Top Rated Documentary TV Series on Pantaflix - Page 149

Gardeners' World

1968

Gardeners' World

1968
8.2
Gardeners' World is a long-running BBC Television programme about gardening, first broadcast in 1968 and still running as of 2013. Its first episode was presented by Ken Burras and came from Oxford Botanical Gardens. The magazine BBC Gardeners' World is a tie-in to the programme. Most of its episodes have been 30 minutes in length, although there are many specials that last longer. The 2008 and 2009 series used a 60-minute format.
Evolution

2001

Evolution

2001
8
Evolution is a 2001 documentary series by the American broadcaster Public Broadcasting Service and WGBH on evolutionary biology. The spokespeople for the series were Jane Goodall, Kenneth R. Miller and Stephen Jay Gould, Eugenie C. Scott, Arthur Peacocke and Arnold Thomas. The series was narrated by the Irish actor Liam Neeson. The series was accompanied by a book by the popular science writer Carl Zimmer Evolution: The Triumph of an Idea. An extensive website provides teaching resources for each episode's material, including "The Mating Game", further looks at Charles Darwin, and an interactive history of speciation in the invented "pollencreeper" birds.
72 Hours: True Crime

2003

72 Hours: True Crime

2003
6.6
72 Hours: True Crime focuses on crime, specifically on the first 72 hours after a crime is committed, a critical time period for solving it. Rather than focus on fictional crimes, as do Law & Order and other TV shows elsewhere, True Crime depicted actual crimes that occurred throughout Canada, using dramatic reenactments and documentary-style footage of crime scenes.
Vietnam: The Ten Thousand Day War (1980)

0000

Vietnam: The Ten Thousand Day War (1980)

0000
9.4
Vietnam: The Ten Thousand Day War, a 26-part Canadian television documentary on the Vietnam War, was produced in 1980 by Michael Maclear. The series aired in Canada on CBC Television, in the United States and in the United Kingdom on Channel 4. Maclear visited Vietnam during the production of the series and had access to film material there. He was the first Western journalist allowed to visit that area since the war. The documentary series was consolidated into 13 hour-long episodes for American television syndication. The series was released on videocassette format by Embassy and won a National Education Association award for best world documentary. Series writer Peter Arnett was an Associated Press reporter in Vietnam from 1962 to 1975. CBC aired only 18 of the episodes during the 1980-81 season because the series production was incomplete. The remaining episodes were broadcast during CBC's 1981-82 season.
Barbarians

2004

Barbarians

2004
6.2
Barbarians is a mini-series on The History Channel which tells the story of the most barbaric tribes of the early and late Middle Ages. Two series have currently been produced, each consisting of four episodes. This program tells about what the groups did, who they conquered, and how they fell. Clancy Brown narrated both seasons.
Royal Institution Christmas Lectures

1966

Royal Institution Christmas Lectures

1966
5.1
The Royal Institution Christmas Lectures are a series of lectures on a single topic, which have been held at the Royal Institution in London each year since 1825. The lectures present scientific subjects to a general audience, including young people, in an informative and entertaining manner. Michael Faraday initiated the first Christmas Lecture series in 1825. This came at a time when organised education for young people was scarce. Faraday presented a total of nineteen series in all.
Build It Bigger

2006

Build It Bigger

2006
7.6
Architect Danny Forster takes you inside some of the most head-scratching builds in the world. Join Danny as he meets the men and women tackling the unique challenges of constructing the tallest buildings, the most effective military tanks, the largest luxury cruise ships, and the most extreme thrill rides. How do you build a 3,113-foot-long wooden roller coaster in winter temperatures of minus 40 degrees? Or get your workers safely to and from a worksite on a skyscraper that's 1,614 feet above street level? Or dig a water tunnel - along the San Adreas Fault and 1,000 feet below the earth's surface - without it collapsing on itself ... or flooding? Our intrepid host answers these puzzles and more. Don't miss the big stories behind these even bigger engineering marvels.
An American Family

1973

An American Family

1973
5.4
Originally intended as a chronicle of the daily life of the Louds, a Santa Barbara upper-middle-class family, the groundbreaking program documented the breakup of the family via the separation and subsequent divorce of parents Bill and Pat Loud.
Trauma: Life in the E.R.

0000

Trauma: Life in the E.R.

0000
8.6
Trauma: Life in the E.R. is a medical-based television reality show that formerly ran on TLC from 1997 to 2002 and reruns are currently airing on Discovery Fit & Health. At its peak, Trauma was one of TLC's top-rated shows and spawned two spin-offs, Paramedics and Code Blue.
Inspector Gadget's Field Trip

1996

Inspector Gadget's Field Trip

1996
7.6
Inspector Gadget's Field Trip was a spin-off of Inspector Gadget in which the gizmo-gifted but bubble-brained inspector acted as the host of a series of mini-travelogues. Don Adams returned as the voice of the animated Gadget, showing viewers famous cities and sites around the world via live-action clips.
American Hot Rod

2004

American Hot Rod

2004
6.4
American Hot Rod is a reality television series that originally aired between 2004 and 2008 on The Learning Channel and Discovery Channel. The unique series documented the crew at Boyd Coddington's car shop and their personal struggles to build hot rods and custom vehicles. It was made on location at Coddington's hot rod and wheel shop in La Habra, California. Many employees went to work for Overhaulin's Chip Foose, a former partner of Coddington, for a more relaxed environment. Custom built cars built during the series included the "Alumatub", 61 Impala Bubbletop, 63 Chevy Corvette Stingray and a 42 Woodie. In July 2007, the shop made an Elvis Tribute Car, a modified 1957 pink Cadillac, sponsored by Reese’s. Boyd Coddington died in February 2008. His shop closed its doors for the final time on Friday June 20, 2008.
Twice in a Lifetime

1999

Twice in a Lifetime

1999
6.2
Prematurely deceased people are given the opportunity to correct something that went wrong in their lives and thus change them for the better.
Intimate Portrait

1993

Intimate Portrait

1993
4.5
Intimate Portrait is a biographical television series on the Lifetime Television cable network focusing on different celebrities, which includes interviews with each subject. Among the people profiled were Grace Kelly, Natalie Wood, Carly Simon, Jackie Kennedy, Katharine Hepburn, Carol Burnett, Tanya Tucker, and Marla Maples.
Sexual Secrets

2002

Sexual Secrets

2002
6.6
Sexual Secrets is a documentary television series which explores various concepts of human sexuality shown on Slice in Canada. Sexual Secrets is the only television series that combines equal measures of fun, down-to-earth talk, and need-to-know information to present a highly entertaining look at that most primordial of human urges - sex. Over the course of the hour-long episodes, we examine the latest work by scientists and sex experts from around the globe as they investigate a broad spectrum of sexual topics.
Eyes on the Prize

1987

Eyes on the Prize

1987
7
The definitive story of the Civil Rights era from the point of view of the ordinary men and women whose extraordinary actions launched a movement that changed the fabric of American life, and embodied a struggle whose reverberation continue to be felt today.
Operation Repo

2008

Operation Repo

2008
4.2
Operation Repo is an American television program that depicts the world of car repossession with a team that portrays fictionalized tales of repossessions from California's San Fernando Valley. Similar to another truTV show, Southern Fried Stings, the series is filmed in a cinema verité style but consists of scripted and dramatized performances by actors. The show is filmed by recreating scenes in which the cast conducts repossessions of automobiles for finance companies. In the show they also perform repossessions of other exotic and strange items such as luxury boats, planes, limousines, motorcycles, ATVs, Zambonis, ice cream trucks, tow trucks, buses, trucks, expensive bicycles, hot air balloons, wood chippers, forklifts, and tanning beds.
Heroes and Villains

2007

Heroes and Villains

2007
7
Heroes and Villains was a 2007-2008 BBC Television docudrama series looking at key moments in the lives and reputations of some of the greatest warriors of history. Each hour long episode featured a different historical figure, including Napoleon I of France, Attila the Hun, Spartacus, Hernán Cortés, Richard I of England, and Tokugawa Ieyasu. The statements at the beginning of each episode read: "This film depicts real events and real characters. It is based on the accounts of writers of the time. It has been written with the advice of modern historians." In the United States the show is aired on The Military Channel and was called "Warriors".
I Love the '70s

2003

I Love the '70s

2003
8.2
I Love the '70s is a decade nostalgia television mini-series produced by VH-1. The series is based on a BBC series of the same name. It examines the pop culture of the 1970s, using footage from the era, along with "Where Are They Now?" interviews with celebrities from the decade. Additionally, the show features comedians poking fun at the kitchiness of what was popular. The first episode of the series, I Love 1970, premiered on August 18, 2003. A sequel, I Love the '70s: Volume 2, appeared in the United States on VH-1 beginning on 10 July 2006.
The Hotel Inspector

2005

The Hotel Inspector

2005
8.8
A celebrated hotelier visits a struggling British hotel and tries to turn its fortunes by giving advice and suggestions to the owner.
Terry Jones' Barbarians

2006

Terry Jones' Barbarians

2006
8.6
Terry Jones' Barbarians is a 4-part TV documentary series first broadcast on BBC 2 in 2006. It was written and presented by Terry Jones, and it challenges the received Roman and Roman Catholic notion of the barbarian. Professor Barry Cunliffe of the University of Oxford acted as consultant for the series.