BBC Sherlock Fan Forum - Serving Sherlockians since February 2012 / wonders of (fill in the blank) with Brian Cox

**Posted by saturnR** July 9, 2014 2:50 am

There are 3 documentaries all starting with those 2 words & all hosted by Brian Cox. I enjoyed them immensely - especially the first episode of Wonders of the Universe, where he essential spends the whole episode trying to convince me that the universe itself will cease to exist in an inordinate number of billions of years time. It's very comforting to learn that it's not just humans who will die but everything in existence will die eventually

Last edited by saturnR (July 9, 2014 8:50 am)

**Posted by Deilenn** July 9, 2014 7:43 am

There're also Wonders of the Solar System and Wonders of Life.
I haven't seen only the last one, but I really enjoyed the first two Wonders, I just love documentaries about the cosmos

**Posted by saturnR** July 9, 2014 8:46 am

Wonders of Life has the funniest scene I've seen him in. It should have been cut as a blooper but they decided to leave it in.

It has Brian pointing to a croc/gator (depending on where you're from) & they kept the director's direction in "one more time with alligator" & Brian just gives him this look. But then the director gets him back by leaving the direction in the final edit

And all this fuss because he said crocodile instead of alligator. Hilarious (to be fair, they were in America so even though the crew is British, they're supposed to say it the American way)

Last edited by saturnR (July 9, 2014 8:49 am)

**Posted by Russell** July 9, 2014 5:35 pm

saturnR wrote:
Wonders of Life has the funniest scene I've seen him in. It should have been cut as a blooper but they decided to leave it in.

It has Brian pointing to a croc/gator (depending on where you're from) & they kept the director's direction in "one more time with alligator" & Brian just gives him this look. But then the director gets him back by leaving the direction in the final edit

And all this fuss because he said crocodile instead of alligator. Hilarious (to be fair, they were in America so even though the crew is British, they're supposed to say it the American way)

Only peripherally heard of that series, but sounded like a good one! Hee… and that sounded so cute. But, er, to be fair as well, if they were in America, it very well could have been an alligator. Members of the same family 'Crocodylia' as crocodiles (and minor differences in the jaw/head shape), but more common here, where I think other countries that have them tend to have crocodiles.
This sounds similar to 'Planet Earth' series, both of which I've heard praised a lot… similar, yet different in their focus?

**Posted by saturnR** July 9, 2014 10:29 pm

Russell wrote:
similar, yet different in their focus?

Pretty much. I haven't seen Planet Earth so can't comment on that show. But I think the main difference seems to be that while most nature programs give a behavioural analysis of animals, Wonders of Life gives a technical analysis. For example, whilst covering kangaroos, he spends a large portion of that segment questioning how kangaroos hop (how come their foot doesn't break, for example) & it basically segways into a mini-physics lesson