I guess we'll try not to go through the entirety of Lord Horatio Nelson's naval career during the Napoleonic Wars around 1800, so we'll try to keep it short. His family or orientation was no more than middle class. His father took him to the docks and more or less abandoned him there, having run out of money. Nelson took to the sea at the age of twelve. He chased the ships of the French and Spanish enemies all over the place, rising in rank as he did so. His most glorious victory came when he was 28 years old and caught the French with their pants down near the mouth of the Nile River in Egypt. Nelson's fleet demolished the French.

But he was a tired man who had not set foot on land for two years. And he had accumulated a number of serious wounds to his head and his eye. He lost the sight of that eye but never lost the eye itself. A careful examination of Nelson's portraits show that one of his pupils differs from the other in being fully dilated. He'd been wounded in the abdomen and at the Nile he lost an arm, shattered by a musket ball above the elbow and amputated without any anaesthetic.

Thereupon he took the fleet to the port of Naples for repair and refitting. He was greeted at the docks as a great hero. One of the ladies swooned at his feet. Nelson was taken to a comfortable house where he was nursed back to health by the same young lady, Emma Hamilton. She had what was called "a checkered past" -- artist's model and the like -- but marriage to the titled Hamilton had brought her respectability. She lost that respectability by soon getting it on with Horatio Nelson, his schtupping apparently unimpeded by his many wounds. She introduced him to sexual practices he'd never experienced in his own dull marriage. Anyone who wants to see why the admirable Admiral would risk his reputation with another man's wife should Google "Emma Hamilton" and then click on "images."

A rebellion took place against the Neapolitan royalty during Nelson's stay. The rebels were losing and he, a strict royalist, promised the republicans safety if they boarded his ships in the harbor. He went back on his promise, took them all prisoner, and turned them over to the authorities who hanged them one by one. Nelson himself had the Italian fleet commander hanged from the yardarm, let the body dangle until sundown, then hacked it free. It fell into the water and the Italian admiral never received a Christian burial. Sounds like a dirty trick and serves as an illustration of the fact that the elements are mixed in all of us. The incident didn't endear Nelson to some of his fans. Neither did his lying around in the Neapolitan court like a Turkish pasha. He was recalled to England, bringing Emma and her husband with him, and they had a celebrated ménage a trois that included a child by Nelson ("Horatia", Dad was vain) and the death of old man Hamilton, possibly the result of an overdose of humiliation. It took another victory at sea to restore Nelson's reputation.

He was a genius at his job though. When the French and Spanish fleet was located near the southern coast of Spain in 1805, the Admiralty put the 47 year old Nelson in charge and sent him after them. He described his own plan of attack as "singular" and "brilliant" and called it "the Nelson touch." (Haratia's Dad was as vain as ever.) The enemy stood their ground as Nelson's two columns of ships attacked. He hoisted flags and sent a signal to the others: "England expects that every man will do his duty." The battle was joined. Nelson, as usual, was on the lead ship, the Victory. The combat was particularly fierce. Sawdust was scattered on all the decks to soak up the blood. Nelson himself was shot by a musketeer on a French ship. The ball pierced his lungs and shattered his spine. It took him three agonizing hours to yield to the sure-enwinding arms of cool-enfolding death, but the victory was all his. The French and Spanish fleets were finished and so was the danger of cross-channel invasion by Napoleon. His body was more or less preserved in a cask of brandy. When brought back to England he lay in state for several days and was buried at St. Paul's.

It's a bloody good documentary in its breadth and in its detail. There are paintings, voiceless reenactments, and comments from half a dozen experts. Nice job.