A Timewatch Guide
Using archive footage from the long-running Timewatch series and the BBC in general, the televised evolution of a particular subject is examined each time.
- 2015-2017
- 4 seasons
- Documentary
Using archive footage from the long-running Timewatch series and the BBC in general, the televised evolution of a particular subject is examined each time.
Season 4 Episode Guide
4 Episodes 2017
Episode 1
Decoding Disaster
Professor Danielle George uses five decades of BBC archive to find out how well disaster documentaries keep pace with scientific theories that advance every day.
Episode 2
The Vikings: Foe Or Friend?
Alice Roberts explores BBC film archive to show how the views on Vikings and their culture have changed since the 1960s by shifting from their brutal side to their pioneering trading endeavors and integration into other cultures.
Episode 3
Dictators and Despots
Historian David Olusoga examines fifty years of BBC documentary archives to try and discover why dictators can have such a powerful appeal and asks if our fascination has fed their power. He uses the examples of, arguably, the first dictator, Julius Caesar, and modern equivalents, who either repeated or learned from his mistakes, like Benito Mussolini, Adolf Hitler, Fidel Castro, Muammar Gaddafi, Saddam Hussein and Zimbabwe's Robert Mugabe.
Episode 4
Explorers: Conquest and Calamity
For centuries the story of exploration has been packed with incredible tales of adventure, but the last fifty years has seen a dramatic shift in our attitude towards explorers. To find out how television has reflected this, Prof Fara Dabhoiwala delves into the BBC television archives, revealing that the pace of this change was faster than you would imagine.