Members of the modern British scientific community explore the work of well-known English scientific pioneers and attempt to give forgotten ones their due.

CRITIQUE

I’ve watched a handful of these science-based programs over the past few months, and Genius of Britain is my favorite. Quick, concise, and never anything less than interesting, this is just a bloody great series. Like most similar undertakings, it’s by no means comprehensive, working better as a primer than as a detailed exploration, but it certainly accomplishes what it sets out to do.

If you’re like me, you go into one of these programs hoping to learn something new, and you hope this something new is presented in as engaging a manner as possible. Well, that’s what you get here. Each episode is structured so that a fitting member of the current generation presents a segment on a person who influenced him/her. For example, James Dyson (yeah, the vacuum cleaner guy) tends to focus on engineers, while Richard Dawkins concentrates on biologists. The segments are linked by input from Stephen Hawking, who also opens and closes each episode.

The series moves through its subjects chronologically. It begins with the 1682 appearance of a certain famous comet, which fascinated five men who would go on to be the grandfathers of modern British science, including (naturally) Edmund Halley and Sir Isaac Newton. From there it moves to James Watt, who perfected the steam engine and thereby made the Industrial Revolution possible, on into the age of electricity, and then into World War II before being concluded with a look at what’s likely to come.

Along the way there’s some absolutely fascinating stuff. The drawings of Robert Hooke (who thanks to the petty jealousies of Newton has been largely forgotten in many circles), created from careful observation through microscopes and telescopes, are stunning in their detail. Christopher Wren anesthetized a dog and casually removed its spleen (good thing PETA wasn’t around back then), thereby disproving the theory that the spleen was as important as the heart to the survival of animal life. And in what may be an apocryphal story but is pretty great nonetheless, a rather unique piece of sculpture outside the lab where they were working inspired Francis Crick and James Watson’s theory on the structure of DNA.

But best of all is the World War II-centric episode. Where would we be without the incredibly lucky bit of fate that led to Alexander Fleming’s discovery of penicillin, which made care of the wounded in the Normandy invasion possible? Or without Alan Turing’s bombe, which helped crack the Nazi’s Enigma? (What the British government and its draconian anti-homosexuality laws did to Turing after the war was, to put it mildly, shameful. The indispensable role he played in turning the tide of the war made it doubly so.) And then there’s Frank Whittle, whose jet engine could have made Hitler think twice about sending the Luftwaffe to bomb England but was dismissed by the RAF until after the Germans had developed their own fighter jet.           

As I said, the series is designed to be an introduction, not an exhaustive exploration. But it’s hard to watch it and not wish it had been longer, more in-depth. Honestly, most of the show’s subjects could have filled their own hour-long episodes, and I wish more than a few of them had. It’s to the show’s credit that I came away feeling this way, I suppose. Still, I sort of wish each episode had ended with a suggested reading list.        

THE VIDEO

The episodes are presented in their original 1.78:1 ratio; the transfers have been enhanced for anamorphic displays. The series was shot on digital video, and the image has the standard look for this sort of thing, wavering between slightly polished and slightly soft. The five episodes are split over two discs, and cramming three onto the first disc may have been pushing it, as some compression-related anomalies are noticeable from time to time.

THE AUDIO

As expected, audio is presented in Dolby Stereo. The mix is mostly dialogue and narration, with some music and a few effects thrown in for enhancement. It generally sounds perfectly fine, although at times the music obscures the dialogue/narration just a tad. (It’s rare that the music and dialogue get mixed together, so this isn’t a terrible flaw, but it’s a flaw nonetheless.) English SDH subtitles are available.

THE EXTRAS

The only extras on the discs are biographies of the presenters.

A Viewer’s Guide is also included. It contains short bios of other unsung British scientists, an overview of the development of the Theory of Evolution, and a fact vs. fiction rundown of several debunked myths. 

Included on a third disc is Stephen Hawking and the Theory of Everything. Produced in 2007 and broadcast on the Science Channel as Master of the Universe, this excellent 90-minute documentary expands/updates the theories Hawking put forth in A Brief History of Time. (It, too, is presented in anamorphic 1.78:1 and features Dolby Stereo audio.)

FINAL THOUGHTS

As I always say, this isn’t for everyone, but I can’t imagine who’s interested in what Genius of Britain has to offer coming away disappointed.