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Television Media

BBC To Ditch "Tomorrow's World" 230

Posted by Hemos from the replacing-the-past-with-tomorrow dept.
Pipsicola writes "The BBC news site reports their decision to ditch the Popular science show, Tomorrows World , after 30 years. It may not have had the most bleeding edge content (we often dubbed it 'Yesterdays World' ...), but it was one of the few programmes which fired the imagination of young British nerds. Several generations of Britain's scientists and technologists grew up watching TM. Lets hope the BBC fulfills its promise to replace it with more science-based shows using a different format. Which formats have worked in other countries I wonder?"
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BBC To Ditch "Tomorrow's World" More

BBC To Ditch "Tomorrow's World"

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  • new formats (Score:5, Funny)

    by -strix- ( 154910 ) on Sunday January 05, 2003 @12:47AM (#5017722)
    they should try hosting the show naked.

    nudity can make anything better.

  • do you get techtv? (Score:5, Insightful)

    by SHEENmaster ( 581283 ) <travis@u[ ]edu ['tk.' in gap]> on Sunday January 05, 2003 @12:48AM (#5017729) Homepage Journal
    While its future shows may suck, "Big Thinkers" will make you think. I would actually PAY for this on dvd (unencoded of course!)

    I'm not sure whether or it's shown in Britain, but you should look into it.

  • Format? (Score:1)

    by 56 ( 527333 )
    Which formats have worked in other countries I wonder?"


    Science Survivor?

  • Replacement: I vote for Bill Nye the Science Guy (Score:3, Funny)

    by dagg ( 153577 ) on Sunday January 05, 2003 @12:49AM (#5017736) Journal
    What's he doing now-a-days? I always thought he was cool. Maybe it's just his name? His show must of had quite a budget to do some of the stuff that he did. I think it was owned by Disney.
    • You mean a plastic dinosaur spinning!?

      "Bill! Bill! Bill! (It's alive!"
    • Comment removed based on user account deletion
    • I loved that show. Watched it all the time in 4 and 5th grade. I got quite a collection... in fact, I brought several episodes into my 5th grade class to watch when they matched the current unit.
    • I am still pissed off about Bill Nye. He came along quite a bit after Beakman (of Beakman's World [geocities.com]), which was many orders of magnitude better that that shallow clone pretender Nye could ever hope to be. It was simply more fun, more interesting, and did a better job explaining the science than Nye's puffery. Plus it had a guy in a rat suit, and the beloved assistant Josie.

      Like so many other of the truly fine things in life, Nye had much biigger backing and after a while Beakman was gone. Now I just get sad whenever I see Nye. I hope he has realized his crime to humanity and joined a monestary to live the rest of his days seeking forgivness for displacing Beakman from the airwaves.

      If you think my rant is something, take a look at Nye Vs. Beakman [grudge-match.com]. The page is a sad reflection of real life in that Nye still won even though the comments about Nye were dead on.
  • If so, it was ok, although kinda weird, could tell it was from the UK they were always in labs in the UK and stuff was like what the crap? heh

    I agree with an earlier poster, Big Thinkers is a far superior show, I don't watch TechTV much anymore, anyone know if they still show new Big Thinkers?

  • Beyond 2000 (Score:5, Informative)

    by Siriaan ( 615378 ) on Sunday January 05, 2003 @12:54AM (#5017763)
    There's an Australian magazine show called Beyond 2000 that has run for quite a long time and is screened in quite a few countries starting in 1985 and still being made. The science it covered was pretty cutting edge (or at least it seemed, I was kid since I saw it last, hehe) and had interesting stories presented by interesting reporters.
    • Unless I'm thinking of another show with a similiar name or just brainfarting or something, that show ROCKED hard, it was way better then Tommorow's World.

      Plus the two guys were always making cracks so it was fun to watch.
      • So shoot me, forgot some crucial information, they used to show it on the Discovery Channel, and another one called Next Step.. actually... I think that was the one with the 2 funny guys, but I think they also showed Beyond 2000 and it was good too :)

    • Re:Beyond 2000 (Score:3, Interesting)

      by LostCluster ( 625375 )
      TechTV seems to think Beyond 2000 makes a suitable replacement for Tomorrow's World on their lineup. Presently, the two shows are taking turns aring in the 8:30pm ET weeknight slot on the network.

      However, for some strange reason TechTV is starting with the 1997 episodes of Beyond 2000, even though the show is still in first-run production. Not yet clear what will happen when TechTV reaches the end of the 1997 episodes.
      • Alright TechTV is doing something squirrely.. They don't have Beyond 2000 listed as a show, its called Beyond Tommorow (maybe to ease the transition from Tommorows World) except, when you click on their page it says Beyond 2000..

        By the way thanks for the info, Didn't know TechTV was showing Beyond 2000! Used to watch it on the Discovery Channel.
        • They're packaging the block as "Beyond Tomorrow" because the timeslot is TW twice a week and B2000 the other three nights. This arrangement just started this week.
    • Thank you, I was struggling to remember the name of that show. I remember when it first came on the air in the US in the late 80's maybe 85. I was a little kid and it was a reason i became a mechanical engineer. I so wish i could see all the episodes of it. I liked them always giving dates for all the stuff for when it would come out. I always try to remember things they showed to see if they were right. I know i used to sit there and think about what i would be doing when it came out. Sitting there picture 1993 so far into the future. Unfortenly I don't think it stayed on the air very long. Though i think it might have been on cable. But i didn't get cable till 1999. Does anyone know if the episodes are avalible anyplace. I would love the shows from the 80's and early 90's on dvd. Watching/reading former visions of the future that wern't far fetched is fun. Even seening things like ads for things from the 80's and such is fun. Also strangly enough the main thing i can remember from the show is the intro. Also remember when the host wore those shoes with the plate on the front of the sole that was suppose to strengthen your legs, later George Castansa did the same, so I know they had one thing correct. Weird the random things you remember from like 1988.
    • Beyond 2000 use to be on the Discovery Channel 10-15 years ago when the network's goal was to educate, unlike now where everything is about sharks, the military, and guys with accents showcasing dangerous animals.
    • when i was kid i watched it everyday.

      It took me awhile to figure out that 'alloy-mini-um' they kept going on about was aluminum.

    • Here is ireland they used to show it up-to-date but they are still showing re-runs from 1995 now ;-[
    • Another BBC show which I enjoyed quite a bit was the Secret Life of Machines. It only had a very short run, but it broke down explaining complex devices with very simple descriptions...

  • the Internet killed it (Score:5, Insightful)

    by NixterAg ( 198468 ) on Sunday January 05, 2003 @12:54AM (#5017764)
    With the Internet, it becomes more and more difficult to keep shows like this on the air. Once upon a time, 'Tomorrow's World' gave you a glimpse of things you'd otherwise never know existed (at least at the time of viewing). With the Internet, anything heralded on television has been already discussed on the web a thousand times.
    • Not just that but there is lots of documentry channels these days in the UK, and you can get you science fix easily, although not everyone can get these channels I would guess that alot of people who used to watch it do.

  • 40, not 30 years. (Score:1, Offtopic)

    by suss ( 158993 )
    from slashdot:

    The BBC news site reports their decision to ditch the Popular science show, Tomorrows World , after 30 years.

    from the article:

    Tomorrow's World, the BBC's long-running popular science programme, has been dropped from its weekly TV slot after almost 40 years

    Would it have been so hard to take a peek at the article, Hemos?

  • Beyond 2000? (Score:1, Informative)

    by Anonymous Coward
    As a Brit living in the US, I always found the Australian show "Beyond 2000 [beyond2000.com]" to be pretty damned good (and I'd never seen it before arriving in the US).

    For what it's worth, I always hated the "studio" format of Tomorrow's World - I think it hurt them more than it helped, although the studio-based demonstrations that didn't work were always good for a laugh.

    90% of the articles that contained any info and were the most interesting were the pre-recorded ones out wherever the technology was being applied.

  • Daily Planet (Score:5, Informative)

    by Jose ( 15075 ) on Sunday January 05, 2003 @01:04AM (#5017816) Homepage
    Daily Planet (link [www.exn.ca]) is a pretty good show. It was called @Discovery Canada, but changed a little while ago. It runs on the Discovery channel here in Canada. Read the site for more info.
  • Bobs your uncle, mate!

    Cheerio then, I'm off.
  • since 'That's Incredible'.

    It's nice to see something on /. that's not so U.S.-centric. I enjoy listening to 'Quirks and Quarks' on CBC (Canadian public radio) on occasion, but I havn't seen a science TV show of any note ever. I mean, The Learning Channel can be interesting, but they hate to go into detail about anything.

    I would venture to say (and I used to work for CBC-TV) that TV is a medium that can't afford to go into detail at all, and therefore will never produce great science programming.

  • here on the other side of the pond the Discovery Channel still gives us great scientific programing, like " Dopey interpretations of quantum theory for morons who think Battlestar Gallactica was a historical document but flunked grade school math" and "I was abducted by an alien ghost that rode down on a killer tornado from Atlantis for Jesus".

    Man, hard core tech programing just don't get no better than that. Maybe you Brits should import some of it to fill the gap.

    KFG

  • The best episode.. (Score:5, Funny)

    by Doomrat ( 615771 ) on Sunday January 05, 2003 @01:08AM (#5017839) Homepage
    The best one was on April 1st one year where they asked you to vote for something by touching your television screen.

    I touched Phillipa.
  • ...That I have watched, without making a comment on the quality, include Scientific American Frontiers, Nova, and a couple of others whose names I cannot recall right now, but one seemed to be based in Australia, and of course Bill Nye. I've never seen the show mentioned in the article, so maybe these aren't similar.

    I often wonder if corporations like BBC aren't too quick to just chuck a long-running series without attempting changes, even radical ones (like the poster who suggested nudity, which was my first thought-but in a 'remove the stodginess' sort of way.


  • Being an Australian, I have only seen this show a dozen times, but Tomorrow's World really did capture alot of stuff that wouldnt have been seen on other science programs..

    In Australia we used to have "Beyond 2000" which ended a almost 10 years ago or so, didnt get quite as nerdy as TM though..

    Tomorrow's world will be missed.. by those who watched it... and those who poked fun at it :)

    • Does that mean the the show's [beyond2000.com] site has just been left stale all these years? That site seems to imply the show is still in production, despite outliving its title.
      • "Does that mean the the show's [beyond2000.com] site has just been left stale all these years?"

        To be honest I havent seen the show since the early 90's, weather theyre been moved to some obscure cable channel or what I dont know..

        The info on the show hasnt been updated since March 2002 so theyre not exactly good at keeping their info 100% up to date on their website in any case..
  • The cynic in me says they'll probably replace it with the kind of Secrets of the Psychic Pharaohs crap that The Discovery Channel and The Learning Channel have been running since they bought each other (eliminating competition in basic cable science shows).

    Television could be so great, but instead it's a cesspool.

    --Mike

  • is the true lack of depth. For me, it only worth watching these shows if they show off some new gizmo. Otherwise, most science shows I've seen have the depth of a 6th grade science textbook. Of course shows with great depth would require more than 30 sec sound bites and explainations that took more than the time between commericals. Anyway, most people would probably not watch a show of any depth... it would get canned.
    (Caution: This is not a flame, its an observation)
    • You're so right.

      They had some real crap on Tomorrow's World simply so it'd appeal to Joe Sixpack and five year olds.. both of who WEREN'T THE MAIN GROUPS WHO WATCHED THE SHOW!!

      Tommorrow's World would spend tons of time looking at stupid inventions like quicker ways to open tin cans, or 'Young Innovators' fairs where 8 year olds would invent automatic dog food dispensers.

      Instead of focusing on such jevenile crap they should have focused on cool widgets, technologies that could change the world, and things of some importance to science, rather than things which make it easier to do the washing up.

  • "Several generations of Britain's scientists and technologists grew up watching TM."

    Well if they grew up watching TM, then hopefully they will not mind the passing of Tomorrow's World too terribly.

  • Horizon was the "harder" science show. (Score:4, Informative)

    by bangzilla ( 534214 ) on Sunday January 05, 2003 @01:15AM (#5017875) Journal
    Tomorrow's World ran on BBC 1 (used to be Thursday's before Top of the Pops). It was always a soft science show -- more entertainment than hard science. BBC 2 ran the harder science show "Horizon" - each episode of which was an hour long. I've been away from the UK for nearly 19 years so don't know if Horizon is still going -- but at the time it was an outstanding show - would compare with the likes of the better shows on TLC and Discovery. Sad to see Tomorrows World going -- but it did give a great start to James Burke who went on to do the Burke connection and Connections.
    • Try [bbc.co.uk] BBC World [bbcworld.com]. I get it on digital cable here in Canada. It's too bad I can't get my wife to watch documentaries and science programmes as I grew up on Horizon on BBC2.

      I used to watch Tomorrow's World back in the 80's, but the last time I saw it I wasn't impressed. It had become too pop science. I remember it most for the Prince of Wales Awards for innovation (or whatever it was called).
      I thought they were great, and gave me an alternative perspective (a good one too!) of Prince Charles in the days when everybody was obsessed with Diana.
  • When I was younger, I really enjoyed Bill Nye the science guy. Of course, shows like that don't really appeal to adults. I'm now enjoying Big Thinkers on TechTv. The interviews with the actual scientists who developed the theories being discussed are what make a good science show.
  • but it was one of the few programmes which fired the imagination of young British nerds. Several generations of Britain's scientists and technologists grew up watching
    TM.

    Maybe the problem is that most British nerds were watching some show with abbreviations TM.

  • Based on what comes in on my cable (Score:3, Insightful)

    by Waffle Iron ( 339739 ) on Sunday January 05, 2003 @01:22AM (#5017904)
    Which formats have worked in other countries I wonder?"

    Here in the U.S., most science shows have switched to the "MTV generation attention span format". This involves taking 10 minutes of content, then stretching it out to 45 minutes in length with attention-grabbing fillers.

    These typically include things like cheesy, inaccurate and endlessly repetitive computer simulations of explosions, ancient pyramid tours or space probe flybys. Also popular are sad attempts at creating a "suspensful" plot, such as a melodramatic voicover accompanying the same tired scene: a computer monitor reflected in the eyeglasses of a scientist pecking at keyboards in a strangely lit office. Time-elapsed shots of radio telescopes at sunset are another sure-fire time filler.

    I often wish they'd bring back the "old guy standing in a field giving a half-hour monologue" format. Those guys usually knew a lot about what they were talking about, and they worked to cram it into the time available, not the other way around.

    • Last year on foxtel (one of two -- opps I mean one cable TV Aussie compaines) was running reruns of a science show from the 1950's as filler on their sci-fi channel. It may have been called "Why is it so" with Julius Sumner Miller. It was filmed at Sydney Univerity on a very very low budget and almost no editing. He did the typical science show and tell and seemded to target the show towards 6 to 8th grade level but expected them to know a level of science that most science students would have some level of difficulty with. He would mentioned some fact and say "talk to your teacher about that." I feel sorry for the poot teachers since sometimes he stumps me and I've taken (and passed) more university level science courses than I care to count.

      TV1 runs the show after things like Trek to fill the spaces they don't fill with comericals. It seems to have the right timing to fit between US TV shows if you remove the comerical breaks. I find that odd since the show predates the time slot requirements it fits by several decades.
  • My idea for a new tech show is one that is an Iron Chef/Junk Yard wars cross. You put a team of engineers together and give them an electrical component that they have to build something with like in Iron Chef. The teams would have electronics labs with wires, circuit boards, etc. and they would make whatever they could in a certain amount of time. Then there would be a panel of judges that rates the usefulness of the item built and whoever wins over the most judges wins.
    • Actualy, I remember on PBS the used to randomly have a show where they would get a group of college engineering students, give them a box of parts, and set up a simple competition for them. They had a period of time with the box of parts to make a small machine for the task, ( i think like a few days) then they had a competition. It was a really good show. But it never seamed to be a real show, just some random few minute thing they threw on tv every now and then. I really liked it.

  • Shame (Score:2, Interesting)

    by Anonymous Coward
    The show really went downhill in the mid-90s, after which Howard Stableford and co left..

    They removed the Christmas quiz with people like Clive Sinclair as guests!
    And most importantly, the studio element of the show with scientific demonstrations etc.

    Phillipa Forrester really didn't have a clue (see the Brass Eye special), at least Adam Hart-Davis has something to do with science!

    Conclusion: bring back Howard Stableford (where is he now?!) and actually invite people in to show off cool stuff! :)

    • Re:Shame (Score:2, Interesting)

      by 91degrees ( 207121 )
      It seems everyone except the BBC knows why the show started to fail. Give us real world demonstrations that we can relate to!

      Adam Hart Davies was great. It's a shame that everyone had already given up watching by the time he became a presenter. I didn't realise until it was announced that the show was being axed. Actually, perhaps they should have given him some creative control. "What the Romans did for us" had a lot of the elements that TW was missing. Hell, Local heroes did for that matter.

      Carol Voderman wasn't as smart as people gave her credit for either.

      Howard Stableford seems to still be around as a media presenter. I heard him on the radio last week talking about a family who live on an Alaskan island, miles away from any city.

      • Re:Shame (Score:2, Interesting)

        by Quboid ( 11402 )
        Adam Hart Davies was great. It's a shame that everyone had already given up watching by the time he became a presenter. I didn't realise until it was announced that the show was being axed. Actually, perhaps they should have given him some creative control. "What the Romans did for us" had a lot of the elements that TW was missing. Hell, Local heroes did for that matter. Exactly the same here. I hadn't noticed either and probably would have tried watching it again if I'd known. So, here's the salvage plan if the BBC are listening... 1. As 91degrees suggests give Adam Hart Davis more control, and bring in whoever else he needs from Local Heroes and What The {Romans,Victorians,Tudors,Stewarts} Did For Us. 2. Move it to BBC2 at 8pm. It needs to be on early enough for children to watch but if it's on BBC1 then it is forced to compete with Coronation Street etc. on ITV. The 7pm slot is too early for the adults that want to watch it. ISTR it being on Thursday at 8pm when I found it compulsive viewing as a child. It also happens to be a very similar slot to the one occupied by What The * Did For Us. In the current TV climate I don't believe even the old TW would succeed on BBC1 in a prime-time slot. 3. Remove the emphasis on medical and environmental stuff. Bring back the gadgets and the get the inventors themselves in the studio. 4. Ensure that there is a much better mix of pre-recorded stories and studio stuff. Maybe if the BBC does this they'll end up with a show that people enjoy watching and feel as if they've gained something from it. It won't ever get the viewing figures that it used to get in the seventies and eighties but nothing could today.
  • beyond tomorrow (use to be beyond 2000 in the 90's)

    or, if it is still being made, Next Step (the science and tech show not the OS/Computer)

    both use to be on the discovery chanel in the 90's before the womanification of the stupid thing...now beyond tomorow is on tech TV and I could not find anything on next step////both were great and infact, I first heard about Java on beyond 2000 back in 94-95
  • Instead of putting all of your efforts into one drawn out television series, focus instead on one or two strong mini-series of documentaries. "Blue Planet" and "Evolution" (PBS) come to mind as quick examples. The Discovery channel has made a market out of this kind of a thing, with all of the dinosaur and "what if" based shows. Good stuff, and the production quality (I.E. entertainment value) of such ventures are great. Next, interesting works of modern man are always entertaining, like "Modern Marvels". I'm sure that the producers could find some other interesting topic and make a similar show.

  • This IS a true loss (Score:2, Interesting)

    by SoVi3t ( 633947 )
    Look at the impact this way. Alot of children do watch television. I used to watch it, but not as much. I still flip through the channels however. Many a time, I've come across a channel showing something about technology, or space, or something scientific, and I'll leave it there. Learning something new, is ALWAYS a good feeling. With the loss of this show, we may in fact hinder our chances of having children decided to choose a scientific field, to major in, and thus lose their creative input on the world of tomorrow. I hope they replace the show with another cutting edge science show, or maybe a show that talks about various world events, and the conspiracy theories that they relate to (I love reading about them here at /.)
  • Wouldn't that be interesting if our beloved Slashdot starts taking video/audio submission (someday)? So instead of just reading headlines at Slashdot, we'll be reading, listening and watching headlines submitted to Slashdot. That's like new generation of tech news? Many people here submit stories that we can categorize into "Tomorrow's World", so it might become something to... watch, listen and read. How does this idea sound? If and when something like that gets on the net, we're not gonna miss shows like "Tomorrow's World", are we?

  • The decline of Tomorrow's World (Score:5, Insightful)

    by marm ( 144733 ) on Sunday January 05, 2003 @01:38AM (#5017983)

    From my point of view what killed TW was a gradual, slow change in the kind of stories they showed. When I used to watch TW religiously, back in the mid-late 80's, the vast majority of their items were to do with either consumer technology inventions (CD's, home computers and so on) or physical sciences (string theory, birth of the universe, or, more paractically, the first mention I ever heard of quantum computing and quantum encryption back in 1988 or so). During the 90's, in what seemed to me to be a misguided attempt to win ratings, the show gradually changed to a more human-interest type show, all about biology, genetics, medicine, until by the late 1990's that was all there was: no inventions, no physical science news, no astronomy, just item after item of medical discoveries, biotechnology, with the odd reference to the BBC's 'Webwise' project to get people hooked up to the Internet.

    That was when I stopped watching it, it just didn't interest me any more. I appreciate the importance of medicine and the biological sciences (although these interest me less than the physical sciences and associated inventions), but there just wasn't anything else on TW, and it got boring because of this.

    I don't think I'm alone in feeling this - I've met quite a few geeky Tomorrow's World ex-fans who say the same thing, they just stopped running the stories that interested them. It's quite a tragedy - in an attempt to make the programme trendier and gain mainstream audience share, they completely killed off their core audience, and the production team seemed to have absolutely no idea what the problem was. It's entirely the BBC's own fault.

    Oh well, here's hoping they'll wake up one day, realize their mistake and revive it, just like they have with Doctor Who.

    N.B. The last sentence used a technique known as irony. Some of you may wish to study and attempt to understand it.

    • Two words: Lorraine Heggesey.
      Controller of BBC ONE.
      Will she replace TW with something as good as the show we (I certainly include myself in this group) remember?
      Probably not.
      TW is not going away but it just not going to go out regularly.

      An alternative theory is of course that with the rise of multichannel television in the UK, TW woudl have even lower ratings if it had kept its Peter McCann-era geekiness.
      However the BBC is about REACH (variety of audience) rather than sheer numbers so this is not a decent argument.
    • I agree with your analysis, and also the comments by AC about the presenters. I also stopped watching for the same reasons. What concerns me is that the slant towards bio-science is symptomatic of the way the BBC treats news about technology in general.
      I doubt there is a particular agenda for this, probably just a reflection of the lack of nerdiness amoung their editors. One example of this is the way they keep re-running the story about the clone babies even though there is not yet any evidence to prove this, the subject interests them so the story runs.
      On the rare occasions they do attempt to cover nerdy stuff they are often hopelessly out of date or off the mark. Such a pity.
      • ... and has been dead for a while.

        But I don't think it's necessarily because they alienated their geek audience with all that "soft" science stuff. I think it's because they're simply abandoning proper science coverage completely.

        These days, scientific innovation is complex stuff often operating at levels 99% of the population have no clue even exist (e.g. quantum physics). Explaining it in a visual medium reliant by definition on pictures is usually just about impossible. Despite all the recent cloning coverage, I doubt you'd find hardly anyone on the street who could tell you what the Human Genome Project is, or even what DNA is.

        The BBC is fighting for its life to defend the licence fee, and to do so it has to broaden its appeal. Science is the first major category for the culling. After One Man And His Dog, natch.

  • For the love of God, please replace it with anything other than another "Robot Wars" type of show.

  • That's a shame (Score:2, Interesting)

    by applef00 ( 574694 )
    I've always loved "science of tomorrow" shows. My personal favorites being the old Discovery Channel shows "Next Step" (hosted by the guy with the moustache that later went on to host "C|Net Central" on USA Network, if memory serves) and "Beyond 2000" (a BBC production, if I remember correctly). Admittedly, "Beyond 2000" had a built-in expiration. But it was still quite entertaining.

  • About time! (Score:2, Interesting)

    by FTL ( 112112 )
    I don't mean to Troll, but I am thankful that Tomorrow's World has been canceled. It is by far the worst 'science' show I've ever seen, and is (in its current form) a discrace to the Beeb. I live in the UK and have had the misfortune of watching it from time to time.

    When they present a story, they repeat the same material three times (using slightly different wording each time) just to make sure that the viewers comprehend. It is like watching Teletubbies.

    The content they present is beyond 'light'. They never go into any depth. They don't sray from the press release upon which they based the segment.

    And they dwell on safety. All they care about is safety. Did I mention that safety is important to them? (A good example is the segment on a new line of kitchen appliances that have lower magnetic fields. They [or rather the manufacturer's press release] implied that magnets are dangerous to your health. Nothing was offered to back up this claim.)

    I remember when the Canadian Discovery Channel purchased Tomorrow's World. They jumped up and down for joy at acquiring the BBC's flagship science program. After airing two episodes, they realised what a collosal mistake this was and pulled it.

  • Perhaps one of the best science/history shows that's ever been on television, and I know I'm not alone in thinking this.

    Unfortunately, TLC has replaced it with such inspiring fare as "Trading Spaces" and "Junkyard Wars", and Discovery (Canada) has no hope of picking it up, they're too busy re-running "Guiness Prime Time" - the record keepers, not the beer.

    It's sad that every damn form of media is being dumbed down to sensationalist joe punchclock filler - surely there are more than 5 people out there who'd like to see something with SOME substance.

    • Re:Connections (Score:3, Interesting)

      by Phil Wilkins ( 5921 )
      Absolutely amazing program. All three series of Connections are still available on VHS, and the first on is available on DVD.

      http://www.documentary-video.com/ShowSubject.cfm?s id=22 [documentary-video.com]

      I treated myself to the DVDs [documentary-video.com] last year, and they're every bit as good as I remembered, and not that dated (since they're mostly dealing with the history of technology). Well, apart from his suit...

    • Re:Connections (Score:3, Informative)

      by FeloniousPunk ( 591389 )
      Connections (and Connections 2) can still be seen on the Science Channel, which is a Discovery/TLC offering that I get here on Cox digital cable. It's great.
      But don't slam Junkyard Wars, it's a brilliant idea and a great show and definitely in a different league than the Robot Wars type shows (not to mention things like Trading Spaces).
      • junkyard wars is great.

        I love the episode where the guy carves a prop, with a chainsaw, and it works. If anybody ever says, I won't need math for what I want to do, have them watch that show.
        • junkyard wars is great

          Then you'll love Demolition. Two teams, an assortment of power tools, and races like "fit this car into these suitcases" and "fit this office into this filing cabinet". It's brilliant!

  • I'm sure many here would disagree, but the best science show I've ever seen is PBS' NOVA [pbs.org]. If the BBC doesn't already carry this somewhere then they absolutely should. This series totally inspired me as a kid, and now that I'm actually doing science as an adult my admiration for it has only grown. Nothing else on TV comes close to conveying what it's actually like to be a scientist.

    For lighter fare I'd recommend either Scientific American Frontiers [pbs.org] or the already mentioned Beyond 2000 [beyond2000.com].If New Scientist [newscientist.com] doesn't already have a TV series, though, they really should.

  • that if your invention got to be showcased on Tomorrows World it would never make a success?

    And the BBC are just dumbing down the remaining shows that need 4 brain cells to watch. Sky are hitting them hard when it comes to prime time viewing, the only thing that gets viewers on the BBC is EastEnders.

    But I hate the way they have phucked up science programmes. Walking With Dinosaurs was portrayed as a scientific show. IT WASNT! It was a bunch of script writers making up crap from pictures of fozziled bones. How can you deduce all that crap they showed from that?

  • Tomorrow's World was good. It taught me about cool new things like the internet.

    But now we don't need it, because we have cool new things like the internet.
  • CBC has a great radio show called Quirks and Quarks [radio.cbc.ca]. If you live in Canada, you can listen on CBC 1 Saturdays @ noon. Best of all, you can download each segment in ogg, mp3, or real formats, put them in a playlist, and create your own custom show!

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