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BBC Three "Documentaries"...

M

Moraza

New Member
arg-fallbackName="Moraza"/>
So I was bored yesterday whilst supposed to be doing work, and decided to check twitter, due to all the hype surrounding the iPad. Now I had it regionally set up to London, and UFO's popped up in the trending topic section. After a bit of snooping around, I found that it was due to a program on BBC Three titled "I Believe in UFOs: Danny Dyer". Now obviously I ignored this as a bit of rubbish TV, and moved on.

However, When again bored today (I REALLY should start doing some work for my project... anyone know the history of Tetrapods?) I decided to recheck up on this, and found that it's a whole series. Seems like there's also a "I Believe in Ghosts" and "I believe in Miracles", and these last two really pissed me off.

First of all, I decided to watch the Ghosts one. They basically go through the hour ignoring every rational person who speaks to them, and being overtly biased on the side of "Oh, it's always a possibility. You never know...". This is annoying, but passable, as it's about ghosts for gods sake. However, I then checked the series and looked at the info for the Miracles one, starring Jodie Kidd, whoever that is. Here's the description:

"Actress Jodie Kidd explores the world of miracle healing. Crippled by panic attacks in her early twenties, conventional medicine didn't help her, but she believes that crystals did.
To try and understand how, she travels to Nepal to meet the shamans, who many believe have miraculous healing powers. She meets Rupert Issacson, who believes his young autistic son Rowan is living proof of the power of shamans."

Now, to be fair, I haven't actually seen this program yet, as it's to be aired on tuesday. However, from the text and watching the other one, I can make an accurate guess as to it having the same approach of "You never know/it doesn't hurt to believe". Now this just truly isn't on, especially when it's listed under "factual" and "documentary" on their website. As the great Tim Minchin puts it, The only alternative medicine that's been proven to work is known as Medicine, and the second you start to plant the seed of doubt in people's minds, it just goes downhill from there.

Now I don't know if I'm reading too much into this, or just really want a distraction from impending doom due to work overload, but what are your thoughts?

Peace,

Moraza.
 
arg-fallbackName="Nashy19"/>
I watched the UFO one yesterday.

Basically it's Danny Dyer, who isn't a big thinker or very knowledgeable, wanting to see a UFO (as in an unidentified flying object like the one's people believe are involved alien abductions). It's true that he believes in UFOs and aliens, as lots of us do, but the point is that he hopes they are trying to visit us. First of all he confirms that it's rational to believe in aliens at all, then he looks at crop circles and how dedicated people are to trying to find alien crafts, as well as some dodgy hard evidence (videos, photos and letters from the government). His crop circle evidence is pretty much blow away when he looks at the other side, talking to people who probably make them as a hobby and he's naturally sceptical of the "hard evidence". At the end he says he hopes the UFO hunters are right, because of how much they dedicated to it.

That's all really, it's not much of a documentary but it's better viewing than most TV.
 
arg-fallbackName="obsidianavenger"/>
i remember i watched a doco about james randi once, debunking various things, and he did a demonstration in a high school classroom. one kid raised his hand after randi made his point and said something like "oh i've seen it a lot of times where scientists just want to push their agenda and tell people they're wrong just cause they disagree" or something like that.

i think thats the root of this kind of problem. in a postmodern landscape, science is just another opinion forcing itself on the masses. no one understands *why* scientific explanations trump others. and this kind of thing makes it worse... as if because you can imagine something it automatically become plausable. blegh.

i am not sure if you get the history channel over there, but most of its programming these days is in the same vein...
 
arg-fallbackName="australopithecus"/>
BBC 3 is good for two things, repeats of Doctor Who and repeats of Top Gear. Everything else is generally terrible.
 
arg-fallbackName="MRaverz"/>
If you want documentaries, you go to BBC four (a gold mine recently with history of the British Navy, Aristole's biological works, introduction to chaos theory etc). However if you want light-hearted, dumbed-down entertainment you turn to BBC Three.

This Danny Dyer rubbish is just added to the skip with 'Young and wanting massive tits' or 'Binge drinking, it's a bit crap if you think about it'. :D :lol:
 
arg-fallbackName="Deleted member 499"/>
Don't think I've ever seen a BBC three documentary, having read this it's not really something I want to change. BBC in general are reasonably good though, there's one at the moment called "how the earth made us" . It's pretty good and it has what seems to be becoming a rare feature....a narrator who actually knows what they're talking about.
 
arg-fallbackName="australopithecus"/>
There was a series called 'Cell' on recently, about cells (obviously) from the understanding of what a cell and DNA is to abiogenesis and current attempts to create life. It was extremely good.
 
arg-fallbackName="nasher168"/>
australopithecus said:
There was a series called 'Cell' on recently, about cells (obviously) from the understanding of what a cell and DNA is to abiogenesis and current attempts to create life. It was extremely good.
Click to expand...
 
arg-fallbackName="Moraza"/>
obsidianavenger said:
i remember i watched a doco about james randi once, debunking various things, and he did a demonstration in a high school classroom. one kid raised his hand after randi made his point and said something like "oh i've seen it a lot of times where scientists just want to push their agenda and tell people they're wrong just cause they disagree" or something like that.

i think thats the root of this kind of problem. in a postmodern landscape, science is just another opinion forcing itself on the masses. no one understands *why* scientific explanations trump others. and this kind of thing makes it worse... as if because you can imagine something it automatically become plausable. blegh.

i am not sure if you get the history channel over there, but most of its programming these days is in the same vein...
Click to expand...

I think this was my major problem with it, it just really seemed to want to go against any formal or scientific evidence. Now that's obviously because they're making a program on UFO's, and want some kind of result to come out of it for "good television" (Which is an awful phrase, as most of the time is is most certainly not good). Problem is, this still doesn't change the fact that it's showing everyones beliefs as equal, when they're blatantly not, and that's what is most worrying about the media's portrayal of science today. You're absolutely right, people have to understand WHY science comes to certain rational conclusions, and why it is better equipped to deal with these problems than someone off Eastenders.

Also, I must add in theres not way I'd normally head over to BBC3 except for Doctor Who, and even then there's Watch and iPlayer if need be. Procrastination leads you to terrible places :p
 
arg-fallbackName=")O( Hytegia )O("/>
nasher168 said:
*Waits for niocan to come in and say he loved the shows* :lol:
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I enjoyed the features.

xD

But, in all honesty - BBC 3 is for Psudoscience and the like. BBC 4 is for the real shit.

*Awaits for someone to point out that he lives in America*
 
arg-fallbackName="MRaverz"/>
)O( Hytegia )O( said:
nasher168 said:
*Waits for niocan to come in and say he loved the shows* :lol:
Click to expand...
I enjoyed the features.

xD

But, in all honesty - BBC 3 is for Psudoscience and the like. BBC 4 is for the real shit.

*Awaits for someone to point out that he lives in America*
Click to expand...
You and your region-masking technology!
 
arg-fallbackName="MRaverz"/>
)O( Hytegia )O( said:
I watch the BBC online. It's great to be able to understand your funny accents.

^^
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To be honest, our accents are so diverse I find trouble understanding some of them. :lol:
 
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