MAN MADE PLANET: EARTH FROM SPACE, C4, 8pm
THEY say that when Nasa first beamed back photos of Earth as seen from space, it prompted a wave of kindness towards the planet.
People saw it as a fragile point of light, dwarfed by the blackness, and felt its vulnerability as never before. Well, any move towards environmentalism soon petered out and we’re back to destroying the place again, so will this show provoke any re-assessment of how we treat our home?
This documentary, which includes contributions from Tim Peake, explores Nasa’s vast archive of Earth images to show the drastic changes humans have made to the planet in the last 45 years.
We start with 1972’s Blue Marble, the first shot of Earth which took in the whole planet. They use time-lapse photography to show us the transformation wrought by Chinese “mega cities” and the building of vast solar power plants in the Nevada desert.
Is this progress or destruction? Can one happen without the other? All these troubling questions unfurl from this gorgeous array of pictures.
DOCTOR WHO, BBC1, 7.20pm
EVERYONE seemed to agree that last week’s Doctor Who, the first in this new series, was a great success.
Crucially, it was easy to follow, so newcomers could dip in and feel welcome. When I first watched the show, on Peter Capaldi’s debut, I was wildly confused. Why was there a lesbian lizard in Victorian mourning garb? It seemed there was no way in for a new viewer unless they were willing to sacrifice months of their life in catching up by watching all the old episodes.
No chance!
Tonight, the writer Frank Cottrell Boyce creates a story about artificial intelligence.
We are on Smile, a colony of Earth, and everything seems perfect and gleaming. “They say the settlers have cracked the secret of human happiness.”
So where are all these happy settlers? The streets are empty and all the Doctor and Bill can find are “emojibots” and piles of skulls who seem to have died smiling.
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