59William Hartnell plays Dr Who as the eccentric scientist.

0:25:59 > 0:26:04The idea of the eccentric scientist has been around since the 19th century,

0:26:04 > 0:26:08but perhaps it was a boffin closer to the BBC studio that inspired the writers.

0:26:08 > 0:26:14Well, of course, space travel lies in the future yet but I think the explorers may have some surprises.

0:26:14 > 0:26:19The series marked another unique difference between US and British science fiction.

0:26:19 > 0:26:23I think in Britain, we're not afraid to make a scientist a hero.

0:26:23 > 0:26:26I think in America, the really clever guy will be the number two

0:26:26 > 0:26:28or the assistant, someone like Mr Spock

0:26:28 > 0:26:31who helps out, but he's not the hero. He's not Captain Kirk.

0:26:31 > 0:26:36Captain Kirk's off getting the girl and doing all the fighting and being the leader.

0:26:36 > 0:26:39We've got the characters like the Doctor, or Quatermass,

0:26:39 > 0:26:42who are always the cleverest men in the room, who sort it out,

0:26:42 > 0:26:45but they do it by using their brain rather than their fists.

0:26:45 > 0:26:49They dare to tamper with the forces of creation?

0:26:49 > 0:26:51Yes, they dare.

0:26:51 > 0:26:53And we have got to dare to stop them.

0:26:53 > 0:26:59Science has given the nation the longest running sci-fi series ever.

0:26:59 > 0:27:00Loved by everyone.

0:27:00 > 0:27:03Well, almost everyone.

0:27:03 > 0:27:06This is going to get me into trouble with the BBC again

0:27:06 > 0:27:09because I'm probably the only person who doesn't get Doctor Who.

0:27:09 > 0:27:11I'm really sorry. I just don't get it.

0:27:11 > 0:27:13I've never watched an episode.

0:27:13 > 0:27:14Is that really bad?

0:27:14 > 0:27:17Yes, it is. Your P45 is in the post.

0:27:19 > 0:27:23While the Dr Who creatives were busy scaring up to 15 million viewers a week,

0:27:23 > 0:27:25ten million hiding behind the sofa,

0:27:25 > 0:27:30real science programmes were still in need of a facelift.

0:27:30 > 0:27:31..But there are 20 amino acids.

0:27:31 > 0:27:33It simply isn't enough.

0:27:35 > 0:27:40So in 1964, the science producers brought out Horizon,

0:27:40 > 0:27:42a series of science documentaries,

0:27:42 > 0:27:45each one focusing on a different science topic.

0:27:45 > 0:27:48Its aim was to make science cool,

0:27:48 > 0:27:49as the programme stated itself.

0:27:49 > 0:27:52'Horizon aims to present science

0:27:52 > 0:27:56'as an essential part of our 20th century culture.

0:27:56 > 0:27:59'A continuing growth of thought that cannot be sub-divided.

0:27:59 > 0:28:03It was started on the trendy new channel, BBC2,

0:28:03 > 0:28:06by David Attenborough, when he used to have a desk-job.

0:28:06 > 0:28:10The fashion in the mid '60s was for magazine programmes.

0:28:10 > 0:28:15But doing news about science required you to know the basics before you got to the news

0:28:15 > 0:28:19and it's difficult to do that in a seven-minute item, for example.

0:28:19 > 0:28:23So doing a 50-minute programme about one particular subject

0:28:23 > 0:28:26gave you a chance to do it in a more satisfying way.

0:28:28 > 0:28:32It did without a regular presenter to focus more on the science.

0:28:32 > 0:28:34Scientists got a voice.

0:28:34 > 0:28:35Horizon, I think,

0:28:35 > 0:28:37was at one time,

0:28:37 > 0:28:41the sort of landmark keystone of science on television

0:28:41 > 0:28:47and was an example held around the world for the best of what factual television should be about.

0:28:47 > 0:28:50Horizon was avidly watched by the scientific community,

0:28:50 > 0:28:53subject of discussion in the coffee room, in the lab.

0:28:53 > 0:28:54On Wednesdays and Thursdays

0:28:54 > 0:28:57it would always be discussed. Very influential.

0:28:59 > 0:29:02This was hip science, social, cultural.

0:29:02 > 0:29:05The very first Horizon featured Buckminster Fuller,

0:29:05 > 0:29:08the inspiration for the Eden Project.

0:29:08 > 0:29:12These are what we call geodesic ray domes

0:29:12 > 0:29:17and they are designed to protect the very powerful and important apparatus

0:29:17 > 0:29:20from the great storms of nature.

0:29:20 > 0:29:24I just remember the range of topics that they chose.

0:29:24 > 0:29:26One week it would be maths, the next, biology,

0:29:26 > 0:29:29and then something closer to my heart, astronomy.

0:29:29 > 0:29:32The dimension of the programme was take a difficult issue,

0:29:32 > 0:29:34whether it's popular or not

0:29:34 > 0:29:36and make it interesting.

0:29:36 > 0:29:40The only thing we can sure about the future is that it will be fantastic.

0:29:42 > 0:29:46The real concern was, is it possible to express the idea? Horizon,

0:29:46 > 0:29:49if you like, looked across the field of science and said,

0:29:49 > 0:29:52"What are the things that are the most interesting

0:29:52 > 0:29:54"in the world of science at that time?"

0:29:54 > 0:29:58Whether they were, if you like, generally popular,

0:29:58 > 0:29:59or in any way pictorial,

0:29:59 > 0:30:05or easy to tell, that wasn't the issue. "Is this important in the world of science?"

0:30:05 > 0:30:10TV science producers had at last found a platform for showing hard science at the cutting edge.

0:30:10 > 0:30:13COMMENTATOR: What kind of industry employs 3,000 workers

0:30:13 > 0:30:15but apparently produces nothing?

0:30:15 > 0:30:18The work - high-energy physics.

0:30:18 > 0:30:24The name - European Organisation for Nuclear Research, or CERN for short.

0:30:26 > 0:30:29After nearly 50 years, Horizon is still on the air.

0:30:29 > 0:30:32It's covered everything from, well, cats on acid

0:30:32 > 0:30:35to black holes with Stephen Hawking.

0:30:35 > 0:30:39Many believe it's continued success is down to being at the forefront

0:30:39 > 0:30:44of every key scientific revolution that's captivated and worried the public over the decades.

0:30:44 > 0:30:49Nuclear science and space exploration in the '60s...

0:30:49 > 0:30:53computing and molecular biology in the '70s and '80s...

0:30:54 > 0:30:56..and environmental concerns

0:30:56 > 0:30:58in the '90s and noughties.

0:30:58 > 0:31:03It's been on the frontline of science, and so has sometimes had its critics.

0:31:03 > 0:31:09Horizon gets criticised for being elitist, I think, because the topics they choose are often right

0:31:09 > 0:31:14from the cutting edge of science, and they're not things that you know you're going to be interested in.

0:31:14 > 0:31:18If somebody said to you, "Do you want to hear about carbon in space?"

0:31:18 > 0:31:20The odds are that the answer is no.

0:31:20 > 0:31:23But what they were actually telling was stories.

0:31:23 > 0:31:26The successful Horizon programmes are seen as the ones

0:31:26 > 0:31:29that bring science alive by humanizing the scientist.

0:31:29 > 0:31:31One programme that sticks in my head

0:31:31 > 0:31:33was about Fermat's Last Theorem,

0:31:33 > 0:31:36which is this mathematical proof that for a couple of centuries

0:31:36 > 0:31:40mathematicians struggled to find out whether the theorem was true or not

0:31:40 > 0:31:44and how on earth Fermat proved it, and eventually somebody did.

0:31:44 > 0:31:49This tiny note is the world's hardest mathematical problem.

0:31:49 > 0:31:53It's been unsolved for centuries, yet it begins with an equation so simple

0:31:53 > 0:31:55that children know it off by heart.

0:31:55 > 0:31:58I give my students the choice of three Horizons - Mega-Tsunami,

0:31:58 > 0:32:01Supervolcano and Fermat's Last Theorum,

0:32:01 > 0:32:05a story of a branch of mathematics only a handful of people understand,

0:32:05 > 0:32:07and they all, of course, vote for one of the first two.

0:32:07 > 0:32:12And then I show them the pre-title, the first few minutes of Fermat's Last Theorum

0:32:12 > 0:32:14and most of them want to watch it.

0:32:14 > 0:32:17What happens is that the camera goes into this office and reveals

0:32:17 > 0:32:20this mathematician working with paper everywhere,

0:32:20 > 0:32:24and he's trying to explain this great discovery he's made, and he starts to cry.

0:32:24 > 0:32:27The most important moment of my working life.

0:32:40 > 0:32:42Nothing I ever do again will...

0:32:42 > 0:32:44I'm sorry.

0:32:44 > 0:32:45No-one who watched the programme

0:32:45 > 0:32:48would have had any understanding of the solution,

0:32:48 > 0:32:51but it was this story of a man trying to prove something,

0:32:51 > 0:32:54and you came away with this sense of mathematics as an art form.

0:32:54 > 0:32:57I think one of the most wonderful science programmes ever on TV

0:32:57 > 0:33:00was Chris Sykes' interview with Richard Feynman.

0:33:00 > 0:33:04I remember watching that as a student and just being blown away by it.

0:33:04 > 0:33:07But I don't have to know an answer.

0:33:07 > 0:33:11I don't feel frightened by not knowing things,

0:33:11 > 0:33:15by being lost in a mysterious universe without having any purpose,

0:33:15 > 0:33:19which is the way it really is, as far as I can tell, possibly. It doesn't frighten me.

0:33:19 > 0:33:24'The most courageous programme you could imagine. They took professor Richard Feynman,'

0:33:24 > 0:33:27Nobel laureate, one of the greatest physicists

0:33:27 > 0:33:31of the 20th century, and they just stuck him on a chair.

0:33:31 > 0:33:34And it just goes on like that for a whole hour - one talking head.

0:33:34 > 0:33:38Looking at a bird, he says, "Do you know what that is?

0:33:38 > 0:33:40"It's a brown-throated thrush.

0:33:40 > 0:33:43"But in Portuguese, it's a Bom da Peida,

0:33:43 > 0:33:46"in Italian a Chutto Lapittida."

0:33:46 > 0:33:51He says, "In Chinese, it's a Chung long-tah, in Japanese, a Katano Tekeda, et cetera.

0:33:51 > 0:33:55"You know in all the languages you want to know what the name of that bird is,

0:33:55 > 0:34:00"and when you've finished with all that, you'll know absolutely nothing whatever about the bird.

0:34:00 > 0:34:04"You only know about humans in different places and what they call the bird.

0:34:04 > 0:34:07"Let's look at the bird and what it's doing."

0:34:07 > 0:34:09There is always something fantastic

0:34:09 > 0:34:14about hearing a real expert explain what they know about,

0:34:14 > 0:34:20if they really know about it, and if they are articulate and clear in their explanations.

0:34:20 > 0:34:23It's no good having a sort of wild-eyed person just blather.

0:34:26 > 0:34:31The same year Horizon started, TV went looking for another type of science programme,

0:34:31 > 0:34:34born out of Britain's early '60s feeling of hope

0:34:34 > 0:34:36that technological advancement was the answer.

0:34:36 > 0:34:39APPLAUSE The Britain that is going to be forged

0:34:39 > 0:34:42in the white heat of this revolution.

0:34:42 > 0:34:44'This is the early '60s. This is the Wilson era.

0:34:44 > 0:34:48'The era of the white heat of a technological revolution'

0:34:48 > 0:34:50which is going to transform Britain.

0:34:50 > 0:34:51That's the promise.

0:34:51 > 0:34:56So they want to make an entertaining regular news programme about science.

0:34:56 > 0:34:59That programme is Tomorrow's World.

0:35:07 > 0:35:12Tomorrow's World began in 1965, a live, fun science and technology programme

0:35:12 > 0:35:15showcasing the latest gadgets from the future.

0:35:19 > 0:35:21Presenting it, that safe pair of hands with live TV,

0:35:21 > 0:35:26ex-Spitfire pilot Raymond Baxter and his clever sidekick James Burke.

0:35:27 > 0:35:29Da-da-dit, da-da-da,

0:35:29 > 0:35:31da-da-da, da-dit-dit.

0:35:31 > 0:35:33Diddy-da-da-da-di,

0:35:33 > 0:35:35da-da-di?

0:35:35 > 0:35:37HE CHUCKLES

0:35:37 > 0:35:39Which is quite enough of dat.

0:35:39 > 0:35:40'Raymond Baxter.'

0:35:40 > 0:35:44He was like Sherlock Holmes, only of today.

0:35:44 > 0:35:48What we were trying to say at the beginning of the programme

0:35:48 > 0:35:51was "good evening" in Morse and get this machine to print it out.

0:35:51 > 0:35:53'Somebody once described him'

0:35:53 > 0:35:56when he walks across the floor as a formation dancer

0:35:56 > 0:35:59who doesn't know yet that he's lost the rest of the team.

0:35:59 > 0:36:00Dit-dit-da-da-dit.

0:36:00 > 0:36:02PHONE RINGS

0:36:04 > 0:36:06- Hello. Who dat?- Hello?

0:36:07 > 0:36:11You got the right number, cos you got James burke.

0:36:11 > 0:36:13- Ring him off.- Dit-dit-da-dit-dit.

0:36:13 > 0:36:16This is in fact the first prototype

0:36:16 > 0:36:21and it goes on show for the first time next week at the Physics Exhibition at Alexandra Palace.

0:36:21 > 0:36:26I don't think he wrote his scripts, but all he did was glance at what was needed, throw it away

0:36:26 > 0:36:29and then ad-lib the whole thing,

0:36:29 > 0:36:33but always the detail was there, always the essentials were there.

0:36:33 > 0:36:37A deadly weapon at a much longer range than this.

0:36:37 > 0:36:40At this range, totally terrifying.

0:36:40 > 0:36:42In your own time, fire, Jim.

0:36:43 > 0:36:45That made you jump a bit.

0:36:46 > 0:36:49Phew, well, even from here, that was frightening!

0:36:49 > 0:36:53I was ten when Tomorrow's World started

0:36:53 > 0:36:54and I loved it.

0:36:54 > 0:36:58I loved the technology. Everything seemed so exciting.

0:36:58 > 0:37:04I remember watching a schoolboy having access to a computer and thinking,

0:37:04 > 0:37:08"Gosh, we haven't got anything like that at Evington Hall Convent."

0:37:08 > 0:37:12Like Horizon, Tomorrow's World remained popular throughout the '60s and beyond,

0:37:12 > 0:37:15getting viewing figures of ten million plus every week.

0:37:15 > 0:37:20It was pure celebration of science, as exemplified in the Tomorrow's World song

0:37:20 > 0:37:23that played out the series in 1966.

0:37:24 > 0:37:28With the accelerating pace of technological advance,

0:37:28 > 0:37:31it's hard for a girl to keep up to date.

0:37:31 > 0:37:33In tomorrow's world,

0:37:33 > 0:37:37there a chance that technology will just have to wait.

0:37:37 > 0:37:39JAZZ MUSIC PLAYS

0:37:39 > 0:37:43# Tomorrow's world is coming

0:37:43 > 0:37:47# Whether we like it or not... #

0:37:47 > 0:37:49Tomorrow's World worked because it focused,

0:37:49 > 0:37:55not so much on hard science, but on where science met technology.

0:37:55 > 0:38:00And because of that it attracted an audience that wasn't initially interested, perhaps, in science,

0:38:00 > 0:38:04but was interested in the kinds of things that were happening.

0:38:04 > 0:38:08It was concerned with filming things that moved as opposed to stood still.

0:38:08 > 0:38:13It was more concerned with things that changed our lives as opposed to pure scientific theories.

0:38:13 > 0:38:18That doesn't mean it didn't touch pure scientific theories, but it was focused on hardware.

0:38:18 > 0:38:23There comes a time in every demonstration when the talking has to stop and only actions will do.

0:38:23 > 0:38:28It was a bunch of guys really enthusiastic about the science they were playing with

0:38:28 > 0:38:31and really trying to make that interesting to a wider audience.

0:38:31 > 0:38:36'There was a real competition for doing interesting stories. I got a reputation

0:38:36 > 0:38:40'for doing all the kind of edgy stories that involved the kind of frisson of danger.

0:38:40 > 0:38:44'I did stories like falling off a crane in the London Docks

0:38:44 > 0:38:47'to demonstrate that this safety harness really worked.'

0:38:47 > 0:38:50..And fall! Ugh.

0:38:50 > 0:38:51Well, it works, doesn't it?

0:38:51 > 0:38:55And a rather novel view of the London skyline.

0:38:57 > 0:39:00It certainly inspired me and my decision to continue

0:39:00 > 0:39:03with science after school. I remember religiously watching it.

0:39:03 > 0:39:06It was Tomorrow's World and Top Of The Pops.

0:39:06 > 0:39:09There was that hour of Tomorrow's World and Top Of The Pops,

0:39:09 > 0:39:13- and they seemed to go together.- Two ounces of explosive, that's all?

0:39:13 > 0:39:15- Correct.- Good gracious.

0:39:15 > 0:39:16'It also, I think,'

0:39:16 > 0:39:17was crucially important

0:39:17 > 0:39:21that in its early days, the first 10 or 15 years, it was live.

0:39:21 > 0:39:24Just look at that. Can you get me that piece...?

0:39:24 > 0:39:27And because it was still done live right up until the 1990s,

0:39:27 > 0:39:30whilst most other TV programmes were pre-recorded,

0:39:30 > 0:39:36Tomorrow's World became infamous for the occasional failure of its studio demos.

0:39:36 > 0:39:40Live Tomorrow's World was fabulous, because what you got was robots

0:39:40 > 0:39:43'which did what they were absolutely not expected to do.'

0:39:43 > 0:39:45Nothing appears to be happening.

0:39:45 > 0:39:49Let me introduce first of all... Oh, wait a minute. Oh, God.

0:39:49 > 0:39:51And the opponent's back at it...

0:39:51 > 0:39:54For example, if a vehicle were a fork-lift truck

0:39:54 > 0:39:55it could perform stacking...

0:39:55 > 0:39:57Ah, he blew it at the 11th hour.

0:39:57 > 0:40:01Now, Bill, of course, thinks he's picked up the light bulb.

0:40:01 > 0:40:04He'll now go to the next bit of the proceedings,

0:40:04 > 0:40:06which is to deliver it to me.

0:40:06 > 0:40:10All right, here I am, now he delivers the non-existent light bulb

0:40:10 > 0:40:12at my feet. Well, he blew that one.

0:40:12 > 0:40:16You're going to get another chance now, Sid, so do it right.

0:40:16 > 0:40:20And every single voice recognition system I can remember failed,

0:40:20 > 0:40:22because we rehearsed it in the studio,

0:40:22 > 0:40:25and then live on air the presenters' voices would tighten,

0:40:25 > 0:40:27would go up an octave, and it would never work.

0:40:27 > 0:40:29I feel like breaking it with an axe.

0:40:29 > 0:40:32There was nothing worse than standing in the studio

0:40:32 > 0:40:34with the Tomorrow's World music playing,

0:40:34 > 0:40:36knowing that you were about to do a demonstration

0:40:36 > 0:40:40that was not going to work. And, you would feel physically sick,

0:40:40 > 0:40:41absolutely, physically sick.

0:40:41 > 0:40:44I don't think it's going to do anything because

0:40:44 > 0:40:46it was hit by a camera just a few minutes ago,

0:40:46 > 0:40:48so it's now right up the creek.

0:40:48 > 0:40:50But that was the moment that people really watched it

0:40:50 > 0:40:53and loved it, because it was so honest.

0:40:53 > 0:40:56It would have been very easy to pre-record the difficult bit,

0:40:56 > 0:40:58the tricky bit, but we didn't.

0:40:58 > 0:40:59Here goes.

0:41:01 > 0:41:02BANG

0:41:02 > 0:41:04God! Nobody told me it would do that!

0:41:06 > 0:41:09In the show's first years the presenters were all men

0:41:09 > 0:41:11and not a science degree between them.

0:41:15 > 0:41:18Then, in 1974, they let a woman get her hands on their gadgets.

0:41:18 > 0:41:21Not only that, she was a scientist.

0:41:21 > 0:41:24Judith Hann was, with her fabulous hair,

0:41:24 > 0:41:26she was so part of my childhood.

0:41:26 > 0:41:29It's a personal radio which soaks up the sun while I do.

0:41:33 > 0:41:36To the casual viewer, it might have seemed she always got

0:41:36 > 0:41:38the stories that no-one else wanted.

0:41:38 > 0:41:40Like this... Bark!

0:41:40 > 0:41:42While the boys were off testing cars or planes,

0:41:42 > 0:41:45Judith was stuck in the London studio

0:41:45 > 0:41:49doing yet another story on another medical breakthrough.

0:41:49 > 0:41:53Well, the reason is this new drug called Cyclosporin A.

0:41:55 > 0:41:59This began to change with the arrival of women producers and Maggie Philbin.

0:41:59 > 0:42:02Then Judith and Maggie were given all the blokey jobs.

0:42:02 > 0:42:04See what they did there?

0:42:04 > 0:42:05When I joined Tomorrow's World,

0:42:05 > 0:42:07obviously Judith Hann was already there

0:42:07 > 0:42:12and there were some terrific women producers and researchers.

0:42:12 > 0:42:14But that hadn't always been the case.

0:42:14 > 0:42:20They were very aware of the sexist past of Tomorrow's World,

0:42:20 > 0:42:23and they were adamant that Judith and myself would get nowhere near

0:42:23 > 0:42:26anything that had anything to do with kitchens.

0:42:26 > 0:42:28Here we go.

0:42:28 > 0:42:30Come on, ride. Go on, ride. There you go.

0:42:30 > 0:42:33Ride. There you go, ride! Go on, go on! You're going to make it!

0:42:33 > 0:42:37And so, in an almost perverse way, Judith and I found ourselves doing

0:42:37 > 0:42:41some very, very dangerous - there's no other word for it - items.

0:42:41 > 0:42:44And now you hang on for dear life.

0:42:44 > 0:42:47There might be a story about soil compaction around a Great Oak in

0:42:47 > 0:42:51Sherwood forest, and the challenge there was how do you make this live?

0:42:51 > 0:42:54Is what remains of Sherwood Forest,

0:42:54 > 0:42:58the stamping ground of Britain's most loved outlaw - Robin Hood.

0:42:58 > 0:43:02This was done live, and it's by far the most dangerous thing

0:43:02 > 0:43:03I have ever done in my life.

0:43:03 > 0:43:07If it involved jumping out of a helicopter and being hurled into

0:43:07 > 0:43:10the North Sea, then it would have mine or Judith's name on it.

0:43:12 > 0:43:15Over it's near 40 years on the box, its entertaining presenters

0:43:15 > 0:43:19offered the British public sensational visions of the future,

0:43:19 > 0:43:23from Concorde's first flight, the first personal jet-pack,

0:43:23 > 0:43:27laser-gun, compact disk, and even the future of German Electronica.

0:43:27 > 0:43:29# Fun, fun, fun, autobahn...

0:43:30 > 0:43:33Inventions that made us go 'gee-whiz', but some should

0:43:33 > 0:43:36have, perhaps, never made it beyond the drawing board.

0:43:36 > 0:43:40I don't remember a single thing from Tomorrow's World.

0:43:40 > 0:43:44All I know is it showed me what the future would be.

0:43:44 > 0:43:47Every single thing on it was actually going to be

0:43:47 > 0:43:50how my world would be in ten years time.

0:43:50 > 0:43:53And it was all complete bollocks.

0:43:55 > 0:43:58But Tomorrow World's gee-whiz approach to science

0:43:58 > 0:44:00has divided the scientific community.

0:44:02 > 0:44:04I don't really agree with whiz bang science,

0:44:04 > 0:44:07because I don't find whiz bang science very entertaining.

0:44:07 > 0:44:09Because it's too whizzy and bangy.

0:44:09 > 0:44:11I think there's a place for gee-whiz science.

0:44:11 > 0:44:14I think science television should be entertaining.

0:44:14 > 0:44:15Horses for courses, you know.

0:44:15 > 0:44:19Some people will complain about the background music on a documentary.

0:44:19 > 0:44:21I hate background music.

0:44:21 > 0:44:25# Uneconomic

0:44:25 > 0:44:28# Tomorrow's World... #

0:44:31 > 0:44:36Whilst factual programmes celebrated science, drama TV tackled one of

0:44:36 > 0:44:39the big techno-fears of the 60s with The War Game.

0:44:39 > 0:44:42If you were expecting some fun quiz show, you'd be very disappointed.

0:44:42 > 0:44:45It's a shocking 'what if' drama-documentary of

0:44:45 > 0:44:49nuclear science gone wrong when there's a nuclear attack on Britain.

0:44:49 > 0:44:51It was made for the 20th anniversary

0:44:51 > 0:44:54of the dropping of the atom bomb on Hiroshima.

0:44:54 > 0:44:57Move, hurry up, inside the house! Move, come on, come on!

0:45:00 > 0:45:03The voice-over commentary and dramatic reconstructions were

0:45:03 > 0:45:06based on real facts and evidence given by scientists

0:45:06 > 0:45:08about what happens in a nuclear attack.

0:45:08 > 0:45:12'At this distance, the heat wave is sufficient to cause

0:45:12 > 0:45:16'melting of the upturned eyeball, third degree burning of the skin

0:45:16 > 0:45:17'and ignition of furniture.'

0:45:17 > 0:45:19SCREAMING

0:45:19 > 0:45:22It's direct and unemotional commentary plays against bleak

0:45:22 > 0:45:26images of Britons surviving - or not - nuclear devastation,

0:45:26 > 0:45:27with shocking effect.

0:45:27 > 0:45:30It will be followed

0:45:30 > 0:45:33by death, within three minutes.

0:45:38 > 0:45:43The War Game was never broadcast in 1965. It wasn't shown until 1985.

0:45:43 > 0:45:48This time not due to tape wiping or some terrible filing error, but TV

0:45:48 > 0:45:52bosses refused to air it, deeming this science fiction too realistic.

0:45:54 > 0:45:59'On almost the entire subject of thermonuclear weapons,

0:45:59 > 0:46:03'there is now practically a total silence in the press,

0:46:03 > 0:46:07'in official publications and on television.'

0:46:07 > 0:46:10It was a frightening vision of how science can be misused.

0:46:10 > 0:46:14Not the kind of science that will save us in Tomorrow's World.

0:46:14 > 0:46:17Science ends with the bomb, doesn't it?

0:46:17 > 0:46:20After the bomb there's no science any more,

0:46:20 > 0:46:21there's no nothing any more.

0:46:21 > 0:46:23That's the message of things like The War Game.

0:46:23 > 0:46:28Fortunately, the world didn't end in '65, so the coming generations

0:46:28 > 0:46:31could still find salvation in real science programmes.

0:46:31 > 0:46:36In 1966, The Royal Institute Christmas Lectures started on the box.

0:46:37 > 0:46:40'The Royal Institution Christmas Lectures.'

0:46:40 > 0:46:43They'd been going for nearly 150 years,

0:46:43 > 0:46:46so they'd just about got it right when TV got in on the act.

0:46:50 > 0:46:52Well, let us begin with an experiment.

0:46:52 > 0:46:55Will you uncover the apparatus, please?

0:46:55 > 0:46:56It was very demanding.

0:46:56 > 0:47:01I gave a series myself in the lectures on animal behaviour,

0:47:01 > 0:47:04and that was a nightmare.

0:47:04 > 0:47:06The thing that scared you silly

0:47:06 > 0:47:08was that it had to be live.

0:47:08 > 0:47:11You got this huge bank of faces, eager faces around you,

0:47:11 > 0:47:14and you start, you don't say, "My Lords, ladies and gentlemen",

0:47:14 > 0:47:16or, "how lovely it is to be here,"

0:47:16 > 0:47:19You say, "A equals whatever," you know,

0:47:19 > 0:47:22or, "animals react to a noise," or something.

0:47:22 > 0:47:26I've got a microphone inside his cage.

0:47:26 > 0:47:29So, we'll see if he actually does anything.

0:47:34 > 0:47:36Nothing.

0:47:36 > 0:47:39RATTLING

0:47:39 > 0:47:40Yes.

0:47:40 > 0:47:45And you had to go on, and there's a clock immediately facing you.

0:47:45 > 0:47:48A bell rang at 60 minutes, and there you stop.

0:47:48 > 0:47:51So, this was a nightmare for the lecturer.

0:47:51 > 0:47:55He rattles, and that's a language.

0:47:55 > 0:47:58Let's take him away before he gets too bad tempered.

0:47:58 > 0:47:59Thank you, Mr Coats.

0:47:59 > 0:48:03I love the Royal Institution Christmas lectures, just this

0:48:03 > 0:48:06incredible, almost unique, I think, anywhere in the world,

0:48:06 > 0:48:09platform for somebody to bring people into the heart of science.

0:48:09 > 0:48:12But if you look at when the Royal Institution lectures work,

0:48:12 > 0:48:14it's when they're about experiment,

0:48:14 > 0:48:17it's when they're about demonstrating in a laboratory

0:48:17 > 0:48:21like this, perhaps, to an audience sitting there and at home

0:48:21 > 0:48:24what it is that tells you things about the world.

0:48:24 > 0:48:27The lectures are still a TV event after 44 years.

0:48:27 > 0:48:31Aimed primarily at young people, they've covered ideas such as

0:48:31 > 0:48:34quantum mechanics and evolution with Richard Dawkins.

0:48:34 > 0:48:37This is a stick insect.

0:48:37 > 0:48:40It may look fairly conspicuous on my hand,

0:48:40 > 0:48:43although I've made an effort to make it feel at home with my shirt.

0:48:43 > 0:48:47I mean, it's one thing doing it in front of an audience just in a

0:48:47 > 0:48:51theatre, but doing in front of millions is quite demanding, I can tell you.

0:48:51 > 0:48:54I've never been so frightened about doing a programme in my life, really.

0:49:01 > 0:49:03How! How!

0:49:03 > 0:49:05How can you tip a bucket of water upside down

0:49:05 > 0:49:07without the water tipping out of it?

0:49:07 > 0:49:09Consider the impossibility of this 'How'.

0:49:09 > 0:49:13We have a bucket here, and it is virtually full of water.

0:49:13 > 0:49:16The same year that the RI lectures started, another regular kids TV

0:49:16 > 0:49:22science programme came along - How?, mixing science with, er...

0:49:22 > 0:49:23native American Navajo.

0:49:23 > 0:49:25- How!- How!

0:49:25 > 0:49:29What I liked about that programme was it was so grounded.

0:49:29 > 0:49:33It would, it would take an example from, you know, your real life,

0:49:33 > 0:49:37and it would just ask a question about it, you know.

0:49:37 > 0:49:41How does an aeroplane fly?

0:49:41 > 0:49:45It felt very accessible, and it also made science very real.

0:49:45 > 0:49:46How!

0:49:54 > 0:49:58As TV non-fiction continued to explore science as a force for good

0:49:58 > 0:50:01in the 60s, that started to change in the 70s.

0:50:01 > 0:50:03The oil crisis gripped world affairs.

0:50:03 > 0:50:07Britain went dark with strikes, and then a three day week.

0:50:07 > 0:50:11Science, too, was under fire from the press and the media.

0:50:11 > 0:50:14Popular TV news coverage of science changed from reverential

0:50:14 > 0:50:18in the 50s to a more questioning approach in the 70s.

0:50:18 > 0:50:23Can one little aerosol affect what happens 10 or 20 miles up in the sky?

0:50:23 > 0:50:26Some scientists think it can.

0:50:26 > 0:50:31So, in a 'misery' science face-off, science fiction went darker.

0:50:31 > 0:50:34The 70s, obviously, in Britain were a very traumatic time,

0:50:34 > 0:50:39and it's reflected in our TV science fiction at the time, which is

0:50:39 > 0:50:43almost uniformly grim and down beat and miserabilist,

0:50:43 > 0:50:45which may be why I kind of like it.

0:50:45 > 0:50:49The 1970s saw the start of Doomwatch.

0:50:49 > 0:50:51Doomwatch is a very down show.

0:50:51 > 0:50:54It's all about everything going to hell.

0:50:56 > 0:50:59With a very pessimistic view of science,

0:50:59 > 0:51:01it followed an agency set up to preserve the world

0:51:01 > 0:51:04from the dangers of unprincipled scientific research.

0:51:04 > 0:51:06Surely they won't do a test until they can

0:51:06 > 0:51:08kill the stuff off afterwards.

0:51:08 > 0:51:10Put a scientist under political pressure

0:51:10 > 0:51:13and he'll do anything you like. He'll even justify it. I know.

0:51:13 > 0:51:17The programme was created by real scientist, Kit Pedler.

0:51:17 > 0:51:18I think the public now is

0:51:18 > 0:51:22inaccurately and incompletely informed.

0:51:23 > 0:51:26Pedler had been the unofficial scientific adviser

0:51:26 > 0:51:27on Dr Who in the 60s.

0:51:27 > 0:51:31This was the first series to frequently focus on environmental issues.

0:51:31 > 0:51:35You can tell what we, as a society, were worried about,

0:51:35 > 0:51:42you know, whether it be, um, you know, pandemics or over population

0:51:42 > 0:51:45or, you know, increasing de-humanisation of people

0:51:45 > 0:51:49through over reliance on science and technology.

0:51:49 > 0:51:51The series scared us with embryo research,

0:51:51 > 0:51:53toxic waste and animal exploitation,

0:51:53 > 0:51:56plus stuff that look borrowed from B-movie horrors,

0:51:56 > 0:51:59such as genetically engineered killer rats.

0:51:59 > 0:52:01Agh!

0:52:03 > 0:52:08A lot livelier than GM tomatoes, and a plastic-eating virus

0:52:08 > 0:52:10that caused planes to fall out of the sky.

0:52:10 > 0:52:15We maybe slightly mis-remember it as a show about bad science,

0:52:15 > 0:52:18about how science was going to do terrible, terrible things.

0:52:18 > 0:52:23If you look at it episode by episode, usually the problem

0:52:23 > 0:52:27isn't the science - the heroes are scientists, you know,

0:52:27 > 0:52:30but it's usually irresponsible science.

0:52:30 > 0:52:33Oh, budget airlines.

0:52:33 > 0:52:37Somewhere over the Atlantic, one of my staff is flying back with a

0:52:37 > 0:52:40piece of that crashed aircraft, so unless action is taken now.

0:52:40 > 0:52:42That plane is going to go down.

0:52:42 > 0:52:43Ah, too late.

0:52:48 > 0:52:51In 1971, more science crash-landed into the

0:52:51 > 0:52:54nation's living rooms when The Open University

0:52:54 > 0:52:58started broadcasting to help Britons get more cleverer.

0:52:58 > 0:53:01What I'm going to do now is to try and shoot the pellet

0:53:01 > 0:53:03into the tube thing on top of the glider,

0:53:03 > 0:53:05which is there only to catch the pellets

0:53:05 > 0:53:08so it doesn't go flying around the studio, slaughtering

0:53:08 > 0:53:09everybody and sundry.

0:53:09 > 0:53:12I was involved because I was controller of BBC Two.

0:53:12 > 0:53:16One of the reasons that the BBC was given that third network,

0:53:16 > 0:53:19as it was then, was that it would find a place for

0:53:19 > 0:53:23the Open University programmes, and the Open University was a

0:53:23 > 0:53:26very solid plank in the Labour Party's policy.

0:53:26 > 0:53:30The P waves vibrate the Earth up and down, vibrate the surface of

0:53:30 > 0:53:34the Earth up and down, whereas the S waves shake it from side to side.

0:53:34 > 0:53:38The programmes had to be made quickly and cheaply,

0:53:38 > 0:53:41so were presented by real scientists and academics.

0:53:41 > 0:53:46TV science was, in fact, returned to the style of the 1950s - the TV lecture.

0:53:47 > 0:53:51The scientists had finally got their own way

0:53:51 > 0:53:54presenting their lectures pure and unadulterated by all that

0:53:54 > 0:53:58TV filming nonsense, like grooming, style, clothes sense,

0:53:58 > 0:54:00fashionable haircut, entertainment...

0:54:00 > 0:54:04And I think you'll agree that's a pretty complicated motion.

0:54:04 > 0:54:08I did watch Open University science broadcasting, partly because I'm a bit of a geek,

0:54:08 > 0:54:13so I wanted to see how this go ahead, dynamic, new organisation

0:54:13 > 0:54:15was revolutionising teaching.

0:54:15 > 0:54:18So, I used to, sort of, turn it on at 11:30 in the evening

0:54:18 > 0:54:21or whenever it came on then watch through some crazy programme

0:54:21 > 0:54:26on the second law of thermodynamics or something, just for the pleasure

0:54:26 > 0:54:28of seeing the academic science presented.

0:54:28 > 0:54:30Yeah, OK, all right stop it.

0:54:30 > 0:54:32It was that kind of, in the middle of the night

0:54:32 > 0:54:35if you were drunk and you came back after a few beers,

0:54:35 > 0:54:37you'd put it on and you'd learn about,

0:54:37 > 0:54:41how many dimensions there were, and you probably were in a different one, anyway.

0:54:41 > 0:54:44So, over to Mick to explain how these waves

0:54:44 > 0:54:47tie in with functions of two variables.

0:54:47 > 0:54:51We need to be clearer about what's going on in Graeme's tank.

0:54:53 > 0:54:56The OU paid for the programmes, but the BBC called the shots.

0:54:56 > 0:54:59Cue lots of battles between science academics,

0:54:59 > 0:55:01who merely wanted to reproduce their lectures,

0:55:01 > 0:55:04and producers who had to turn them into TV presenters,

0:55:04 > 0:55:08as this behind the scenes footage captured.

0:55:08 > 0:55:11There is only one student, he's never heard the story before

0:55:11 > 0:55:14and he's on his own, and he's sitting there with the telly.

0:55:14 > 0:55:17The telly's only eight feet away. There's you and there's him.

0:55:17 > 0:55:20Take three, go on let's do it again. Much easier to do it now.

0:55:22 > 0:55:26TV science producers had spent two decades trying to get away from the

0:55:26 > 0:55:31science lecture, and now they were filling hundreds of hours of screen-time with the stuff.

0:55:31 > 0:55:34The low-fi look led to frequent parodies

0:55:34 > 0:55:36over it's 30 years plus on the box.

0:55:36 > 0:55:41Giving us a resultant modular quantity of 0.567359.

0:55:41 > 0:55:45Now this should begin to give us some clues as to whether...

0:55:45 > 0:55:46I'm sorry, Brian, I'm sorry.

0:55:47 > 0:55:49What? What's happened?

0:55:51 > 0:55:54You said 0.567359.

0:55:54 > 0:55:57- Oh, no, I didn't, did I?- Yes!

0:55:57 > 0:55:59It should 0.567395!

0:55:59 > 0:56:01I don't believe it! Oh no!

0:56:06 > 0:56:09BEEP hell!

0:56:09 > 0:56:11I think there was something endearing

0:56:11 > 0:56:16about the undiluted geekiness about the Open University programmes.

0:56:16 > 0:56:21There was no compromise, there was no dumbing down, there was no simplifying.

0:56:21 > 0:56:25Of course, we've done our best to make these look as simple as possible.

0:56:25 > 0:56:28Yet despite their cheap, simple presentation

0:56:28 > 0:56:31the OU could easily get late-night viewing figures of up to 1 million,

0:56:31 > 0:56:37which programme-makers today would kill their own channel boss for.

0:56:37 > 0:56:40The low-budget look never bothered their audience,

0:56:40 > 0:56:43but it did bother the drama-makers.

0:56:43 > 0:56:46Arriving on TV screens the same year as Star Wars,

0:56:46 > 0:56:49Blake's 7 tried to give Hollywood a run for its money.

0:56:54 > 0:56:57It follows the authorities and rebels battling for control

0:56:57 > 0:57:00of technology, er, just like Star Wars.

0:57:00 > 0:57:03Reflecting 1970s concerns about who was going to be

0:57:03 > 0:57:06in control of the new computer revolution.

0:57:06 > 0:57:10- This is Orac?- 100 million for that?

0:57:10 > 0:57:11Is it a computer?

0:57:11 > 0:57:13It most certainly is not.

0:57:13 > 0:57:15It is a brain, a genius.

0:57:15 > 0:57:17It has a mind that can draw information

0:57:17 > 0:57:20from every computer containing one of my cells.

0:57:20 > 0:57:22Orac has access to the sum total

0:57:22 > 0:57:25of all the knowledge of all the known worlds.

0:57:25 > 0:57:29Oh, I liked Blake's 7 because it was funny.

0:57:29 > 0:57:31It was sort of a British version of Star Wars.

0:57:31 > 0:57:37I liked the fact that they were fighting against the evil empire and stuff like that.

0:57:37 > 0:57:40I've never seen anything like that before.

0:57:40 > 0:57:42The production limitations were obvious,

0:57:42 > 0:57:46but, you know, if you've got good characters and some good ideas and,

0:57:46 > 0:57:50you know, just this idea of freedom fighters, fighting against

0:57:50 > 0:57:55this oppressive regime, which has been fooling drama for years.

0:57:55 > 0:57:59And Blake's 7 was much more downbeat than Star Wars.

0:58:01 > 0:58:04Star Wars doesn't kill off its main characters in the final episode.

0:58:04 > 0:58:06It's me Blake.

0:58:06 > 0:58:08Stand still.

0:58:08 > 0:58:10I was waiting for you.

0:58:14 > 0:58:15They've won.

0:58:17 > 0:58:20Sorry about that if you've just bought the box-set.

0:58:20 > 0:58:24But, despite the doom, sci-fi TV got high viewing figures.

0:58:24 > 0:58:27Blake's 7 often got over 10 million per episode.

0:58:28 > 0:58:3470s TV audiences had a big appetite for science, fiction and fact.

0:58:34 > 0:58:37This was reflected in the rise of the landmark science series.

0:58:37 > 0:58:41The cornerstone to this was Jacob Bronowski's epic The Ascent of Man,

0:58:41 > 0:58:45tracing the development of society through our understanding of science.

0:58:45 > 0:58:48Bronowski's Ascent of Man really changed my life.

0:58:48 > 0:58:51It was the only series I ever bought a book of.

0:58:51 > 0:58:56And when I started writing my own shows, the book became my bible.

0:58:58 > 0:59:04I had not been long back from Hiroshima, when I heard someone say,

0:59:04 > 0:59:10in Zillard's presence, that it was the tragedy of scientists

0:59:10 > 0:59:15that their discoveries were used for destruction.

0:59:15 > 0:59:20Zillard replied, as he more than anyone else had the right to reply,

0:59:20 > 0:59:23that it was not the tragedy of scientists,

0:59:23 > 0:59:26it is the tragedy of mankind.

0:59:26 > 0:59:28He was an incredible presenter. He worked because

0:59:28 > 0:59:34of his belief in both science and technology and humanity.

0:59:34 > 0:59:39He really did believe that people can achieve incredible things.

0:59:39 > 0:59:46We have to cure ourselves of the itch for absolute knowledge and power.

0:59:46 > 0:59:53We have to close the distance between the push button order.

0:59:53 > 0:59:56And there were moments, of course, in The Ascent Of Man,

0:59:56 > 1:00:00which were extraordinary moments of television, knelt down at Auschwitz

1:00:00 > 1:00:04and picked up the ashes out of the mud, and talked about the Holocaust,

1:00:04 > 1:00:07and how, if you like, the implication was

1:00:07 > 1:00:09that technology had destroyed human life.

1:00:09 > 1:00:12That's one of the great moments of television.

1:00:14 > 1:00:17This was big science presented by big brains.

1:00:21 > 1:00:25The trend continued with James Burke's highly successful

1:00:25 > 1:00:29Connections, travelling the globe to trace the historical developments

1:00:29 > 1:00:30of technology and science.

1:00:32 > 1:00:34Would you do me a favour?

1:00:34 > 1:00:38I'd like to stop talking for a minute, and when I do

1:00:38 > 1:00:42take a look at the room you're in, and above all the man-made objects

1:00:42 > 1:00:44in that room that surround you -

1:00:44 > 1:00:48the television set, the lights, the phone, and so on - and ask yourself

1:00:48 > 1:00:51what those objects do to your life just because they're there.

1:00:51 > 1:00:56One of my fondest memories of watching TV as a child was watching Connections.

1:00:56 > 1:01:00He would show how science and history are intimately related,

1:01:00 > 1:01:03and how a scientific breakthrough leads to

1:01:03 > 1:01:07a historical development, how that leads to more scientific breakthroughs.

1:01:07 > 1:01:12Why does a modern invention, that fundamentally affects

1:01:12 > 1:01:15the lives of every single human being on this planet,

1:01:15 > 1:01:19begin 2,600 years ago with somebody doing this?

1:01:22 > 1:01:25It was an amazing story that he would tell you,

1:01:25 > 1:01:27and at the heart of that story would be science.

1:01:29 > 1:01:32Later in the seventies, it was the turn of human sciences to get the

1:01:32 > 1:01:36big brain treatment with Jonathan Miller's The Body in Question.

1:01:36 > 1:01:39This version of me is being moved by this version of me.

1:01:39 > 1:01:43And this version is being moved by this version.

1:01:43 > 1:01:45But who moves me?

1:01:45 > 1:01:47Well, I suppose I do...

1:01:47 > 1:01:51I remember Jonathan Miller, The Body In Question...

1:01:51 > 1:01:52But who moves I?

1:01:52 > 1:01:55..was massively received.

1:01:55 > 1:02:01I'm told that it's my brain, but I'm not immediately aware of having one.

1:02:01 > 1:02:04You have to watch this programme, because at the end of it

1:02:04 > 1:02:09Jonathan Miller does something so dramatic, he almost dies on screen.

1:02:09 > 1:02:12It's one of the most amazing pieces of television I've seen.

1:02:12 > 1:02:15In the final programme about respiration,

1:02:15 > 1:02:20Miller tested his own bodily limits by cutting off his oxygen supply.

1:02:35 > 1:02:37102 take one, end board..

1:02:37 > 1:02:39Give me the second mark.

1:02:40 > 1:02:41OK.

1:02:41 > 1:02:45There are a few other TV presenters I could recommend try this.

1:02:46 > 1:02:52And finally, David Attenborough brought the epic science treatment to natural history,

1:02:52 > 1:02:55exploring in detail the evolutionary process

1:02:55 > 1:02:57in the landmark science series, Life on Earth.

1:02:57 > 1:03:01There are some four million different kinds of animals and plants

1:03:01 > 1:03:04in the world, four million different solutions

1:03:04 > 1:03:06to the problems of staying alive.

1:03:06 > 1:03:11Once we had seen that things like Ascent Of Man were a success,

1:03:11 > 1:03:16it was obvious to anybody with any particle of programme imagination

1:03:16 > 1:03:21that the history of life and natural history was bound to be a winner.

1:03:21 > 1:03:23The South American rainforests

1:03:23 > 1:03:27are the richest and most varied assemblage of life in the world.

1:03:27 > 1:03:29Those are howler monkeys up there.

1:03:29 > 1:03:34There are around 50 different kinds of monkeys in these forests.

1:03:34 > 1:03:36I'd done eight years in administration, I wanted to get back

1:03:36 > 1:03:41to making programmes, and I was terrified that someone was going to come along and say,

1:03:41 > 1:03:44"I've got this great idea, it's about the history of life".

1:03:44 > 1:03:49And, sitting there, in my edit controller's chair, I wouldn't have been able to turn him down.

1:03:49 > 1:03:51But, fortunately, nobody did.

1:03:52 > 1:03:55The 70s were a good time for science programmes.

1:03:55 > 1:04:01Science even crept into popular entertainment with the rise of the semi-comic boffin.

1:04:01 > 1:04:05Astronomer-boffin, Patrick Moore, was still going strong in the 70s,

1:04:05 > 1:04:09and taken into the nation's heart by being mocked by the Two Ronnies.

1:04:20 > 1:04:23Hello, good evening, and welcome to this special edition...

1:04:27 > 1:04:31Moore had competition, though, when TV discovered Magnus Pyke,

1:04:31 > 1:04:35a gangly wild boffin, to present the series Don't Ask Me on ITV.

1:04:35 > 1:04:39The follicles in the top of... in the scalp, if they're flat,

1:04:39 > 1:04:41the hair comes out flat and you get curly hair.

1:04:41 > 1:04:45If they're round your hair tends to be straight.

1:04:45 > 1:04:49He played up to the mad scientist stereotype, although he was actually a top food scientist.

1:04:49 > 1:04:53You enjoyed his character and that enthusiasm.

1:04:53 > 1:04:57He couldn't speak without his arms coming up and the whole thing.

1:04:57 > 1:05:01He never learnt a script, but he got the gist of it, and so it

1:05:01 > 1:05:05had to come out because he squeezed part of his body with his arms.

1:05:06 > 1:05:09She blinded me with science!

1:05:09 > 1:05:13Pyke became so popular he appeared in a pop video where he shouts...

1:05:13 > 1:05:14Science!

1:05:14 > 1:05:17After the video was released,

1:05:17 > 1:05:21he was said to be annoyed by people coming up and shouting "Science!" at him.

1:05:21 > 1:05:24Science! Science!

1:05:24 > 1:05:25Ready, steady...

1:05:25 > 1:05:26GUNSHOT

1:05:29 > 1:05:33And no 70s TV schedule was complete without the mad inventor boffin

1:05:33 > 1:05:35in the guise of Professor Heinz Wolf.

1:05:35 > 1:05:37This appears to be a very good time.

1:05:37 > 1:05:39But we have no standards of comparison.

1:05:39 > 1:05:41Let's see how the other teams do.

1:05:41 > 1:05:43I think one of the greatest boffins was Heinz Wolff.

1:05:43 > 1:05:47First of all he's got a very attractive Middle Eastern European

1:05:47 > 1:05:50accent, which is very interesting, it obviously means he's very clever.

1:05:50 > 1:05:52Wolff was a German-British bioengineer,

1:05:52 > 1:05:55who fronted the TV series The Great Egg Race.

1:05:55 > 1:05:58It was compelling, it was a race, it was a competition, it was a

1:05:58 > 1:06:02competition between people who could fail dismally

1:06:02 > 1:06:05or succeed wonderfully doing trivial, silly things.

1:06:05 > 1:06:09It was a cross between the Generation Game meets Horizon, I suppose.

1:06:09 > 1:06:12Running the whole thing was Professor Heinz Wolff,

1:06:12 > 1:06:16who brought that enthusiasm and excitement to it.

1:06:16 > 1:06:18And last but not least, the maths boffin,

1:06:18 > 1:06:21Johnny Ball in Think Of A Number.

1:06:21 > 1:06:25You see it had been my hobby, maths, all the way through.

1:06:25 > 1:06:27Help me unveil this.

1:06:27 > 1:06:30It's one of the oldest computers, or the oldest computer known to man.

1:06:30 > 1:06:33Take the cloth off.

1:06:33 > 1:06:34Me hands!

1:06:34 > 1:06:36You have got to clown it up here and there.

1:06:36 > 1:06:38You have got to colour it.

1:06:38 > 1:06:40You have got to lighten up the dark, the heavy bits.

1:06:40 > 1:06:44Give her a round of computers.

1:06:44 > 1:06:49Just as there's so much variety in life, all that variety's in science.

1:06:50 > 1:06:52Tiptoe through the tulips...

1:06:52 > 1:06:56TV was up to it's neck in comedy boffins in the 70s,

1:06:56 > 1:06:59but what affect has this really had on the image of scientists?

1:06:59 > 1:07:02Well, starting with the great Sir Patrick himself,

1:07:02 > 1:07:04TV has frequently shown scientists as eccentric,

1:07:04 > 1:07:10overly enthusiastic men with strange accents, haircuts and wardrobes.

1:07:10 > 1:07:13# With a locket in the cause of science

1:07:13 > 1:07:19# Perhaps you'll share a capsule with me... #

1:07:19 > 1:07:23I think Magnus Pyke and Heinz Wolff had that boffin mentality

1:07:23 > 1:07:26or maybe created it, you know, I think you know maybe

1:07:26 > 1:07:29that's who've we relate it back to, and I think that is sustained,

1:07:29 > 1:07:33the sheer success of those guys is that that has sustained today,

1:07:33 > 1:07:37so the rest of us are always having to fight off this idea that we are these boffins.

1:07:37 > 1:07:40So any adolescent puzzling over which career path to take

1:07:40 > 1:07:44only needed to switch on the box to realise that a science vocation

1:07:44 > 1:07:48would be a lonely unhip path, probably one that didn't involve girlfriends.

1:07:48 > 1:07:51But have they really been so uncool?

1:07:51 > 1:07:54Let's take a scientific look.

1:07:54 > 1:07:59The regular attire of scientists had been a tweed suit and tie in the 50s.

1:07:59 > 1:08:02The lab coat was often de rigueur.

1:08:02 > 1:08:05That went to a shirt and beard in the 60s and 70s.

1:08:05 > 1:08:08But there has always been a thing for the bow-tie.

1:08:08 > 1:08:11And the er...comb-over.

1:08:13 > 1:08:16Over 50 years of television, the comb-over

1:08:16 > 1:08:19has proudly warmed the eggheads of TV boffins.

1:08:19 > 1:08:22So which career path are you going to take,

1:08:22 > 1:08:24young aspiring astrophysics student, Brian May?

1:08:24 > 1:08:27Astronomy or Glam Rock?

1:08:30 > 1:08:31Ah, wrong choice, Brian.

1:08:31 > 1:08:35That won't get you a senior lecture post with protected pension plan.

1:08:48 > 1:08:53Finally, after three decades of pessimistic science fiction, the drama-makers decided

1:08:53 > 1:08:58science might be a good thing and took a more celebratory look at science in the 80s.

1:08:58 > 1:09:02The Voyage of Charles Darwin was a major six-part dramatization

1:09:02 > 1:09:07of Darwin's voyage on the Beagle and how he developed his theory of evolution.

1:09:07 > 1:09:10Its large viewing figures reflected the public's appetite for science.

1:09:13 > 1:09:17It never occurred to me that islands in sight of each other could have such different fauna.

1:09:17 > 1:09:22Don't let it worry you, philosopher. And if I might venture a suggestion,

1:09:22 > 1:09:25in future, observe the mysteries of nature

1:09:25 > 1:09:30rather more closely and theorise about them rather less.

1:09:33 > 1:09:35The series kicked off a spate of dramas

1:09:35 > 1:09:38about real life scientists throughout the 80s.

1:09:38 > 1:09:41The series Oppenheimer explored the project to put together

1:09:41 > 1:09:44the atom bomb through the eyes of the master-builder.

1:09:44 > 1:09:48What captured my imagination in terms of the Oppenheimer series

1:09:48 > 1:09:51was it was grown up science, so it wasn't the whiz bang of The Great Egg Race.

1:09:51 > 1:09:54It wasn't the whiz bang of Tomorrow's World.

1:09:54 > 1:09:59It was men and women who'd built this bomb that could potentially

1:09:59 > 1:10:03today destroy the world and the decisions that they faced.

1:10:03 > 1:10:07Life Story also captured the public's imagination,

1:10:07 > 1:10:12telling the story of how the scientists discovered the structure of DNA, starring Jeff Goldblum.

1:10:12 > 1:10:16No-one knows anything. This is off the map. Somebody has to guess right.

1:10:16 > 1:10:19Chapter one, page one. Once, life reproduced life. How?

1:10:19 > 1:10:21Secret of creation. Worth the Nobel prize.

1:10:21 > 1:10:25I really enjoyed Life Story. I mean, not everybody I know did,

1:10:25 > 1:10:26but I was captivated by it,

1:10:26 > 1:10:30by the story, by the drama, by the portrayals of the individuals.

1:10:30 > 1:10:34So we got it 2400% wrong. Anybody can make a mistake.

1:10:34 > 1:10:37I thought it was a very moving programme,

1:10:37 > 1:10:40especially at the end when Rosalind Franklin comes in and says,

1:10:40 > 1:10:42"Oh, my God, it's so beautiful."

1:10:42 > 1:10:45When you see how things really are,

1:10:45 > 1:10:52all the hurt and the waste falls away.

1:10:52 > 1:10:56What's left is the beauty.

1:11:06 > 1:11:09The dramas captured British audiences' need to celebrate pioneering Brits

1:11:09 > 1:11:12like Chariots of Fire, sort of Chariots of the Bunsen Burner.

1:11:12 > 1:11:15The success of these dramas in the '80s also showed

1:11:15 > 1:11:19that we wanted to watch real scientists at work and see them as real people.

1:11:19 > 1:11:23Well, really, really, really clever real people.

1:11:25 > 1:11:30Life Story also showed how genetic science was capturing the public's imagination in the '80s.

1:11:30 > 1:11:35A concern that had been around since Frankenstein first shot 2,000 volts through his monster,

1:11:35 > 1:11:40but molecular biology was now prominent in the public's mind.

1:11:41 > 1:11:44Recently, the first test-tube baby had been born,

1:11:44 > 1:11:49and scientists were developing genetically modified foods that would feed the world.

1:11:49 > 1:11:52And would also feed sci-fi writers' imaginations.

1:11:52 > 1:11:54In Day Of The Triffids,

1:11:54 > 1:11:58John Wyndham's 1950s novel is re-imagined as giant mutant plants,

1:11:58 > 1:12:03bio-engineered by military scientists, start to take over the world.

1:12:09 > 1:12:14Fears about genetic engineering against a backdrop of continuing Cold War paranoia.

1:12:14 > 1:12:19For the drama-makers, addicted to dystopia, this was perfect. Two fears for the price of one.

1:12:21 > 1:12:25Again, scientists were meddling, and it touched a raw nerve.

1:12:25 > 1:12:29Later in the decade, TV delivered First Born.

1:12:29 > 1:12:32Easy!

1:12:32 > 1:12:35Charles Dance mixes his own sperm with that of a gorilla,

1:12:35 > 1:12:39no, not like that, in a lab to form a new species.

1:12:40 > 1:12:42Gor, stay where you are. We'll get you down.

1:12:42 > 1:12:45The disastrous consequences were all too predictable,

1:12:45 > 1:12:50but what was clear to those of us watching at home was that the scientists were at it again,

1:12:50 > 1:12:54no longer giving the solutions to the world's problems, but creating them.

1:12:54 > 1:12:55GORILLA ROARS

1:12:56 > 1:12:57Mary!

1:12:59 > 1:13:01No! GORILLA ROARS

1:13:03 > 1:13:04Monkey see, monkey do.

1:13:04 > 1:13:09But the big scientific revolution of the '80s was the microchip explosion.

1:13:09 > 1:13:13Although computers had been muttered about since the '50s,

1:13:13 > 1:13:19the '80s saw them come into people's homes and become part of the public consciousness.

1:13:19 > 1:13:23But this scientific revolution didn't seem as scary as genetic engineering,

1:13:23 > 1:13:27space rockets or nuclear science. Geeks made us laugh.

1:13:27 > 1:13:29Dit. Da. Da. Dit.

1:13:29 > 1:13:35Then, they seemed OK. Maybe because we knew soon we'd all be geeks sat at computers.

1:13:35 > 1:13:38To help us cope with the new revolution in computers,

1:13:38 > 1:13:42real science programming was on hand to make sense of the digital age.

1:13:44 > 1:13:49With all these new light systems, the information explosion is now upon us.

1:13:49 > 1:13:52A new science series, QED, was started up,

1:13:52 > 1:13:55a kind of Horizon for the non-geek audience,

1:13:55 > 1:13:58playing on 1980s technological wonders.

1:13:58 > 1:14:01It's called virtual reality.

1:14:01 > 1:14:03A three-dimensional place that exists

1:14:03 > 1:14:05only inside the brain of the simulator.

1:14:05 > 1:14:07Can you pick things up?

1:14:07 > 1:14:09OK, pick the teapot up.

1:14:09 > 1:14:11I can attempt to pick the teapot up.

1:14:16 > 1:14:19Not to be outdone, Equinox started up on Channel 4,

1:14:19 > 1:14:22bringing its own science to a new audience.

1:14:25 > 1:14:27Artificial intelligence, fact or fantasy?

1:14:27 > 1:14:29Equinox.

1:14:29 > 1:14:31I just remember the title sequence very well.

1:14:31 > 1:14:33Equinox.

1:14:33 > 1:14:34Equinox.

1:14:34 > 1:14:37It was almost frightening for a child.

1:14:41 > 1:14:45Our attitude to outer space began to change in the '80s.

1:14:45 > 1:14:48After decades of being addicted to dystopian drama,

1:14:48 > 1:14:51along came Douglas Adams' Hitchhiker's Guide To The Galaxy.

1:14:51 > 1:14:55Six pints of bitter, and quickly, please, the world's about to end.

1:15:00 > 1:15:04Uniquely, British science fiction found a new friend in comedy.

1:15:04 > 1:15:09We might not have been able to compete with Star Wars, but British TV can do Carry On in space.

1:15:09 > 1:15:13It is quintessentially British, your hero being in a dressing gown,

1:15:13 > 1:15:16or a spaceship that's fuelled by a cup of tea,

1:15:16 > 1:15:20or a race, like the Vogons, who was obsessed with bureaucracy.

1:15:20 > 1:15:22You can't imagine that in America.

1:15:22 > 1:15:27I'm sorry, but if you can't be bothered to take an interest in local affairs, that's your own lookout.

1:15:27 > 1:15:29Energise the demolition beam.

1:15:33 > 1:15:37I think Douglas Adams was incredibly interested in science.

1:15:37 > 1:15:39He invented some amazing stuff in there.

1:15:39 > 1:15:44The iPad looks like the Hitchhiker's Guide To The Galaxy.

1:15:44 > 1:15:46Wonder if there's a free app?

1:15:46 > 1:15:49"Here is what to do if you want to get a lift from a Vogon.

1:15:49 > 1:15:50"Forget it."

1:15:50 > 1:15:55And Red Dwarf was another sci-fi comedy that responded to the attitudes of the '80s.

1:15:55 > 1:15:59Again, it was very British, but this time with a laddish take on space and science.

1:15:59 > 1:16:04Dear, oh, dear. It's horrible down there. There's a big hole.

1:16:04 > 1:16:06It's an unbelievable view.

1:16:06 > 1:16:09The comedy played on toilet humour, with characters bumbling through

1:16:09 > 1:16:13time and space, with little understanding of technology or the laws of the universe.

1:16:15 > 1:16:20The best Red Dwarfs for me were where the writing was really good and complicated.

1:16:20 > 1:16:25I loved all the time-travel storylines they had when you had to bend your mind around it

1:16:25 > 1:16:27to figure out how it worked.

1:16:27 > 1:16:33As outer space comedy became popular in the '80s, serious outer space drama was being shot down.

1:16:37 > 1:16:40The biggest casualty was Dr Who, axed in '89.

1:16:40 > 1:16:43You stupid, stubborn, pig-headed numbskull!

1:16:43 > 1:16:46Its effects just couldn't keep up with Hollywood,

1:16:46 > 1:16:50and British sci-fi drama ran out of steam, for the time being.

1:16:50 > 1:16:52Come along, my dear. It's time we were off.

1:16:52 > 1:16:56The upcoming '90s would be a fallow time for serious sci-fi.

1:17:05 > 1:17:08Big changes came to science on TV in the '90s.

1:17:08 > 1:17:13The driving force behind this new look was computers, revolutionising TV graphics.

1:17:13 > 1:17:18There's always the question of how you show, visually,

1:17:18 > 1:17:21it's television, after all, some difficult concept,

1:17:21 > 1:17:26and, you know, naff graphics, or simply people talking to camera

1:17:26 > 1:17:28might achieve something,

1:17:28 > 1:17:33but a really compelling, exciting, visual representation can be much more dramatic.

1:17:33 > 1:17:38We'd got used to bad graphics in science TV over the decades,

1:17:38 > 1:17:42with drawings, ropey models and cartoon-style animations.

1:17:42 > 1:17:45It was all done by hand, so often costly and time-consuming.

1:17:45 > 1:17:48Cool graphics were something Hollywood did best,

1:17:48 > 1:17:54until the boffins came up with computer graphics illustration - CGI.

1:17:54 > 1:17:56They opened up possibilities.

1:17:56 > 1:18:00TV makers could now film, and afford to film, the impossible.

1:18:00 > 1:18:07Programmes like The Planets proved that now science TV could boldly go where no science TV had gone before.

1:18:09 > 1:18:11But when the first probe got there,

1:18:11 > 1:18:14it found the conditions were atrocious.

1:18:14 > 1:18:17The swirling clouds were made of superheated ammonia.

1:18:17 > 1:18:19They could never support life.

1:18:24 > 1:18:29And programmes like The Human Body, presented by scientist Robert Winston,

1:18:29 > 1:18:32could now take us inside the most alien world imaginable - ourselves.

1:18:32 > 1:18:36What worked about that was grand visual pictures,

1:18:36 > 1:18:40but also often quite simple science,

1:18:40 > 1:18:42always absolutely scrupulously explained.

1:18:42 > 1:18:47'By putting the medical scans together, we've created a three-dimensional...'

1:18:47 > 1:18:52Through breakthrough CGI, the series took viewers on the most incredible journey from birth to death.

1:18:52 > 1:18:56Plus, its presenter was prepared to put his own body under the microscope.

1:18:56 > 1:18:58These are my sperm.

1:18:58 > 1:19:04Amazingly, about 500 million of them from a single ejaculation.

1:19:04 > 1:19:10With just this one ejaculation it should be possible to impregnate all the fertile women of western Europe,

1:19:10 > 1:19:12and I'm nothing special.

1:19:14 > 1:19:21Today, new technology is letting us see the world of the unborn in a completely new way.

1:19:21 > 1:19:26The ability to produce computer graphics at an affordable price

1:19:26 > 1:19:28was a huge moment.

1:19:28 > 1:19:29I remember when Tim Haines,

1:19:29 > 1:19:32who was a producer in the science department,

1:19:32 > 1:19:35came back from watching Jurassic Park, and said, "We can do that."

1:19:35 > 1:19:38CGI allowed TV science producers to start thinking differently,

1:19:38 > 1:19:41and it came into its own with Walking With Dinosaurs.

1:19:41 > 1:19:45As much as I was really passionate about dinosaurs when I was a kid, as we all are,

1:19:45 > 1:19:49I'm guilty to say that then you lose your passion along the way.

1:19:49 > 1:19:51And Walking With Dinosaurs certainly reignited that.

1:19:53 > 1:19:58This series turned out to be the most-watched science programme ever.

1:19:58 > 1:20:04It showed the power of CGI, bringing alive a scientific study that was previously just a lot of fossils.

1:20:04 > 1:20:11CGI changed our perception of what a science programme could be, and it also changed our expectations.

1:20:11 > 1:20:15We started to expect spectacle.

1:20:15 > 1:20:19We expected to see the inner workings of an ant's digestive tract,

1:20:19 > 1:20:24or electrons spinning, or what the end of the world would look like if squirrels took over.

1:20:24 > 1:20:28CGI also meant that science on TV could do without presenters.

1:20:28 > 1:20:34More and more through the '90s, graphics increased and presenters got pushed out.

1:20:34 > 1:20:39And science could go global, since all that was needed was to change the voice-over.

1:20:49 > 1:20:52As more and more channels filled the airwaves in the noughties,

1:20:52 > 1:20:55some appeared which were wholly devoted to science.

1:20:55 > 1:21:00Filling a lot of this screen time in the 2000s was disaster science.

1:21:03 > 1:21:05A supervolcano.

1:21:09 > 1:21:13The science of environmental disaster captured the public's imagination,

1:21:13 > 1:21:16and was explored to great effect thanks to CGI once again.

1:21:16 > 1:21:22It allowed science to do disaster, where science had gone wrong, which included incredible volcanoes,

1:21:22 > 1:21:25superstorms, and meteors hitting earth.

1:21:25 > 1:21:31After just three weeks, aerosols would form a sulphurous cloak around the world.

1:21:32 > 1:21:37After the millennium, environmental disaster was played out to epic proportions.

1:21:37 > 1:21:41Dystopian visions, previously explored by drama-makers,

1:21:41 > 1:21:44became the new addiction of real science TV producers.

1:21:48 > 1:21:54Dystopia, fear, worries about science... For the sci-fi writers, that seemed too good to miss out on.

1:21:56 > 1:22:01The noughties saw a rejuvenation of sci-fi, again helped by CGI.

1:22:01 > 1:22:05Taking the lead was the resurrection of Dr Who in 2005.

1:22:06 > 1:22:10I think people who would have perhaps dismissed it before as just this kids' show,

1:22:10 > 1:22:12with the so-called wonky sets,

1:22:12 > 1:22:15now they're sort of taking it as serious science fiction

1:22:15 > 1:22:18that can compete with the big-budget stuff from America.

1:22:18 > 1:22:21Don't blink. Blink and you're dead.

1:22:21 > 1:22:25This has changed the landscape of TV again, just as it did in 1963.

1:22:25 > 1:22:28Hello. I'm the Doctor.

1:22:28 > 1:22:30It could be down to the scripts, the actors...

1:22:30 > 1:22:32The effects are better than they were,

1:22:32 > 1:22:36but it could also be down to the new fears of attack in the war on terror,

1:22:36 > 1:22:39just like the old fears of attack in the Cold War.

1:22:40 > 1:22:44I think that science fiction is back on television because we like it,

1:22:44 > 1:22:45we've always liked it.

1:22:45 > 1:22:48It was taken away from us, it wasn't something we rejected.

1:22:48 > 1:22:52Now it's back, I think that if you look at the shape of it,

1:22:52 > 1:22:56you look at the stories that are being done on Dr Who or the various other shows,

1:22:56 > 1:23:02they all reflect our contemporary concerns, there they are, throbbing through the form.

1:23:02 > 1:23:04But that's what science fiction always does.

1:23:07 > 1:23:12New fears and new technology to play them out on on the small screen

1:23:12 > 1:23:15saw the reigniting of old Cold War favourites.

1:23:15 > 1:23:19Quatermass was back, and Day Of The Triffids returned,

1:23:19 > 1:23:21thickly layered with 9/11 references.

1:23:23 > 1:23:27And even A For Andromeda was remade to scare everyone all over again about aliens.

1:23:27 > 1:23:33Again, all scientists at the core, but this time a lot cooler, sexier.

1:23:33 > 1:23:38Professors Quatermass, Dawnay and the Doctor never looked this good in black and white.

1:23:38 > 1:23:44Now everyone's easy on the eye, handy with a shotgun, and kicking alien butt.

1:23:44 > 1:23:46WOMAN CRIES IN FEAR

1:23:46 > 1:23:48Aaagh!

1:23:51 > 1:23:54As special effects got better and better,

1:23:54 > 1:23:57science TV proved there was nowhere out of reach in the noughties.

1:23:57 > 1:24:00We could go inside Animals In The Womb...

1:24:00 > 1:24:02It's 13 months since conception.

1:24:02 > 1:24:04..and even inside TV presenters.

1:24:06 > 1:24:12After years in the wilderness, pushed out by CGI, the TV presenter was back fronting TV science.

1:24:14 > 1:24:19Not only that, the scientist-presenter returned as the authorial voice of science.

1:24:19 > 1:24:22But not like the '70s boffins. He's younger, beardless,

1:24:22 > 1:24:25not a lab coat in sight, or a comb-over, or a tweed jacket.

1:24:25 > 1:24:27And sometimes, he's a woman.

1:24:29 > 1:24:31We're going nice and high.

1:24:31 > 1:24:33My eyes started to go weird then.

1:24:34 > 1:24:39Today the scientist is everywhere, even when they want to shock us.

1:24:39 > 1:24:42Well, especially when they want to shock us.

1:24:42 > 1:24:44How do you imagine your own death?

1:24:44 > 1:24:49Will it be peaceful? Will it be quick? Will you be old?

1:24:49 > 1:24:51'Our death is a mystery to us.'

1:24:51 > 1:24:56Even popular primetime science programmes are led by scientists.

1:25:08 > 1:25:13And perhaps the epitome of new science TV - Wonders Of The Solar System.

1:25:13 > 1:25:16It's hard science presented by a real scientist, and it's popular.

1:25:16 > 1:25:20We live on a world of wonders.

1:25:20 > 1:25:24A place of astonishing beauty and complexity.

1:25:24 > 1:25:27Very few scientists are good presenters,

1:25:27 > 1:25:30and very few presenters happen to be scientists.

1:25:30 > 1:25:32So when you get somebody like Brian Cox,

1:25:32 > 1:25:36with his great, infectious enjoyment of what he does, it's so refreshing.

1:25:36 > 1:25:39If you think that this is all there is,

1:25:39 > 1:25:43that our planet exists in magnificent isolation, then you're wrong.

1:25:43 > 1:25:47He's so popular even Jonathan Ross wants to meet him.

1:25:47 > 1:25:51If the future hasn't happened yet... Or has it happened?

1:25:51 > 1:25:53That's a really good question, because...

1:25:53 > 1:25:56Hold on, that's a first. Let's enjoy that moment!

1:25:58 > 1:26:02Science on TV has come a long way in the past 60 years.

1:26:02 > 1:26:05It's played a schizophrenic role on the box.

1:26:05 > 1:26:08In science fiction, the scientist has been decidedly downbeat,

1:26:08 > 1:26:10foretelling a dark vision of the future.

1:26:10 > 1:26:13You're scientists.

1:26:13 > 1:26:16You kill half the world.

1:26:16 > 1:26:19And the other half cannot live without you.

1:26:19 > 1:26:24In real science TV it's been a bit more hopeful, optimistic.

1:26:26 > 1:26:28A bit. Yet, despite the overall pessimism,

1:26:28 > 1:26:33we still continue to draw on science TV, ever hopeful for what it might bring.

1:26:33 > 1:26:40We still look to TV to celebrate the transformational power of science and technology.

1:26:40 > 1:26:45Some years ago, history documentaries were made cool

1:26:45 > 1:26:48by a number of presenters who brought them to the masses,

1:26:48 > 1:26:52and I think now it's the turn of science to be brought to the masses.

1:26:52 > 1:26:56And it's only in the last year or two that people are starting to seriously think about science

1:26:56 > 1:26:59as being embedded in popular culture.

1:26:59 > 1:27:05It's not something just for the aficionados or the geeks who want to learn about something complicated.

1:27:05 > 1:27:12So TV has got science just where it wants it, presented as a vital form of culture by hip, young scientists.

1:27:12 > 1:27:16Well, the scientific community think there's always room for improvement.

1:27:16 > 1:27:18Things are actually rather complicated.

1:27:18 > 1:27:22And I don't think it always necessarily does to simplify things.

1:27:22 > 1:27:25I think it's better to say, "Look, this is a difficult idea,

1:27:25 > 1:27:27"and you probably won't get it the first time."

1:27:27 > 1:27:30I think it would be terrible

1:27:30 > 1:27:34if television decided that it wasn't going to make,

1:27:34 > 1:27:38put programmes on that made demands on the audience,

1:27:38 > 1:27:44or indeed that you always reduced it to a very basic level of understanding.

1:27:44 > 1:27:48Like science, science TV can always be better.

1:27:48 > 1:27:51It is an essential part of all of our lives.

1:27:51 > 1:27:56Science and technology are increasingly dominating our lives, and more than that,

1:27:56 > 1:28:02it is emblematic of the curiosity and the creative power of human beings.

1:28:02 > 1:28:04It's something to celebrate,

1:28:04 > 1:28:08so it shouldn't be hived off to specialised areas of broadcasting alone.

1:28:08 > 1:28:11I think that science should permeate all of broadcasting.

1:28:11 > 1:28:16But look how far we've come since the early days of TV science,

1:28:16 > 1:28:18or the early years of science on film.

1:28:18 > 1:28:25Now we have incredible CGI and sexy scientists telling us about how wonderful the world is.

1:28:25 > 1:28:28Look how far. I mean, what would you prefer?

1:28:28 > 1:28:31Yeah, me too. Cue the fly.

1:28:31 > 1:28:34MUSIC: "Sexy Boy" By Air

1:28:34 > 1:28:37# Sexy boy

1:28:43 > 1:28:46# Sexy boy

1:28:51 > 1:28:54# Sexy boy... #

1:28:54 > 1:28:56Subtitles by Red Bee Media Ltd

1:28:56 > 1:29:00E-mail subtitling@bbc.co.uk