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Descent Into Darkness

   2021    Nature
In the second episode, Will Smith descends 3,300 feet to the bottom of the ocean in a deep-water submersible, where even fewer people have gone than outer space. Along the way down, Will and explorer Diva Amon investigate how colour is used in the natural world and the role of bioluminescence. In the oceans, nearly 80 percent of animals use bioluminescence in some way, possibly the most common form of communication on the planet.
Series: Welcome to Earth

The Great Tide

   2009    Nature
A mighty army of dolphins, sharks, whales, seals and gannets hunt down the billions of sardines along South Africa's east coast each winter. This is the Sardine Run: an underwater Armageddon, the greatest gathering of predators anywhere on the planet, and the most spectacular event in the world's oceans. From intimate moments of the creatures caught up in the run, to the dramatic finale of this spectacular event, The Great Tide is an action-packed feeding-frenzy, filmed underwater, on the ocean's surface, and in the air.
However, in recent years the sardine run has become less predictable, perhaps due to the warming effects of climate change. If the sardine run does not happen, the lives of the animals caught up in the drama hang in the balance. Pioneering a unique boat stabilised camera mount for surface filming, Nature's Great Events crew capture all the high octane action as the predators compete for sardines, filmed with aerial, underwater and above water cameras. Super slow motion cameras also capture the very moment gannets plunge into the water, hitting it at sixty miles an hour.
A violent winter storm is the trigger for the sardines to begin their desperate dash. They are followed by a super-pod of 5,000 dolphins and further up the coast more predators gather. A shoal of sardines 15 miles long is pushed into the shallows and aerial shots show thousands of sharks gathering to feed on them. The climax to the sardine run is a spectacular feeding frenzy as the dolphins round the sardines up into balls on which all the predators feast. Gannets rain down in their thousands, sharks pile in scattering the fish and a Bryde's whale lunges in taking great mouthfuls of sardines.
Series: Nature Great Events

Foreigners in their Own Land

   2013    History
One hundred years after Columbus' arrival in the Caribbean, Spanish Conquistadors and Priests, push into North America in search of gold and to spread Catholicism. With the arrival of the British in North America, the two colonial systems produce contrasting societies that come in conflict as Manifest Destiny pushes the U.S into the Mexican territories of the South West. As the Gold Rush floods California with settlers, complex and vital communities are overwhelmed. The elites, including Mariano Vallejo and Apolinaria Lorenzana lose their land. Mexicans and Mexican Americans are treated as second-class citizens, facing discrimination and racial violence. Resistance to this injustice appears in New Mexico as Las Gorras Blancas (The White Caps), burn Anglo ranches and cut through barbed wire to prevent Anglo encroachment. At the same time, New Mexicans manage to transform themselves through education, managing to preserve Hispano culture in New Mexico and their standing in the midst of an era of conquest and dispossession.
Series: Latino Americans

New Blood

   2016    History
After becoming the most powerful mob boss in the country, Al Capone now finds himself locked up in America's newest and harshest maximum security prison: Alcatraz. Prohibition has recently been repealed and one of the Outfit's most important sources of income dries up. With Capone cut off from all communication, his most trusted men, Frank Nitti, Tony Accardo and Paul Ricca, must keep his organization from collapsing. With Americans flocking to theaters by the thousands, the movie business is raking in millions of dollars a month. To take advantage of Hollywood, Nitti recruits Willy Bioff. Acardo breaks into a new racket in Chicago: slot machines. With help from Ricca, Accardo builds a network of slots in Chicago bars, earning up to $20,000 a year. By the end of 1939, the Outfit is bringing in more money than ever before... But new problems start to appear.
Series: The Making of the Mob

Exploring The Universe

   2020    Science
This remarkable science-history series investigates the blistering pace of human endeavour in space exploration, computing, energy, resources, Earth science and our understanding of the evolution of life itself. Across the last 50 years, humans have set a blistering pace and scientific discovery. We've crossed the boundaries of our solar system, made machines that can learn harnessed the power of the sun and built life from scratch. It's a period like no other in history, where human endeavour is changing everything: this is The Great Acceleration. As we race toward the future, we must examine the journey.
In the first episode, Dr Shalin Naik explores the ambitious space shuttle mission that began in the '70s plus the future colonization of Mars. Over the past 50 years, space has become central to everything, from communications to entertainment to climate modelling. And as private enterprise enters space exploration, our understanding of the universe will only continue to expand. We will know if we can survive on other objects - the moon, maybe Mars, maybe even some of the moons of Jupiter and Saturn. Deep space is the last and infinite frontier. That's what we do as human beings. We explore, we learn, we make discoveries, from the moment we're born to the moment we die.
Series: The Great Acceleration

Murder Habit

   2020    Culture
This featured series is a gripping examination of the unsolved crimes of the Golden State Killer who terrorized California in the 1970's and 1980's. Sensitively handled at all turns, I’ll Be Gone in the Dark is different from your standard true crime series. Highly emotional in both a restorative cathartic, but also a genuinely upsetting way.
In the first episode, the writer Michelle McNamara finds a new obsession in the 'East Area Rapist', who terrorized California in the 1970s and '80s, responsible for 50 home-invasion rapes and 12 murders.
Series: I Will Be Gone In The Dark