User Reviews

This very show caused me to create an IMDB account solely for the reason of warning potential viewers against it.

I have been fascinated with Tesla ever since I first learned of his person some 15 years ago. I have replicated several of his inventions most notably his infamous RF transformer a.k.a the "Tesla Coil". I visited the Tesla Museum in Belgrade to pay homage to his legacy and padded his statue by the Niagara Falls and even shed a tear as if I were visiting an old friend.

I always felt drawn to the mystery surrounding Nikola Tesla. He was beyond doubt amongst the more brilliant inventors of the 19th century, but please don't forget that he was one of many. Yes he was credited with inventing radio, but in his absence dozens of other scientists would inevitably have reached the same conclusions within months.

The uncomfortable fact is that many of Tesla's inventions were fever dreams at best. He just happened to take interest in AC over DC because it appealed to his way of thinking. At the same time he was clinically insane and a classic schizoid suffering from debilitating OCD and wild magical thinking. He refused general relativity, the inverse-square law and many fundamental scientific facts that he could have readily tested in his various laboratories only to find them true beyond any doubt. In conclusion Tesla was a human being, but is miguidedly treated as a deity by new-age pseudo scientists who really should know better than insulting his genious so profoundly. This show just adds to the hysteria.

Tesla was also a mentally ill romantic -- an increadibly intelligent one none the less. As a mentally challenged bird aficionado and lover of high voltage and RF myself I strongly identify with him on many levels, but popular opinion just won't honour the posibilty of some of his inventions being nothing other than hallucinations. The fringe of genious is madness, yes?

I could go on forever -- but on to the show.

If one (arduously) endures the ridiculous amounts of dramatic space filling narration and rapid cutting some albeit slim scientific facts may be uncovered if you carefully filter out the sensational blabber constantly thrown at the viewer at an impressive rate.

The craftsmanship demonstrated in the construction of the "Death Ray" is a joy to the eye, and the profficiency of the builders can't be ignored, but unfortunately it drowns in the nonsensical and ill informed narration. Sorry. It just doesn't have anything to offer and lacking actual substance they show the most trivial of footage of digging holes and lifting heavy things while finding -- you guessed it -- nothing.

Finally, I should add that the trial and error approach applied somewhat reminds me of Edison's reasearch method. Say no more.

It's sad that so much work and money has gone into a tv show this underwhealming when it could have been spent delivering actual scientific content. It tells us far less than 30 minutes with wikipedia would have.

"Discovery"? Possibly, if you've been wearing blinkers for the past 150 years. "Science"? -- kurec!

Die-hard Tesla fans may not like this, but I was pretty well informed about Tesla's discoveries and inventions before this, and I still really enjoyed this. Was nice seeing his invention actually be built by a team of scientists and switched on. It's easy to think historians have investigated and recreated all of the things he made, but it's clear we haven't, and that we were operating on certain assumptions instead of really digging down to the reality of it, like the Discovery Channel did with this show.