Part 1 • 2017 • episode "S1E1" • Concorde the Supersonic Race

57:47

In the first episode, Andrew looks at how people live in five of the world's biggest megacities: London, one of the world's oldest megacities; Dhaka, the world's fastest-growing megacity; Tokyo, the largest megacity on Earth; Mexico City, one of the most dangerous cities in the world; and Shanghai, arguably the financial capital of the world. Andrew compares the sleek skyscrapers and rapid modernisation of Shanghai to the colourful street culture and geographic sprawl of Mexico City. He spends a night living in a one-room shack in Dhaka's toughest slum, taking his turn to fetch water, cook and clean; and he rents a friend in the efficient and high-tech, but alienating, city of Tokyo. As he gets under the skin of each unique metropolis, Andrew discovers how the structure of each megacity defines every aspect of its inhabitants' daily lives. And he considers what the megacities of the future can learn from the metropolises of today.

S1E1 • Andrew Marr's Megacities • 2011 • Technology

22:48

The remarkable story of the engineers behind the revolutionary technologies developed for the Apollo missions. In the face of epic challenges, and with a fraction of today’s technology, these are the people who navigated us to the moon and back.

2019 • Technology

94:43

Explores state surveillance and digital social control in China by following the experiences of two families and a journalist. Zijuan Chen is fighting for the release of her imprisoned husband, human rights lawyer Weiping Chang, while trying to keep his memory alive for their son. Wenzu Li and her newly freed husband, Quanzhang Wang, struggle against surveillance that is not only stopping him from being able to work but also affecting ordinary tasks like taking their son to school. Journalist Sophie Xueqin Huang, a pivotal figure in bringing the Me Too movement to China, is at constant risk of arrest. Chinese film-maker Jialing Zhang gives an exclusive and previously impossible intimate insight into the interior of China and tells a deeply disturbing story of how the state uses technology to control its citizens as well as propaganda to convince its people to trust it.

2024 • Technology

55:41

Join Steven Johnson and consider how the invention of the mirror spurred on the Renaissance, how glass lenses allow us to reveal worlds within worlds and how, deep beneath the ocean, glass is essential to communication. Johnson learns about the daring exploits of glassmakers who were forced to work under threat of the death penalty, a physics teacher who liked to fire molten glass from a crossbow and a scientist whose tinkering with a glass lens allowed 600 million people to see a man set foot on the moon. The link between the worlds of art, science, astronomy, disease prevention and global communication starts with the little-known maverick innovators of glass.

S1E3 • How We Got to Now • 2014 • Technology

12:17

A.I. is a primal force, like fire. The same fire that warms us can incinerate our homes; A.I. could enslave mankind -- or, join us in a grand alliance to reach the stars.

2017 • Technology

49:00

We explore the revolutionary gene-editing tech now giving humankind the freedom to redraw the blueprint of biological life itself. We investigate not only the tremendous potential the technology holds, whether in the fight to eliminate diseases or in transforming agriculture to adapt to unprecedented climate extremes, but also probe the inherent risks involved and the potential for widespread abuse, dangers that could take our future down a very dark, dystopian path.

2022 • Technology