Do you remember those science videos you watched at school? What do they look like in your mind? Did they look naïf? Do they now seem badly produced, dated? You may even think that they would look funny nowadays. If that is the case, you are not the only one. There is a BBC series called Look Around You . It’s a satire of / homage to 1970s and early 1980s educational films and schools programmes, with a different scientific subject being discussed in each episode, or “modules” as they are referred to in the series.
Mixing real theories, with absurd situations, nonsense experiments and a great mise en scène, Look Around You looks like a real 1970′s documentary, specially if you watch them while distracted. They did a perfect reconstruction of those old documentaries: clothes, colours, the incidental music, the camera movement, make-up, edition, narration, objects… it’s terrific. The episodes of the first season, produced in 2002, are hilarious, starting with their nonsense openings.
The first series is composed by eight episodes and a pilot of 20 minutes about Calcium. They were presented in the following order: Maths, Water, Germs, Ghosts, Sulphur, Music, Iron and The Brain. You don’t need to watch them in sequence, and I highly recommend you watch at least one of them. They are also available at YouTube in a playlist. (Thanks Dri!)
