Wonders of the Universe

BBC's astrophysical sexpot Brian Cox is back, going a step further than last year's all-singing all-dancing effort on the solar system.

It's great, obviously, and he's getting better. If this stuff interests you and you've not indulged, go forth and grab it and come back and talk about it here.

the graphical representations in these programmes make me want to take up weed. So awesome

wish he'd get another facial expression

p sure his facial expression is a result of new and expensive teeth, but i do think he's much improved from last year.

Just thrilled that the bbc are backing the subject so strongly.

dunno, he's had it a while, perhaps he could part exchange it for a smouldering scowl or something

its as weak as pretty much every other documentary is these days :(

i wouldn't know, i don't watch docs.

I think it's as good as something like 'planet earth' was, given the subject matter being pretty inaccessible (physically, that is)

http://www.britishscienceassociation.org/NR/rdonlyres/53FC2169-BE85-4B37-AA8F-EDF6F7B8A00D/0/brian_600x600.jpg

he'd bring more swoons from me with this look, that's for sure. new teeth? really?

higher budget seems to all go on Bri travelling everywhere to make tangentially related points, but there's a lot of v nice stuff in this.

"some planets might have deserts. a desert is a place with no water. here is a desert, its amazing" - brian cox in a desert

ah even his travels make for a very agreeable aesthetic throughout.

Beats coming back to him in a school lab in sheffield.

Looking good at 5g :(

still doing the same face

in soviet russia at 5g, face does you

"some planets might have water. a sea is a place with lots of water. here is some water, its amazing" - brian cox on a boat

enjoying it, but he lost me tonight with the space time stuff. Just couldn't see the analogy of his mountain range and bending etc, will have to look it up.

The neutron star was cool though.

the pulsar!

And how fucking happy was he in that zero-G plane ?!

pulsar was awesome.

the music and ceaseless wonders (of Brian Cox, not the universe) still grate a little, but here's some nuggets in each show, so it's all worthwhile. especially the graphics, as mentioned.

You don't like Cox?

I dreamt I met Graham Norton and Brian Cox last night.

Graham Coxon would've been a better dream meeting.

also, the thinguh, he duz, when he's speakinguh, just like uz.

"some planets might have deserts. a desert is a place with no water. here is a desert, its amazing" - brian cox in a desert

― Romford Spring (DG), Sunday, March 20, 2011 10:16 PM (Yesterday) Bookmark

xp i find his perpetual amazement a little cloying. i shouldn't hate on the dude for being enthusiastic and trying to inspire the same in others, but it often feels like he's just taken his first ever pill and he feels so warm in this parka and he loves the solar system and atoms and gravity and things can only get better etc etc

Reminds me of the bloke who presents Grow Your Own Drugs whose sentences, right, always seem to go up and end in a little giggle so it sounds like he's really pleased with himse-heh-helf.

Brian Cox reminds me of the "Brilliant!" guy out of Fast Show. Especially when he was talking at the top of a snow capped mountain peak.

gonna sing d:ream all the way home now.

He explains things in ways non-science freaks understand and I appreciate him for that. I know he knows the extreme theoretical stuff too (since he works at CERN) but that's not the point of his shows.

he plays keyboards at CERN

first stars ftw

now he's in the canadian rockies, which for him is also ftw

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=30ruBtLIvJM

He explains things in ways non-science freaks understand and I appreciate him for that. I know he knows the extreme theoretical stuff too (since he works at CERN) but that's not the point of his shows.

This is the important thing. I am a bright person (I think), and I would not have appreciated this series if I had felt I was being talked down to, but I didn't feel that way. Also I learned many things. And gained an all-encompassing feeling of vertigo, which my physics nerd friends assure me goes away in time.

I enjoy this but when they pose BC on the skyline against the setting sun as if he was some kind of Angel of Astro-Rock I tend to burst out with a yawp of astonished laughter. Which is probably not the intended effect.

why are only the first two eps only available, on iplayer?

I never got to watch the last part of this due to peculiar iplayer of missing episodes. the original solar system series is up now though, which i found far more engaging than the endurance run of speculative hyperfawning in this one.
People do need to get wise to ESA & ESO's media activity though, particularly thisfilm, 'Eyes on the Skies', which is absolutely wonderful.

My guy Dr. Joe Liske has absolutely no business in front of a camera, but is interminably watchable. The film carries this great aesthetic in the lineage of purely educational programming, somewhere between sickly, hilarious and mindblowing- but buttressed with insanely top shelf production values. Obviously this is real deal stuff, so there is a lot of utterly fascinating material.

Just thought I'd watch the two series again and now I have both next to each other:

2010 Wonders of the solar system
2011 Wonders of the universe

2012 Wonders if there's anything even bigger: multiverse?

But according to wikipedia, he's combobreaking and will be making:

2012 Wonders of life

This wanker's new show seems to have fucked the speakers on my tv. Stupid blaring fuckin timpani shite everywhere.

The sound mix is srsly fuckin appalling. Decent show tho.

Great fuckin show this week

he's not fit to lace Attenborough's coffee

they repeated Life on Earth for the last couple of weeks on BBC2 i'm wondering if you cd trace the line of the last 30 years where "popularising big ideas" slid into "assuming yr core audience is 14 year old Relentless junkies"

Cant but disagree, this is different to what attenborough does or has done tbh, and cox is improving all the time

it might just be his face and hair and voice tbf, i'm easily distractable when it comes to tv

This is Young Ppl TV

yeah this is good enough, a reasonable amount of learnin' in each show, hugely padded out of course but with pretty pictures and cox's general affability.

Hes at it again. Looks good, hes getting less annoying, all the quick edits are a bit much but hey

This is fuckin nuts

The towers, aye. All a bit over Decca Aitkenhead's head though: http://gu.com/p/4nayf?CMP=Share_iOSApp_Other

Hmm I think he did rather rush the explanation there.

These are cool random documentaries with zero content or links

Yeah I mean thumbs up for human towers and manatees and free diving grannies. Would happily watch with no voiceover while thumbing through some popular science pamphlet, but then how would prof cox pay for his teeth augmentation.

Yeah the lads talking over iceberg shots without cox is much better than cox

Honestly though he does fuck up the explanation of why ice floats on water. He tells us all about the structure of ice but doesn't say how or why it's different from when it's a liquid, and then he says it's less dense but doesn't say why - which he could have done with a five second nod back to the efficiency of the honeycombs.

cox obv grows on me the entire time.

attended a live show tonight with nine thousand ppl to watch him powerpoint. and it was good!

the graphical representations in these programmes make me want to take up weed. So awesome

― the '' key on my keybord is not working (darraghmac), Sunday, March 20, 2011 3:03 PM (six years ago) Bookmark Flag Post Permalink

did you ever get this sorted

ha i did not

Hes back folks and these are the best shows on space on tv imo so beg steal or borrow