Big History

Breaking Bad fans prepare to regain some brain cells & increase your intelligence!

Just watched the first two episodes of Big History on H2 on 02 Nov., 13 which Bryan Cranston now narrates.

If you are a history fanatic as I am then you need to catch this show!

Praise to Bryan Cranston for his narration of the series. It is great that now he can show those fans of Breaking Bad that he has more interests and talents than just being an actor who plays a killer drug dealer.

Which in turn benefits our children's intelligence as well as adults.

Bravo & keep up the good work Mr. Cranston!

I wish someday TV producers would assume their viewers might just possess an educational level past the grade 5 level.

There is indeed some basic value to the content of Big History. But, shamefully, it seems written for children. Why is the sound background so unimaginative and overbearing ? The loud and "fancy" sound effects only disrupt the viewing experience. Despite any interest I might have in the material, I have to switch to other channels.

You might perhaps learn from PBS documentaries how to properly present a subject.

I don't expect the same quality as PBS from you, but, at the very least please have the decency of respecting your viewers intelligence.

Gilles Violette

Great show. It incorporates scientific analysis with historical records to create an account of how things came to be. It is a bit difficult to research the show itself since Big History is also the name for the scientific initiative on which the show is based. That can get a bit confusing, so if you go to Wikipedia to look up Big History, the first thing that comes up is not the television series itself, but an initiative by a group of researchers to investigate some of the most intriguing questions about history, mankind, the earth, the cosmos, the physical laws by which we are governed, and just about anything else that needs answering. The show itself is very compelling to watch. Cranston does a great job on the narration, and the visual depictions are great, including re-enactments with actors, exuberant scenery and well-designed graphic animations. The story told by the narrator is a concisely described historical account focusing on the key points and paying close attention to the facets likely to be most interesting. Highly recommend giving it a try.

This show turns history into shows like "Best Police Chases" or "When Animals Attack".

There are more useless CG and intros than the actual content. Remove all the CG of flying through networks, the mindless summary of the show after EVERY commercial break, I would be surprised if there are 10 minutes of actual content in any episode.

They interview renowned scientists and only get the sound bite of the most basic concept. If they had interviewed Albert Einstein, their question would be "so, physics... pretty cool huh?"

To see a proper example of the same concept of this show, watch Connections, a show by James Burke. It was done in 1978 but far better than this show.

Every episode lays out 5-6 ideas about a theme, doesn't investigate further into those concepts but you can google it and it shows that they did their research pretty good. The videos in the background are just for enhancing your memory of the show, of those 5-6 ideas. You can recollect every show very fast when somebody asks you! Unlike Cosmos, where you get lost very fast, cannot recall anything, and have no idea what they wanted to say, this is quite the opposite - very clear concepts, presented in a memorable way. I find all the ideas very contemporary. *And the do like drama - seems like they can connect your morning coffee with the Big Bang :) but i don't mind the theatrical approach, probably gets to wider audience