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BBC To Ditch "Tomorrow's World"
Pipsicola writes "The BBC news site reports their decision to ditch the Popular science show, Tomorrows World , after 30 years. It may not have had the most bleeding edge content (we often dubbed it 'Yesterdays World' ...), but it was one of the few programmes which fired the imagination of young British nerds. Several generations of Britain's scientists and technologists grew up watching TM. Lets hope the BBC fulfills its promise to replace it with more science-based shows using a different format. Which formats have worked in other countries I wonder?"
they should try hosting the show naked.
nudity can make anything better.
While its future shows may suck, "Big Thinkers" will make you think. I would actually PAY for this on dvd (unencoded of course!)
I'm not sure whether or it's shown in Britain, but you should look into it.
You can't judge a book by the way it wears its hair.
Science Survivor?
What's he doing now-a-days? I always thought he was cool. Maybe it's just his name? His show must of had quite a budget to do some of the stuff that he did. I think it was owned by Disney.
Sex - Find It
TechTV will still pick up the left over episodes and rerun them to death.
(they once ran a "Tomorrow's World" from 1999... yeah, good work there)
You mean a plastic dinosaur spinning!?
"Bill! Bill! Bill! (It's alive!"
You can't judge a book by the way it wears its hair.
If so, it was ok, although kinda weird, could tell it was from the UK they were always in labs in the UK and stuff was like what the crap? heh
I agree with an earlier poster, Big Thinkers is a far superior show, I don't watch TechTV much anymore, anyone know if they still show new Big Thinkers?
There's an Australian magazine show called Beyond 2000 that has run for quite a long time and is screened in quite a few countries starting in 1985 and still being made. The science it covered was pretty cutting edge (or at least it seemed, I was kid since I saw it last, hehe) and had interesting stories presented by interesting reporters.
With the Internet, it becomes more and more difficult to keep shows like this on the air. Once upon a time, 'Tomorrow's World' gave you a glimpse of things you'd otherwise never know existed (at least at the time of viewing). With the Internet, anything heralded on television has been already discussed on the web a thousand times.
BBC To Ditch "Tomorrow's World"!!! more like celda
While usually more about the historical development of technology... I really really enjoyed "Connections" while it was on TLC.
(Connections 2 was a bit offensive however)
I remember watching this show for the longest time b4 I became too busy and the show changed its name and host or simply dissappeared.
Didn't you see it? It was carried by all the major news sources.
from slashdot:
The BBC news site reports their decision to ditch the Popular science show, Tomorrows World , after 30 years.
from the article:
Tomorrow's World, the BBC's long-running popular science programme, has been dropped from its weekly TV slot after almost 40 years
Would it have been so hard to take a peek at the article, Hemos?
In Soviet Russia, "Tomorrow's World" ditches YOU.
Though targeted towards kids I have to admit I found the show somewhat stimulating as an adult as well. There was a certain curiosity factor incorporated with it and the animation was very creative and descriptive.
As a Brit living in the US, I always found the Australian show "Beyond 2000" to be pretty damned good (and I'd never seen it before arriving in the US).
For what it's worth, I always hated the "studio" format of Tomorrow's World - I think it hurt them more than it helped, although the studio-based demonstrations that didn't work were always good for a laugh.
90% of the articles that contained any info and were the most interesting were the pre-recorded ones out wherever the technology was being applied.
You are a 14-year-old gaybo.
For a while he was doing engineering commentary for the show battlebots, but I can't think of anything he's done since then (or if he's still doing it).
Daily Planet (link) is a pretty good show. It was called @Discovery Canada, but changed a little while ago. It runs on the Discovery channel here in Canada. Read the site for more info.
The basic sleazeware produced in a drunken fury by a bunch of UCBerkeley grad students was still the core of BIND. --PV
Yo my name is filsa and I wrote an outliner and if you wear eyeliner then I'll call you a fag.
I don't mean to brag but my pants sag and I'm a true gangsta killin' Windows fags.
Bobs your uncle, mate!
Cheerio then, I'm off.
I don't need no instructions to know how to rock!!!!
It's nice to see something on /. that's not so U.S.-centric. I enjoy listening to 'Quirks and Quarks' on CBC (Canadian public radio) on occasion, but I havn't seen a science TV show of any note ever. I mean, The Learning Channel can be interesting, but they hate to go into detail about anything.
I would venture to say (and I used to work for CBC-TV) that TV is a medium that can't afford to go into detail at all, and therefore will never produce great science programming.
"A language that doesn't affect the way you think about programming, is not worth knowing" - Alan Perlis
here on the other side of the pond the Discovery Channel still gives us great scientific programing, like " Dopey interpretations of quantum theory for morons who think Battlestar Gallactica was a historical document but flunked grade school math" and "I was abducted by an alien ghost that rode down on a killer tornado from Atlantis for Jesus".
Man, hard core tech programing just don't get no better than that. Maybe you Brits should import some of it to fill the gap.
KFG
Tomorrows World was one of the things that got me interested in science and engineering.
Though I soon outgrew TW's simplifications, I still watched because Carol Vorderman was very attractive back then.
The best one was on April 1st one year where they asked you to vote for something by touching your television screen.
I touched Phillipa.
I often wonder if corporations like BBC aren't too quick to just chuck a long-running series without attempting changes, even radical ones (like the poster who suggested nudity, which was my first thought-but in a 'remove the stodginess' sort of way.
Being an Australian, I have only seen this show a dozen times, but Tomorrow's World really did capture alot of stuff that wouldnt have been seen on other science programs..
In Australia we used to have "Beyond 2000" which ended a almost 10 years ago or so, didnt get quite as nerdy as TM though..
Tomorrow's world will be missed.. by those who watched it... and those who poked fun at it
-- If at first you don't succeed, lie!
Television could be so great, but instead it's a cesspool.
--Mike
"Not an actor, but he plays one on TV."
is the true lack of depth. For me, it only worth watching these shows if they show off some new gizmo. Otherwise, most science shows I've seen have the depth of a 6th grade science textbook. Of course shows with great depth would require more than 30 sec sound bites and explainations that took more than the time between commericals. Anyway, most people would probably not watch a show of any depth... it would get canned.
(Caution: This is not a flame, its an observation)
Accentuate the positive, don't waste your mod points on the negative.
"Several generations of Britain's scientists and technologists grew up watching TM."
Well if they grew up watching TM, then hopefully they will not mind the passing of Tomorrow's World too terribly.
Tomorrow's World ran on BBC 1 (used to be Thursday's before Top of the Pops). It was always a soft science show -- more entertainment than hard science. BBC 2 ran the harder science show "Horizon" - each episode of which was an hour long. I've been away from the UK for nearly 19 years so don't know if Horizon is still going -- but at the time it was an outstanding show - would compare with the likes of the better shows on TLC and Discovery. Sad to see Tomorrows World going -- but it did give a great start to James Burke who went on to do the Burke connection and Connections.
Rich people are eccentric. Poor people are strange. Me, I'd be happy with odd.
When I was younger, I really enjoyed Bill Nye the science guy. Of course, shows like that don't really appeal to adults. I'm now enjoying Big Thinkers on TechTv. The interviews with the actual scientists who developed the theories being discussed are what make a good science show.
"Anything that's invented after you're 35 is against the natural order of things" - Douglas Adams
Maybe the problem is that most British nerds were watching some show with abbreviations TM.
Here in the U.S., most science shows have switched to the "MTV generation attention span format". This involves taking 10 minutes of content, then stretching it out to 45 minutes in length with attention-grabbing fillers.
These typically include things like cheesy, inaccurate and endlessly repetitive computer simulations of explosions, ancient pyramid tours or space probe flybys. Also popular are sad attempts at creating a "suspensful" plot, such as a melodramatic voicover accompanying the same tired scene: a computer monitor reflected in the eyeglasses of a scientist pecking at keyboards in a strangely lit office. Time-elapsed shots of radio telescopes at sunset are another sure-fire time filler.
I often wish they'd bring back the "old guy standing in a field giving a half-hour monologue" format. Those guys usually knew a lot about what they were talking about, and they worked to cram it into the time available, not the other way around.
My idea for a new tech show is one that is an Iron Chef/Junk Yard wars cross. You put a team of engineers together and give them an electrical component that they have to build something with like in Iron Chef. The teams would have electronics labs with wires, circuit boards, etc. and they would make whatever they could in a certain amount of time. Then there would be a panel of judges that rates the usefulness of the item built and whoever wins over the most judges wins.
They removed the Christmas quiz with people like Clive Sinclair as guests!
And most importantly, the studio element of the show with scientific demonstrations etc.
Phillipa Forrester really didn't have a clue (see the Brass Eye special), at least Adam Hart-Davis has something to do with science!
Conclusion: bring back Howard Stableford (where is he now?!) and actually invite people in to show off cool stuff! :)
beyond tomorrow (use to be beyond 2000 in the 90's)
or, if it is still being made, Next Step (the science and tech show not the OS/Computer)
both use to be on the discovery chanel in the 90's before the womanification of the stupid thing...now beyond tomorow is on tech TV and I could not find anything on next step////both were great and infact, I first heard about Java on beyond 2000 back in 94-95
I am the Alpha and the Omega-3
Instead of putting all of your efforts into one drawn out television series, focus instead on one or two strong mini-series of documentaries. "Blue Planet" and "Evolution" (PBS) come to mind as quick examples. The Discovery channel has made a market out of this kind of a thing, with all of the dinosaur and "what if" based shows. Good stuff, and the production quality (I.E. entertainment value) of such ventures are great. Next, interesting works of modern man are always entertaining, like "Modern Marvels". I'm sure that the producers could find some other interesting topic and make a similar show.
Look at the impact this way. Alot of children do watch television. I used to watch it, but not as much. I still flip through the channels however. Many a time, I've come across a channel showing something about technology, or space, or something scientific, and I'll leave it there. Learning something new, is ALWAYS a good feeling. With the loss of this show, we may in fact hinder our chances of having children decided to choose a scientific field, to major in, and thus lose their creative input on the world of tomorrow. I hope they replace the show with another cutting edge science show, or maybe a show that talks about various world events, and the conspiracy theories that they relate to (I love reading about them here at /.)
Defender of Microsoft and Communism!!!
I am a teenager (16) and I remember when I was a younger kid I would often watch both TLC and the Discovery Channel for intresting shows on space and the sciences. As of late it seems that all I can find on them are show like "A baby story", "Trading Spaces", a myriad of other decorating shows, and a multitude of crime investigation shows. Was I simply blinded by being a child at these show that I thought were insanely intresting or has the quality really decreased?
Wouldn't that be interesting if our beloved Slashdot starts taking video/audio submission (someday)? So instead of just reading headlines at Slashdot, we'll be reading, listening and watching headlines submitted to Slashdot. That's like new generation of tech news? Many people here submit stories that we can categorize into "Tomorrow's World", so it might become something to... watch, listen and read. How does this idea sound? If and when something like that gets on the net, we're not gonna miss shows like "Tomorrow's World", are we?
n/t Oh, and PHP rules.
From my point of view what killed TW was a gradual, slow change in the kind of stories they showed. When I used to watch TW religiously, back in the mid-late 80's, the vast majority of their items were to do with either consumer technology inventions (CD's, home computers and so on) or physical sciences (string theory, birth of the universe, or, more paractically, the first mention I ever heard of quantum computing and quantum encryption back in 1988 or so). During the 90's, in what seemed to me to be a misguided attempt to win ratings, the show gradually changed to a more human-interest type show, all about biology, genetics, medicine, until by the late 1990's that was all there was: no inventions, no physical science news, no astronomy, just item after item of medical discoveries, biotechnology, with the odd reference to the BBC's 'Webwise' project to get people hooked up to the Internet.
That was when I stopped watching it, it just didn't interest me any more. I appreciate the importance of medicine and the biological sciences (although these interest me less than the physical sciences and associated inventions), but there just wasn't anything else on TW, and it got boring because of this.
I don't think I'm alone in feeling this - I've met quite a few geeky Tomorrow's World ex-fans who say the same thing, they just stopped running the stories that interested them. It's quite a tragedy - in an attempt to make the programme trendier and gain mainstream audience share, they completely killed off their core audience, and the production team seemed to have absolutely no idea what the problem was. It's entirely the BBC's own fault.
Oh well, here's hoping they'll wake up one day, realize their mistake and revive it, just like they have with Doctor Who.
N.B. The last sentence used a technique known as irony. Some of you may wish to study and attempt to understand it.
For the love of God, please replace it with anything other than another "Robot Wars" type of show.
I wish Phillipa Forrester would pour hot grits down my pants.
I've always loved "science of tomorrow" shows. My personal favorites being the old Discovery Channel shows "Next Step" (hosted by the guy with the moustache that later went on to host "C|Net Central" on USA Network, if memory serves) and "Beyond 2000" (a BBC production, if I remember correctly). Admittedly, "Beyond 2000" had a built-in expiration. But it was still quite entertaining.
Maybe Dave Chalk could fill the void. "Today we're reviewing a tablet PC. They're the wave of the future and come with nifty pointy-sticks. Don't worry if this all sounds too technical, we'll explain more about pointy-sticks after the commercial break."
120x120 at 8bit color. Don't you people think!?
You can't judge a book by the way it wears its hair.
I always wondered what would happen to the show "Beyond 2000" when 2000 finally got here. Well after 2000 the show still ran on for a bit, wasn't as popular though. Now I think it's off the air.
I think that technology doesn't amaze people as much anymore as it used to. I'm still waiting for those flying cars to hit the market. Maybe they'll be introduced once electric cars die out.
Analytic & algebraic topology of locally Euclidean meterization of infinitely differentiable Riemmanian manifold
When they present a story, they repeat the same material three times (using slightly different wording each time) just to make sure that the viewers comprehend. It is like watching Teletubbies.
The content they present is beyond 'light'. They never go into any depth. They don't sray from the press release upon which they based the segment.
And they dwell on safety. All they care about is safety. Did I mention that safety is important to them? (A good example is the segment on a new line of kitchen appliances that have lower magnetic fields. They [or rather the manufacturer's press release] implied that magnets are dangerous to your health. Nothing was offered to back up this claim.)
I remember when the Canadian Discovery Channel purchased Tomorrow's World. They jumped up and down for joy at acquiring the BBC's flagship science program. After airing two episodes, they realised what a collosal mistake this was and pulled it.
Slashdot monitor for your Mozilla sidebar or Active Desktop.
I loved that show. Watched it all the time in 4 and 5th grade. I got quite a collection... in fact, I brought several episodes into my 5th grade class to watch when they matched the current unit.
Perhaps one of the best science/history shows that's ever been on television, and I know I'm not alone in thinking this.
Unfortunately, TLC has replaced it with such inspiring fare as "Trading Spaces" and "Junkyard Wars", and Discovery (Canada) has no hope of picking it up, they're too busy re-running "Guiness Prime Time" - the record keepers, not the beer.
It's sad that every damn form of media is being dumbed down to sensationalist joe punchclock filler - surely there are more than 5 people out there who'd like to see something with SOME substance.
Endless arguments over trivial contradictions in books written by ignorant savages to explain thunder in the dark.
by Anonymous Coward on 5:46 Sunday 05 January 2003 (#5018020)
It amazes me that so many reputable people and organisations have fallen for the ridiculous myth that there is some sort of Finnish student who has single-handedly created something that threatens to overthrow the current software distribution system as we know it. I find it particularly absurd that he is lauded as some sort of super overlord throughout hackerdom. Even generally reliable sources have fallen for this ridiculous scam. The concept that one youth from Central Europe could sow the seed for an operating system which frightens Microsoft is risible at best. It has taken Microsoft a decade to produce an OS which is even reasonably reliable and stands alone. So what makes you think that in the short time span from 1991 to the present day that a fictional character could produce an operating system which is more stable than Windows?
Obviously, this "Linus Torvalds" must be some sort of superhuman to have done such a thing. But we all know that there is no such thing as a superhuman. As such it must be plain for all to see that this "Linus Torvalds" is some sort of fabrication. It is the only way to explain why Linus keeps such a low profile, and that the main bit of evidence to even suggest his existence is the testimony of his mother and the strange posts "he" makes on obscure message boards. The fact that an entire community of "warez doods" has sprung up, proclaiming that "LUNIX RULEZZZ" is such a flimsy piece of evidence it must be discounted. But if "Linus Torvalds" does not actually exist, then who has conjured up his existence? There is only one possible person who could get away with such a fraud. Mikke Torvalds, "his" supposed birth parent.
Mrs. Torvalds may have a lot to say about her son, but this does not excuse the fact that he does not exist. When you consider this, is it genuinely surprising that she found him "easy to raise"? Of course, there is one immediate objection which will no doubt be raised. "If Linus Torvalds doesn't really exist," I hear you ask, "then who wrote Linux?" That is a good question, but it is very obvious to see who. If you take a look around here for a while, you will hear names like Alan Cox, Richard Stallman, and Eric Raymond being bandied about. Obviously, it is immensely skilled coders and hackers such as these people who have made the wonderful OS Linux what it is today. The person who first made that post on comp.os.minix was in fact Linus' mother, who, frustrated by the ludicrous restrictions imposed upon her by Minix, posted a message under a partial pseudonym, asking for help building a new operating system. All she wanted was someone to help her use her PC to print out her recipes, but before she knew it she was in way over her head. Pretty soon Linux had hit 1.0 and strangers like Tanenbaum were talking about and cussing it.
Fortunately, Mikke had released the kernel under the GPL from the start, so she was able to dump it onto the shoulders of other people without arousing too much suspicion. Now she only has to make periodic appearances on Usenet and the like to avoid arousing the interest of news-hungry geeks and ZDNet reporters. "But what about the conferences?" you cry. "We have photographic evidence!" Well, that isn't Linus. Are you sure you'd like me to tell you who it is? OK. The person whom you have all been worshipping for eleven years is in fact Richard Stallman, a man simultaneously venerated and vilified by the Slashdot community. When Linux started to become famous, Mikke knew that she was in deep water and that her hoax might be uncovered, so she decided to contact the most trustworthy man in the open source world. RMS was happy to cooperate especially when he knew that Linux had completely overwhelmed the Hurd and that he might as well help; after all, if Linux was exposed as a giant falsification, mightn't his beloved GNU project be considered a hoax also? Neither could take the chance, and for that reason Stallman was perfectly happy to quickly purchase a cheap rubber mask and shave off some of his bodily hair.
Fast forward to 2002, and GNU/Linux is very stealthily taking over the server market. Mikke Torvalds' simple request has turned into a multi-million dollar industry, and Stallman's hobby and grand vision has actually begun to come to fruition. This is why, despite the fact that Linus Torvalds is actually a figment of our collective imagination, we should all honour him for being a prime symbol of our steadfast belief and ability to do what must be done. May his memory live on forever.
Can't go wrong with Battlebots! :D
Old geek T.V. host
He gets naked on the air
Viewers eyes will bleed
Don't give me none of this "nature theme" business.
Beyond 2000 use to be on the Discovery Channel 10-15 years ago when the network's goal was to educate, unlike now where everything is about sharks, the military, and guys with accents showcasing dangerous animals.
"which formats work in other countries?"
None work in America. The closest thing we have to hard science (or even futuristic technical science) shows is Sightings and In Search Of.
Sightings is produced by Henry Winkler (The Fonz from Happy Days) and basically is a tabloid show about psychics, ghosts and crop circles.
In Search Of is hosted by Mitch Pileggi (A.D. Skinner from X-Files) and investigates things like ghosts, mind reading, talking to the dead, crop circles and so on.
Science doesn't really work in America. If you want further evidence of that - look at what we call "science fiction" now. John Edwards conducting live seances in front of groups on television and a some guy and a broad interpreting dreams with as much sexual innuendo as they can stuff into it.
Oh oh oh oh!
You're so right.
They had some real crap on Tomorrow's World simply so it'd appeal to Joe Sixpack and five year olds.. both of who WEREN'T THE MAIN GROUPS WHO WATCHED THE SHOW!!
Tommorrow's World would spend tons of time looking at stupid inventions like quicker ways to open tin cans, or 'Young Innovators' fairs where 8 year olds would invent automatic dog food dispensers.
Instead of focusing on such jevenile crap they should have focused on cool widgets, technologies that could change the world, and things of some importance to science, rather than things which make it easier to do the washing up.
mogorific carpentry experiments
I am still pissed off about Bill Nye. He came along quite a bit after Beakman (of Beakman's World), which was many orders of magnitude better that that shallow clone pretender Nye could ever hope to be. It was simply more fun, more interesting, and did a better job explaining the science than Nye's puffery. Plus it had a guy in a rat suit, and the beloved assistant Josie.
Like so many other of the truly fine things in life, Nye had much biigger backing and after a while Beakman was gone. Now I just get sad whenever I see Nye. I hope he has realized his crime to humanity and joined a monestary to live the rest of his days seeking forgivness for displacing Beakman from the airwaves.
If you think my rant is something, take a look at Nye Vs. Beakman. The page is a sad reflection of real life in that Nye still won even though the comments about Nye were dead on.
"There is more worth loving than we have strength to love." - Brian Jay Stanley
they tried that 30 years ago..the professor could build a nuclear accelerator with a dead crab,a handful of sand and gingers i.u.d but he still coundn't fix the damn boat..i'll stick to macgyver for all my science needs.
With the current trend of BBC programming expect to see the TW slot filled with delights such as "The Science Behind Changing Rooms" and the classic "Cant Cook Wont Cook With Robots"
Rgds
Locash
It took me awhile to figure out that 'alloy-mini-um' they kept going on about was aluminum.
-
..from everybody who complains the /. is US centric. ;)
The Kruger Dunning explains most post on
Beyond 2000 started out as "Towards 2000".
As 2000 approached, they made the name change. I also believe it switched networks in Australia.
Sure, it's as much history as it is science, but I LOVE anything by James Burke. Not only does he make things interesting, but he is an awsome guy and interesting to listen to. In the last episode of the first season he a show of nothing but a long monolog about his thoughts on what the previous 9 episodes all amounted too, and "where do we go from here?" which was a major influence on me..... especially when he walked thru an old server room full of what looked like S/360's and mentioned how all this "state of the art stuff", and went on to discuse how things would change. James Burke is hands down THE best of ANY science related show ever.
In second place, however I'd say that Blue Planet which some people mentioned kicked serious ass! It's the ONLY nature show I've ever watched and not found it full of fluf. After watching it I have a full understanding of why Orca's are NOT to be f'ed with, and believe firmly that Tuna are the most vicious mo-fo's in the water........ besides Orca's. Sharks are nothing........ oh, and that underwater lake was sweet too. Awsome show.
Those early NOVAs were like little detective stories. They left loose ends loose and open questions open. Everything was not wrapped up at the end of an episode. Production values were low, but the narration (great narrator, too) would stand by itself with the picture turned off.
I would love to see a remake (a la Michael Apted's "Seven Up") reuniting the original NOVA crew with the original scientists. Did they keep at it or drift off and let others answer those all-consuming questions? Did the questions ever get answered satisfactorily?
If anyone knows of transcripts or tapes of these old shows, do tell!
Their they're doing there hair.
I'm sure many here would disagree, but the best science show I've ever seen is PBS' NOVA. If the BBC doesn't already carry this somewhere then they absolutely should. This series totally inspired me as a kid, and now that I'm actually doing science as an adult my admiration for it has only grown. Nothing else on TV comes close to conveying what it's actually like to be a scientist.
For lighter fare I'd recommend either Scientific American Frontiers or the already mentioned Beyond 2000.If New Scientist doesn't already have a TV series, though, they really should.
We need more shows like Mr.Wizards world. After watching him blow up shit I headed right out to the garage an performed my own experiments!
Did you have to take that cock out of your ass to write that? Fag.
Is it the same country that's famouse for bukakke and tentacle rape?
Back in the days when TW was a good program - the mid to late 80s - the subjects they covered were really technologies of the future, things that wouldn't actually be available to the general public for several years at least and that few people knew about.
These days they will be hard pressed to find something that a scientist is willing to talk about that isn't already available to the public, or at least well known as a future product. Development teams are gagged by companies and grant boards to protect that ever-precious "IP" and the whole mood of the media has changed from informing the public to indoctrinating the consumer. Combined with the fact that research is almost immediately being implemented into products now and any atempt at real hard science becomes little more than a televisual textbook with the pages company lawyers don't want you to see ripped out and concepts that require more than one braincell pushed off into an appendix. Of late *EVERY* science program I've seen has been little more than a press-release reading service for the hard of thinking with occasional predictions that anyone who is interested already knows....
Tomorrow's World was never the same after Raymond Baxter stopped doing it.
And the BBC are just dumbing down the remaining shows that need 4 brain cells to watch. Sky are hitting them hard when it comes to prime time viewing, the only thing that gets viewers on the BBC is EastEnders.
But I hate the way they have phucked up science programmes. Walking With Dinosaurs was portrayed as a scientific show. IT WASNT! It was a bunch of script writers making up crap from pictures of fozziled bones. How can you deduce all that crap they showed from that?
I dont know about the rest of you but i used to love Bill Nye the Science guy...he's still pretty fun to watch.
First they cancel Dr Who and now Tomorrow's World. How will the Brits learn about science?
Tomorrow's World was good. It taught me about cool new things like the internet.
But now we don't need it, because we have cool new things like the internet.
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BBC seems to be beginning to ditch their flagship shows.
It's Tomorrow's World now, after killing off Angus Deayton from Have I Got News For You.
They should have kept real scientists on the show like Heather Cooper, Howard Stableford and Kate Bellingham. Does anyone remember the Brass Eye Special involving Phillipa Forrester where she lost all credibility?
Does anyone admit to remembering "Mr. Wizard"? Gee, it worked in the B&W nuke-fearing, pre-disney 50's.
You gotta love Bill Nye the Science Guy!! What do you mean he's just for kids?
SCREW THAT! BEAKMAN'S WORLD 0wnz Bill Nye!
Bring back the BeakMAN!
Beyond 2000 is back!
it 0wnz my stank a$$
I've been reading the posts here - I can't comment on the BBC show that this thread is based on, but I can speak for other American docs. The PBS doc shows NOVA and Frontline are usually top-notch. Nature rocks too, and so do their specials from time to time...anyway:
The docs on the Disc series of channels aren't that bad, if you forgive Shark Week with Celebs and Pet Psychics BS. The channels are trying to apeal to a wider audience.
I think it's a good thing, because, my non-nerdy siblings watch the channel now! Ok, the supernatural fluff needs to die, but shows like Monster Garage, while they don't apeal to me, do to many.
The discovery science channel (think they renamed it now) rocked, cause they had almost nothing but documentaries all day, though most were repeats of discovery channel docs.
Add the History channel and A&E to the list, along with occasional stuff on CNBC and there are actually quite alot to choose from (modern marvels on history channel is a good example).
I am sad to see this show go - As I child I would sit there in rapture as they showed me robot-suits and flying cars
None of it ever came to light - But when you are a kid the idea of people actully having powered robo-suits - Or microwaves that cooked meals in a few seconds - Or any of the thousands of other things they showed - It brought out the kind of wonder and love of technology that breeds a good slashdotter
Oh well - Maybe my kids will be using Nerocannula and be jacked straight into Virtu-Slash-Online
CBC has a great radio show called Quirks and Quarks. If you live in Canada, you can listen on CBC 1 Saturdays @ noon. Best of all, you can download each segment in ogg, mp3, or real formats, put them in a playlist, and create your own custom show!
The recently appointed head of the BBC is Greg Dyke inventor of Roland Rat.
He is planning to make BBC larger and much dumber. There are currently protests against the legality of the mandatory licence fee (understandable when the BBC actually offered public service). Tommorow's world could have been updated or saved, however it's a little too intellectual and middle class for Greg "Roland Rat" Dyke.
</rant>
no, this tag doesn't balance! live a little!
On y va, qui mal y pense!
Any invention featured on tomorrow's world is guaranteed to be a commercial failure.
... and has been dead for a while.
But I don't think it's necessarily because they alienated their geek audience with all that "soft" science stuff. I think it's because they're simply abandoning proper science coverage completely.
These days, scientific innovation is complex stuff often operating at levels 99% of the population have no clue even exist (e.g. quantum physics). Explaining it in a visual medium reliant by definition on pictures is usually just about impossible. Despite all the recent cloning coverage, I doubt you'd find hardly anyone on the street who could tell you what the Human Genome Project is, or even what DNA is.
The BBC is fighting for its life to defend the licence fee, and to do so it has to broaden its appeal. Science is the first major category for the culling. After One Man And His Dog, natch.
"And the meaning of words; when they cease to function; when will it start worrying you?"
That's damn right! Bill Nye is like a toned-down wannabe Beakman, appealing to 14-year-old gayboes.
That show fucking sucks - i can't stand that goddamn british accent (especially on a hot biatch)
This program is soooooooooooo shite! Now if they can just get rid of the rest of the BBC output and the TV TAX!
Just more BBC lefty liberal environmentalist propaganda! And we are made to pay £112.00 ($168) in TV Tax each for a load of moronic crap like this else we are sent to prison and given £1000 fine! How liberal is that?
Philipa was hot till she got preggers An Scottish person invented television so blame them for this junk u see those nips sticking through all thje fems tshirts on Tomorrows World (no bras) i did :-D
Cmon the Aberdeen
i dinna think im over NYE yet still feel out opf it hey any chicks iff u see me u can take advantage ;-)
Remember C|Net, on your television. I forget what channel(s) aired it and have no idea when it went off the air. But their was a block of shows with C|Net being the flagship. "The Edge" I think was one of the baby C|Net shows. I remember the hosts being outstanding: energetic, intelligent, perfect for the audience. I remember a good-looking blonde as well! I don't get this TechTV channel I keep hearing about, and I don't think I have BBC; both channels are probably premium channels thru Cox. Are there any other decent technology shows on standard cable television?
Uh... deity is a word, and diety isn't.
Or is it supposed to be one of those recursive acronyms? Diety Is
Excellent To You. Deity Eats Icecream That's Yellow. Diety Is
Eloping To Yokohama. I'll stop now.
-- Guy Maor
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