|
Ken Burns' The Civil War and Jazz - Amazing
David Attenborough's The Trials of Life, The Blue Planet, The Secret Life of Plants, The Life of Birds, The Life of Mammals... actually, pretty much everything this man has done.
PBS' The Greeks - Crucible of Civilization - Very well done, if a little light weight occasionally.
Lord Clark's Civilization - truly seminal and the first modern documentary series
Jerremy Issacs' The World at War = the definitive history of World War II with interviews of many of the leading participants, most of whom have now died.
Channel 4 in the UK did some really good ones on the Cold War and on the Yugoslavian Wars between Serbia, Croatia etc. Also The Nazis - A Warning from History and an excellent one on the German invasion of Soviet Russia (the name escapes me); chilling stuff.
I recently bought a DVD version of The Silk Road but haven't gotten around to watching it yet.
I also very much liked A&E's Hail Ceaser but have only watched the episodes on the Julio-Claudians so far.
And finally, of course, Sister Wendy's The Story of Painting - simply superb.
PBS and A&E do good stuff, but Discovery and National Geographic have recently seemed to be "dumbing down" a lot of their shows. I feel they rely on too much fancy graphics, silly sound effects etc. It may be unpopular to say so, but with the signal exception of Burns, I find that the British make far superior documentaries, in particular, and television in general. Of course, this is a sweeping generalization. :-)
Mr Mephisto
|