Landscape Mysteries is the sort of science show that is too slow moving for the executives now at PBS. Nova is on life support, episodes are made up sometimes of three science stories, like 60 Minutes. Except when Nova recycles a British episode of Horizon, replacing the British narration, Nova shows usually rehash current science news stories.
There is nothing on U.S. television like old timer Aubrey Manning, presenter of Landscape Mysteries, bouncing around the United Kingdom, going to the areas whose past he discusses. In Britain Before The Ice, Manning is with an expert who describes a beetle found from before the glaciers overran Britain. This beetle is now only found on the icy cold Tibetan plateau, indicating that Britain's temperatures 20,000 years ago would hit summertime highs of 40 degrees Fahrenheit, and would go to 30 below in the winter.
Many of the topics deal with how changes in the environment made it real hard on the people who lived in Britain. The Abandoned Marsh deals with the Romney Marsh, where flooding and increases in marshland about 600 years ago led to malarial outbreaks that decimated the local population. The first episode of the eight part series is the least dreary, a come-on, dealing with Irish gold and the question where the gold came from, since no one has found any gold deposits in Ireland in modern times.
Manning visits the areas he is checking out, talks to experts and then Manning adds extra details in his narration. Some more CGI effects might have helped, but Landscape Mystery seems to have been filmed on a shoestring.
There is nothing on U.S. television like old timer Aubrey Manning, presenter of Landscape Mysteries, bouncing around the United Kingdom, going to the areas whose past he discusses. In Britain Before The Ice, Manning is with an expert who describes a beetle found from before the glaciers overran Britain. This beetle is now only found on the icy cold Tibetan plateau, indicating that Britain's temperatures 20,000 years ago would hit summertime highs of 40 degrees Fahrenheit, and would go to 30 below in the winter.
Many of the topics deal with how changes in the environment made it real hard on the people who lived in Britain. The Abandoned Marsh deals with the Romney Marsh, where flooding and increases in marshland about 600 years ago led to malarial outbreaks that decimated the local population. The first episode of the eight part series is the least dreary, a come-on, dealing with Irish gold and the question where the gold came from, since no one has found any gold deposits in Ireland in modern times.
Manning visits the areas he is checking out, talks to experts and then Manning adds extra details in his narration. Some more CGI effects might have helped, but Landscape Mystery seems to have been filmed on a shoestring.
