The old man and I are documentary lovers, and we love things like the Planet Earth and Blue Planet documentaries. Nature shows are our favorites. We also watch a lot of history, and how things work or are made ones as well, and we were talking about all this today.

Well, we've come to a conclusion on the matter. When it comes to documentaries and nature shows, the BBC is king.

We gotta hand it to the Brits. They really know how to do a nice, entertaining, and informative documentary on a variety of interesting subjects.

Hats off to you ladies and gents. (nod)

It is one of the things that they're best at, certainly. I do worry about what will happen to the nature ones when Attenborough finally croaks, the ones with other presenters aren't as good.

I quite liked the Polar Bear: Spy on the Ice one narrated by David Tennant, but that was probably because it was fairly amusing with the little pods rolling around the ice.

I liked the Polar Bear: Spy on the Ice one... oh, what Ant said.

haven't seen it, but...

...I dunno. Guest presenters? Maybe that's for the best until we get a natural successor after a bit of time. Brian Cox is alright too, but it's not really something anybody could measure up to I suppose.

Brian Cox is a tit. Can't stand him on TV.

I do like BBC, a lot - but Ken Burns also does some great documentaries.

I think I prefer Brian Cox in more Physics based stuff.

Stephen Fry is a reasonable narrator for nature docs.

I didn't think you'd have to wait until Attenborough croaks. Didn't he say that the last was his last?

Obviously anything Attenborough has a hand in is going to be pure genius and you can't replace the man. He's a national treasure.

I think the Monty Python chap has done a few (Palin I think) and he's easy to listen to, as is Fry.

Brian Cox is fine for the science stuff, but his voice can sometime be a bit too soothing. "Billions and billions and b i l l i o n ssssssnore."

Going away from the BBC, I really enjoyed the Neil DeGrasse Tyson (sp?) Cosmos: A Spacetime Odyssey series. Very informative.

I do remember Sam Neill doing one about fifteen years ago called 'Space'. That was very good. Sam Neill should do more documentaries.

Strangely, I hated 'Through the Wormhole' with Morgan Freeman. It should have been so good, but it was all doom-mongery for no good reason as a lot of American documentaries are. "Monster' black hole 'devouring' everything in its path...and we could be next." "Our life giving Sun will kill us all!" That sort of shit.

I'm sure he's said it before but they keep bringing out new programmes with him on it, so I dunno anymore. I thought maybe they'd at least give him a nice comfy voiceover he could do from a chair, but nope last year they were winching him up trees and deep caves and whatnot.

I do need to watch that new Cosmos one, good reminder. And oh, sudden memory of that Sam Neill one, yes! Forgot all about that.

The sensationalizing of documentaries happens here too, especially to non-BBC ones but sometimes them as well. Gets so silly at times.

I remember that Sam Neill one - IIRC correctly it was hugely patronising, with lines like 'this is the Earth - it's where we live. It's our planet - The Earth'.

Yep, Palin's good, I've got the set of DVDs he did traveling around and they're entertaining and thought provoking. He seems to meet heads of state and dignitaries on the weight of working for the BBC, and that's juxtaposed with the ordinary people he just happens upon on the street.

The Himalaya one he did was ace

Brian Greene and Michio Kaku are good presenters too, they've both done physics documentaries and can hold an audience. I've got a few of their books and they can make it all seem understandable to your average bod interested in it-but-didn't-really-get-into-it-at-school-enough, like me.

I did lose it with Calabi-Yau space though.  :-S

"Sam Neill should do more documentaries"

He was fantastic in Event Horizon!

I'm not sure what point he was trying to get across there, it must have slipped by me, but he said it with such soothing authority!

I remember the beginning of a Carl Sagan doc which started with the baking of an apple pie. then, after the credits, Sagan looked at the camera and said, with a totally straight face, "the universe is like an apple pie".

At that point I was gone...

To the pie store?

Probably the pub, or at least another channel, TBH

Apple pie is mighty good.