God's black hole on BBC2 Tonight

[Rum]

..not really..

Horizon - Swallowed by a Black Hole

A gas cloud has strayed within the gravitational reach of a supermassive black hole in the centre of the Milky Way and is expected to be affected by it at some point this summer. Across the globe, telescopes are being trained on the heart of Earth's galaxy in the expectation of observing this cosmic spectacle for the first time in history
Category Documentary
Producer Dan Clifton
Series Editor Aidan Laverty, James Van der Pool
BBC2 East 9:00pm-10:00pm (1 hour ) Wed 26 Jun

[klr]

[Rum]

Giant fart gas cloud enters black hole.

[Xamonas Chegwé]

Actually, it happened about 70 million years ago. Just took a while for news to get here.

[Rum]

No sub space communication devices out there then?

[Clinton Huxley]

I watched about a minute before getting annoyed by the visuals. There's about as much content in the average Horizon these days as in roughly 2 pages of a book on the same subject. It's just not efficient to watch it.

[Rum]

I persevered and it was worth it for the conclusion which was new to me. They now believe that there is a direct correlation between the mass of a black hole at the centre of galaxies and the possible number of stars that 'orbit' it in any given galaxy.

[Clinton Huxley]

I just want a clever beard, talking to camera for a solid 60 minutes. No interruptions or visuals. I'm old-fashioned.

[klr]

I persevered and it was worth it for the conclusion which was new to me. They now believe that there is a direct correlation between the mass of a black hole at the centre of galaxies and the possible number of stars that 'orbit' it in any given galaxy.

Yup, that was news to me as well.

A good program. I could have done without some of the touchy-feely visuals, but they were a minor irritant.

[PsychoSerenity]

Yeah I watched it all, but I agree with Clinton - cut the crap and that could have been a much more engaging 15 minute show. Or stretch it to half an hour and include a hell of a lot more detail.

[JimC]

I just want a clever beard, talking to camera for a solid 60 minutes. No interruptions or visuals. I'm old-fashioned.

You would like my physics classes, then...

[Clinton Huxley]

I just want a clever beard, talking to camera for a solid 60 minutes. No interruptions or visuals. I'm old-fashioned.

You would like my physics classes, then...

Get your students to film you....

[Audley Strange]

He did that, his court case is next month...



I've been critical of Horizon's approach over the last five or so years, most of it seems like a C.V. for digital animation. However I had a discussion with someone involved in it recently who pointed out that I was not the target market. Which is fine, since I mostly watched Horizon when I was a kid.

[PsychoSerenity]

I've been critical of Horizon's approach over the last five or so years, most of it seems like a C.V. for digital animation. However I had a discussion with someone involved in it recently who pointed out that I was not the target market. Which is fine, since I mostly watched Horizon when I was a kid.

The trouble is, other than a few BBC Four one-offs, Horizon is the BBC's most scientific show. The BBC is supposed to serve the public interest and promote education and learning, - and they're the only non-specialist television company that can get away with broadcasting prime-time educational shows without making them "popular" (i.e. Richard Hammond blowing things up), because they don't have to rely on advertising - so by all means have science shows targeted at kids etc. but they should do some real science shows as well. Ultimately you are not going to inspire anyone by telling them things they already know.

[Audley Strange]

I've been critical of Horizon's approach over the last five or so years, most of it seems like a C.V. for digital animation. However I had a discussion with someone involved in it recently who pointed out that I was not the target market. Which is fine, since I mostly watched Horizon when I was a kid.

The trouble is, other than a few BBC Four one-offs, Horizon is the BBC's most scientific show. The BBC is supposed to serve the public interest and promote education and learning, - and they're the only non-specialist television company that can get away with broadcasting prime-time educational shows without making them "popular" (i.e. Richard Hammond blowing things up), because they don't have to rely on advertising - so by all means have science shows targeted at kids etc. but they should do some real science shows as well. Ultimately you are not going to inspire anyone by telling them things they already know.

The target market isn't kids as such. It is "post-literate" which means something or other. The basic gist of what they were getting at was that since I was educated in a certain way and with certain technologies, the show reflected that at the time. It wasn't just lectures even then, there was lots of footage shots and interviews. There was more content certainly, but that was the 70's. Now people apparently don't like being bombarded with too much talking and they find that 15 minutes of something is about the time when people begin to switch off mentally so, flash some groovy images up to pad that 15 minutes for an hour.

I agree with you though. Called it "Science Yeah!" and put Horizon as a BBC4 Flagship and hit it up, which has a lot more interesting documentaries that you might think even though some of them sound like a cure for insomnia.