TV shows about Darwin in the UK

[mhale]

Did anyone see the two TV shows on BBC2 last night about Darwin? The reason I ask is that "Jimmy Doherty in Darwin's Garden" briefly featured our friends the gorillas at London Zoo (including Bobby RIP), and "Darwin's Dangerous Idea" featured orangs and ring-tailed lemurs which, I think, was filmed at Monkey World (at least, the enclosures looked like those from Monkey World, anyway). Please correct me if I am wrong.

Both programmes showed how remarkable the great apes are (of course, WE already knew that, didn't we? ) and are worth a watch for that alone.

Here are the links for them on BBC iPlayer:

BBC iPlayer - Darwin's Dangerous Idea: Body and Soul
BBC iPlayer - Jimmy Doherty in Darwin's Garden: Dangerous Ideas

 

[mhale]

TV shows about Darwin shown in the UK

Just to add a bit more information to my original post, the two TV shows each have 3 episodes, which are as follows:

Darwin's Dangerous Idea
Episode 1 = Body and Soul (first shown on BBC2 on 5th March 2009)
Episode 2 = Born Equal? (first shown on BBC2 on 12th March 2009)
Episode 3 = Life and Death (first shown on BBC2 on 19th March 2009)

Jimmy Doherty in Darwin's Garden
Episode 1 = Dangerous Ideas (first shown on BBC2 on 5th March 2009)
Episode 2 = The Storm Breaks (first shown on BBC2 on 12th March 2009)
Episode 3 = Of Apes and Men (first shown on BBC2 on 19th March 2009)

There are some nice shots of various animals in each episode. The final episode of Jimmy Doherty in Darwin's Garden, as the programme title suggests, will feature monkeys and apes. There was a snippet of it at the end of this week's episode.

So far, these have been interesting episodes, showing reconstructions of Darwin's experiments and talking about "survival of the fittest" in the human and animal kingdoms. Really thought-provoking stuff!

 

[mhale]

Well, tonight's episode of "Jimmy Doherty in Darwin's Garden" had some lovely footage of the London Zoo gorillas, filmed before Bobby's untimely death. They even put a special mention of him in the end credits, saying "With thanks to ... and Bobby the gorilla (1983 - 2008)". They showed Effie looking at her reflection in a mirror.

The episode also showed the chimps at Chester Zoo, a couple of orangs and some monkeys.