Dr Claire Taylor learns more about the the UK's fastest growing health condition, she meets patients living with dementia, as well as scientists and experts working in the field. The GP puts herself through innovative tests to find out how to spot the earliest signs and learns about different types of the disease. Plus, Claire investigates cutting edge treatments and asks what can be done to prevent dementia developing.
2025 • Health
A two-part documentary recounting the Cold War space race between the United States and the Soviet Union. Through newly colorized archival footage and firsthand accounts, it follows the rivalry from early satellites and rocket development to espionage, surveillance, and the Apollo Moon landings.
2026 • Astronomy
Explores the ever-present dangers faced by astronauts on the ISS, ranging from meteor strikes and docking disasters to the entire station backflipping out of control.
S1E2 • Terror on the Space Station • 2025 • Astronomy
Explores the danger and ambition of building the International Space Station in space, where a single mistake could prove fatal.
S1E1 • Terror on the Space Station • 2025 • Astronomy
How did Stone Age communities build enormous burial mounds, stone circles, temples, and tombs with the limited technology available to them? This episode visits major archaeological sites in Scotland, Brittany, Austria, Malta, Turkey, and Jordan to investigate how massive stones were transported, what these monuments meant, and what they reveal about early social organization and beliefs.
S1E2 • Secrets of the Stone Age • 2017 • History
Around 12,000 years ago, humans began abandoning a nomadic existence for settled life. The episode follows the emergence of agriculture and animal husbandry, the growth of settlements, changing diets, and the remarkable discovery of Göbekli Tepe in southern Turkey—where hunter-gatherers erected massive decorated stone columns long before farming became widespread.
S1E1 • Secrets of the Stone Age • 2017 • History
Philomena Cunk returns with her most ambitious quest yet - venturing right up the universe to examine life and existence. Mockumentary from Charlie Brooker starring Diane Morgan.
2024 • Nature
Simon Reeve embarks on a 3,000-mile journey across the deserts, plains and mountains of Mongolia in search of snow leopards and the nomadic people who hunt with golden eagles.
S2E4 • Wilderness with Simon Reeve • 2026 • Nature
Simon Reeve treks and canoes through Canada’s rugged and frozen Yukon Territory to meet the people who make the wilderness home and to search for grizzly bears, the apex predator.
S2E3 • Wilderness with Simon Reeve • 2026 • Nature
Simon Reeve voyages across Mexico’s beautiful and remote Sea of Cortez, known as the 'aquarium of the world', to dive with rare and dangerous sharks.
S2E2 • Wilderness with Simon Reeve • 2026 • Nature
Simon Reeve journeys through the lost world of Papua New Guinea’s tropical rainforest in search of the tenkile tree kangaroo, one of the rarest animals on Earth.
S2E1 • Wilderness with Simon Reeve • 2026 • Nature
Simon Reeve crosses the parched desert of southern Africa, tracking wildebeest with the famous hunter-gatherers of the Kalahari, before heading to the oasis of the Okavango Delta.
S1E4 • Wilderness with Simon Reeve • 2024 • Nature
In the first of this three-part series investigating consumer spending, Jacques reveals how the concept of 'product lifespan' holds the key to our ever-churning consumerism. Exploring the historical origin of planned obsolescence, when some of the world biggest electrical manufacturers formed a light bulb cartel in the 1920s, Jacques reveals how products that are essential to our modern lifestyles are still made to break. During his investigation, Jacques uncovers the process by which a crucial transformation happened and attitudes towards spending were transformed. Instead of needing new goods because our old ones were broken, we learned to want them for reasons of fashion and aspiration - awaking a consumer appetite that could never be satisfied. In the US, he visits a recycling centre where brand-new high-tech goods are destroyed before they have even come out of the box. Jacques also meets some of the companies that encourage consumers to be dissatisfied with what they have and encourage purchases as part of an ever-faster cycle of 'upgrades'. He asks a senior IKEA executive why, despite the company's commitment to sustainability, it still encourages repeated discarding and purchasing. Jacques also talks to a former senior Apple employee who reveals how the company's new focus on fashion, with its colourful iPhones, keeps us buying even when technological innovation slows.
S1E1 • The Men Who Made Us Spend • 2014 • Economics
David Attenborough journeys to both Polar Regions to investigate what rising temperatures will mean for the people and wildlife that live there and for the rest of the planet. David starts out at the North Pole, standing on sea ice several metres thick, but which scientists predict could be Open Ocean within the next few decades. The Arctic has been warming at twice the global average, so David heads out with a Norwegian team to see what this means for polar bears. He comes face-to-face with a tranquilised female, and discovers that mothers and cubs are going hungry as the sea ice on which they hunt disappears. In Canada, Inuit hunters have seen with their own eyes what scientists have seen from space; the Arctic Ocean has lost 30% of its summer ice cover over the last 30 years. For some, the melting sea ice will allow access to trillions of dollars worth of oil, gas and minerals. For the rest of us, it means the planet will get warmer, as sea ice is important to reflect back the sun's energy. Next David travels to see what's happening to the ice on land: in Greenland, we follow intrepid ice scientists as they study giant waterfalls of meltwater, which are accelerating iceberg calving events, and ultimately leading to a rise in global sea level. Temperatures have also risen in the Antarctic - David returns to glaciers photographed by the Shackleton expedition and reveals a dramatic retreat over the past century. It's not just the ice that is changing - ice-loving adelie penguins are disappearing, and more temperate gentoo penguins are moving in. Finally, we see the first ever images of the largest recent natural event on our planet - the break up of the Wilkins Ice Shelf, an ice sheet the size of Jamaica, which shattered into hundreds of icebergs in 2009.
S1E7 • Frozen Planet • 2011 • Nature
Imagine a world where dinosaurs still walk the earth. A world where the Germans won World War II and you are president of the United States. Imagine a world where the laws of physics no longer apply and where infinite copies of you are playing out every storyline of your life. It sounds like a plot stolen straight from Hollywood, but far from it. This is the multiverse. Until very recently the whole idea of the multiverse was dismissed as a fantasy, but now this strangest of ideas is at the cutting edge of science. And for a growing number of scientists, the multiverse is the only way we will ever truly make sense of the world we are in. Horizon asks the question: Do multiple universes exist? And if so, which one are we actually in?
The dramatic, moving and powerful story of humanity’s conquest of Mars, told by the people who risked entire careers to explore the red planet. Did we find evidence for life back in the ’70s? Some believe we did.
S1E4 • Secrets of the Solar System • 2020 • Astronomy
How are our moral decisions influenced by factors we’re not aware of? A phenomenon known as Moral Licensing claims that when we do something good, we often subconsciously allow ourselves to then do something bad. In this episode, I take a look at whether those who donate money to charity become more likely to let a kid take the blame for a crime they know they committed.
S3E2 • Mind Field • 2018 • Brain
Jupiter is a massive and dangerous planet, surrounded by a wreath of deadly radiation. This is the story of how humans built machines that not only survived the perils of the huge gas giant but revealed its innermost secrets.
S1E5 • Secrets of the Solar System • 2020 • Astronomy
Jan Leeming narrates a look at controversies, scandals and surprises in TV, film, music and politics in 1988, including Salman Rushdie's book The Satanic Verses igniting a literary and religious firestorm and Ian Paisley daring to heckle the Pope. On the global stage, US president Ronald Reagan and USSR leader Mikhail Gorbachev reshaped geopolitics, while a soundbite from Tory MP Edwina Currie dented the UK's confidence in eggs, leading to a nationwide salmonella scare.
S1E4 • Controversially: That Was the Year that Was • 2023 • Economics
The TV series "Mad Men" gave us a glimpse into the world of US advertising. Ch 1. The 1950s Now see how advertisements in the 1950s tantalised Americans with visions of futuristic homes and cars. Ch 2. The 1960s This was the era at the heart of the TV series 'Mad Men' when Madison Avenue tapped into the growing counter-cultural movement, using irreverence and wit, and changed advertising forever. Ch 3. The 1970s A golden age in America's ad world, full of creativity and a love affair with non-conformity. But it was also fraught with new challenges, including a growing mistrust amongst consumers. Ch 4. The 1980s It's the Reagan Era, and American political confidence fuels an era of heavy consumption. The creative geniuses on Madison Avenue find new ways of attracting a booming consumer spend.
2019 • Economics
FRONTLINE’s three-part series The Power of Big Oil examines the fossil fuel industry’s history of denying climate change by delaying action and casting doubt on scientific research. As leading climate scientists issue new warnings, this third part of the series examines tactics used by the fossil fuel industry to delay the transition to renewable energy sources — including the promotion of natural gas as a cleaner alternative.
S1E3 • The Power of Big Oil • 2022 • Economics
Cullen Hoback investigates the origins of Bitcoin and its anonymous creator Satoshi Nakamoto, exploring the potential of this cryptocurrency on the global financial system and who could hold immense power if it became mainstream.
2024 • Economics
Jacques reveals how the lessons learned from selling to children were used to make childlike consumers of us all. From the rise of product-driven kids’ TV in the 80s, to the man who designed cars that appealed to children, and the contemporary creators of games that hook adults, Jacques asks how spending turned into a game – one that we can’t stop playing.
S1E3 • The Men Who Made Us Spend • 2014 • Economics
Controversies, scandals and surprises from the year, with Grange Hill tackling the issue of heroin addiction and EastEnders introducing a gay couple to Albert Square. Screenwriter Dennis Potter's drama The Singing Detective won over the critics, but its sex scenes and nudity upset moral campaigner Mary Whitehouse, while cricketer Ian Botham caused a storm after confessing that he'd smoked marijuana. Narrated by Jan Leeming, with contributions from Mark Little, Nick Ferrari, Cheryl Baker, Nick Hewer, Danny John-Jules and Nina Wadia.
S1E3 • Controversially: That Was the Year that Was • 2023 • Economics
Caroline and Piers start the season in Portugal, where a fully automated home, a serpentine design, an X-shaped stunner and a woodland property await
S2E2 • The World's Most Extraordinary Homes • 2018 • Design
A showcase of top animation from the UK's finest new talents. British animator Osbert Parker presents the TV premiere of exciting short films. All were recipients of grants under BBC Four and the British Film Institute's Animation 2018 initiative, which called out for new and emerging talent from around the country. The films take a variety of approaches, using styles and techniques ranging from hand-drawn images to live-action puppetry, stop motion, CG, 2D and 3D, covering a diversity of genres from science-fiction to documentary. Though richly varied in tone and content, they have been curated into four groups on the themes of animals, other worlds, obsession and love. Morris dancing badgers, a noir fairy tale, a heartening tale of love beyond the grave and an alien coming-of-age story are just some of the treats in store from some of the nation's most-imaginative and talented new animators.
2018 • Design
For two millennia, great artists set the standard for beauty. Now those standards are gone. Modern Art is a competition between the ugly and the twisted; the most shocking wins. What happened?
Piers Taylor and Caroline Quentin visit an island in Norway, spending two days in a house built on a footprint of just 100 square metres. In Spain, the pair head to a home built into a steep cliff face overlooking the Mediterranean, featuring a cantilevered terrace offering maximum sea views and a swimming pool as well as an unusual tiled roof. After viewing a house in New Zealand crafted from two separate wooden cladded structures, the duo explore a home in Canada inspired by two ships in dry dock, designed to peer over the coast, allowing the sea to pass underneath.
S1E3 • The World's Most Extraordinary Homes • 2017 • Design
Stage designer Es Devlin crafts evocative sets for concerts, operas, plays and runway shows using light, film, sculpture -- and even rain.
S1E3 • Abstract: The Art of Design • 2017 • Design
They begin in California, viewing a property built from the wings and tail fins of a Boeing 747. In Arizona, the pair stay in a modern house with an innovative take on an ancient technique of absorbing the heat during the day and releasing it at night. In New Zealand, Caroline and Piers view a house camouflaged using cedar cladding, while their last stop takes them to a hexagonal alpine chalet with a steel chimney core that anchors it to the mountain.
S1E1 • The World's Most Extraordinary Homes • 2017 • Design
Early man rubbed two sticks together and created fire. We learn to cook our food, saving vital energy. As a result, our brains expand--making us the most intelligent species on the planet.
7/12 • Mankind Decoded • 2013 • History
In the grasslands, animals endure freezes, fires, floods, and droughts; bull elephants clash in mating battles; cheetahs and gazelles engage in a predator-and-prey dance in the Kenyan savanna; bison battle a blizzard while being pursued by wolves.
S1E3 • Hostile Planet • 2019 • Nature
For two years BBC cameras have followed, Dr Sheperd Doeleman of the Smithsonian Astrophysical Observatory and the work of the Event Horizon Telescope project team, a collective of the top scientific minds from around the world. The project combines radio observatories and telescope facilities from around the world to make up a virtual telescope with a diameter spanning the entire planet. This mega-telescope’s ultimate mission is to capture the first image ever of a black hole. Although the concept of black holes has been long assumed to be fact, the Event Horizon Telescope’s success would definitively prove the existence of this scientific phenomena for the first time – and provide clear visual evidence. The programme brings viewers into the laboratories, behind the computer screens and beside the telescopes of what may prove to be one of the great astrophysical achievements in human history.
2019 • Astronomy
Professor Darius Arya uses scanning technology to reveal the hidden secrets of ancient Athens. From the buildings on the Acropolis to the silver mines and quarries beyond the city, he investigates the story of the city that gave the world democracy.
S1E1 • Ancient Invisible Cities • 2018 • History
The Milky Way is dying, and experts are investigating what's killing it.
S6E4 • How the Universe Works • 2018 • Astronomy
Dirt roads. Pickup trucks. Hip-hop? As the borders around country music shift, who decides what defines the popular genre, and who gets to be a star?