British documentary television series
Horizon
|
---|
Horizon
title card
|
Genre
| Science, technology
|
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Starring
| Various
|
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Narrated by
| Paul Vaughan
(1968?1995),
Veronika Hyks
, Phillip Tibenham,
Martin Jarvis
,
Ian Holm
,
Sean Barrett
,
Richard Baker
,
Ray Brooks
,
Paul Daneman
,
William Franklyn
,
James Hazeldine
,
Bernard Hill
, Roger Mills,
Bill Paterson
,
Ronald Pickup
,
Tim Pigott-Smith
,
Hugh Quarshie
,
Andrew Sachs
,
Robert Symes-Shutzmann
, Peter France, (1983?1986), Peter Wilson, (c. 1980 ? late 1990s),
William Woollard
, Dilly Barlow (2001)
|
---|
Country of origin
| United Kingdom
|
---|
Original language
| English
|
---|
No.
of series
| 57
|
---|
No.
of episodes
| >1,200
(
list of episodes
)
|
---|
|
Producers
| Liz Tucker
Andrew Thompson
Jacqui Smith
Andrew Cohen
Malcolm Clark
Matthew Barrett
Edward Briffa
Grenville Williams
|
---|
Running time
| 59 min
|
---|
Production companies
| BBC Television
(until 2015)
BBC Studios
Science Unit (2015?present)
Wingspan Productions (2017?present)
Windfall Films
(2017?present)
Science Channel
|
---|
|
Network
| BBC Two
|
---|
Release
| 2 May 1964
(
1964-05-02
)
?
present
|
---|
Horizon
is an ongoing and long-running British
documentary
television series on
BBC Two
that covers
science
and
philosophy
.
History
[
edit
]
The programme was first broadcast on 2 May 1964 with "The World of Buckminster Fuller" which explored the theories and structures of inventor
Richard Buckminster Fuller
and included the
Horizon
mission statement: "The aim of
Horizon
is to provide a platform from which some of the world's greatest scientists and philosophers can communicate their curiosity, observations and reflections, and infuse into our common knowledge their changing views of the universe".
[1]
Horizon
continues to be broadcast on
BBC Two
, and in 2009 added a series of films based on the rich
Horizon
archive called
Horizon Guides
on
BBC Four
.
In December 2016, it was announced that
Horizon
will no longer be made exclusively by the BBC's in-house production division,
BBC Studios
, and the BBC invited independent production companies to pitch to make episodes of the strand.
[2]
Episodes
[
edit
]
There have been 57 series and over 1,200 episodes produced.
Broad coverage of science topics
[
edit
]
Horizon
has investigated an eclectic mix of subjects and controversial topics, it opened the awareness of consumers to the use of
whale meat
in pet food in 1972 ("Whales, Dolphins, and Men"); and produced award-winning
documentary-dramas
such as
Life Story
in 1987 which dramatised the discovery of the structure of
DNA
. A
1978 programme
about the
silicon chip
documented the decline of the Swiss watch industry.
[
citation needed
]
In 1993, an
Emmy
-winning episode about decreasing male fertility ("Assault on the Male") was given a special screening at the
White House
.
[3]
Format
[
edit
]
The format of the series has varied over the years.
1960s?1980s
[
edit
]
The first ever
Horizon
was "The World of Buckminster Fuller", produced and directed by Ramsay Short, was shown on 5 February 1964.
[
citation needed
]
It set the style; running time 50 minutes, no in-vision presenter, interviewees speaking off camera (in practice, almost always to the producer/director whose questions were usually edited out). Until the 1980s
Horizon
, in common with all BBC documentaries, was shot on 16 mm film.
[1]
Only rare programmes had a specialist writer ? in most cases the producer/director was also the writer.
The first
Horizon
in colour was "Koestler on Creativity", produced by
Robert Vas
, was shown on 5 December 1967.
[
citation needed
]
The
Public Broadcasting Service
's (PBS)
Nova
series was created in 1974, after Michael Ambrosino, who had served a year-long fellowship with the BBC, was inspired to create an
American program
based on the same
model
.
[4]
[5]
1990s
[
edit
]
Since the early 1990s,
Horizon
has developed a distinctive
narrative
form, typically employing an underlying "detective" metaphor, to relate scientific issues and discoveries to the lives of its viewers. Many episodes of
Horizon
are structured in a format that starts with a tease or menu laying out what the show has in store, followed by two "acts" with a "plot twist" around 25?35 minutes into the show. The twist frequently propels the story line from a focus on an individual scientist's human and intellectual journey of discovery through to explore the impact of that insight while, at the same time, providing a change of "texture" and filmic pace. Often, episodes of
Horizon
end up with a
montage
of "talking heads" as experts and people affected by the implications of the science covered are intercut to create a sense of summary.
2000s
[
edit
]
Until early 2008, the length was standardised at 50 minutes, which was extended in the latter half of 2008 to 60 minutes. Some episodes are adapted from documentaries by other broadcasters such as PBS's
Nova
,
[
citation needed
]
and episodes of
Horizon
are in turn adapted by PBS (to American English) and other broadcasters around the world in their own languages.
No new episodes were broadcast between July 2022 and 2024. In January 2024, a special episode on the
Artemis program
in conjunction with the American series
Nova
and the
Open University
was announced.
[6]
Popularity
[
edit
]
Horizon
has enjoyed high viewing figures, even though it covered subjects as complex as
molecular biology
and
particle physics
. It has shown a change of direction since June 2006, offering a more light-hearted approach, though the subjects it covers remain serious.
[
citation needed
]
For instance, an episode broadcast in 2019 entitled "We Need To Talk About Death" features
Kevin Fong
talking to palliative care clinician
Mark Taubert
and some of his patients who are facing terminal illness.
[7]
[8]
Criticism
[
edit
]
The down-side to
Horizon
'
s recent
[
when?
]
focus on "Pure Science, Sheer Drama" and the occasionally forced narrative this engenders has led to some accusations of
dumbing down
in recent years,
[9]
[10]
[11]
with one former editor writing a newspaper article about how the programme concentrates too much on human stories, and not enough on the science.
[12]
One programme "Chimps are people too" was entirely presented by a non-scientist,
Danny Wallace
. Editor Andrew Cohen addressed the reasons why the programme went down this route on the
Horizon
web page.
[13]
In October 2014, a three-part special ? "Cat Watch: the New Horizon Experiment" ? was broadcast, following up on
Horizon
'
s 2013 "The Secret Life of the Cat". At the end of the first hour-long broadcast the findings of the experiment so-far were summarised on screen by presenter
Liz Bonnin
as: "Our cats can cope with change but you have to introduce them to it gently".
Private Eye
was critical of the scientific value of the programme saying: "By all means, if the BBC wants to, make a series called
The Secret Life of Cats
; but don't insult the history of television by branding it, however obliquely, as a
Horizon
".
[14]
Awards
[
edit
]
In the period of "Pure Science, Sheer Drama",
Horizon
won an unprecedented series of the world's top awards, including a
BAFTA
, an
Emmy
for Best Documentary, a
Royal Television Society
Award and a
Grierson Trust
Award. Other Emmy winning programmes are: "Chernobyl's Sarcophagus" (1991), "Assault on the Male" (1993) and "The Fall of the World Trade Centre" (2003). In 1988,
Horizon
won a BAFTA for Best Drama, "Life Story" (about the elucidation of the structure of
DNA
), another in 1996 for Best Documentary, "Fermat's Last Theorem" (which also won a
Prix Italia
) and another in 2001 for Best Factual Series or Strand.
Home media
[
edit
]
Three
Horizon
episodes were included on The Wonders Collection Special Edition DVD and Blu-ray. The episodes were "Do You Know What Time It Is?", "Can We Make A Star On Earth?" and "What on Earth is Wrong With Gravity?"
[15]
See also
[
edit
]
References
[
edit
]
Further reading
[
edit
]
- "The origins and practice of science on British television" in
The Routledge Companion to British Media History
, pp. 470?483
External links
[
edit
]
Video clips
[
edit
]