Documentary
Michael Palin undertakes an epic journey of 23,000 miles, traveling from the North to the South Pole across 17 countries with a minimum of air travel, all on a tight deadline.


The first leg takes Michael Palin from the North Pole to the gates of Russia.

Second leg of the journey: Palin has 12 days to cross Russia and reach the port of Odessa.

Palin travels from Istanbul to Aswan on the Nile.

In this part of the journey Michael Palin crosses the Sudan. He crosses the Nubian desert in the north of the country and traverses a region ravaged by drought, poverty, famine and civil war. Unable to follow the line of 30 degrees east, he is forced to take a route along the border with Northern Ethiopia.

Having struggled through the Sudan, Michael Palin is now faced with the difficulty of getting across Ethiopia, where the armed remnants of the fallen dictator Mengistu's defeated army roam. He makes a dash to Addis Ababa with a military escort. He continues his journey to reach the Kenyan border and travels on to Lerata. He passes Mount Kenya, the significance of which is that now he has completed half of his journey.

Michael Palin begins this week with a tented safari in a Kenyan game park. He travels via the Ngoronoro Crater and arrives at Lake Tanganyika.

In this week's episode, Michael crosses Zambia and Zimbabwe towards Johannesburg.

Michael Palin fails in his attempt to get a berth on board the SA "Agulhas" on its once yearly sail to the South Pole. The search is on to find some other way of reaching the South Pole, abandoning all self-imposed restraints such as following 30 degrees east or using only surface transport.

Self

Examines the dawn of the comic book genre and its powerful legacy, as well as the evolution of the characters who leapt from the pages over the last 75 years and their ongoing worldwide cultural impact. It chronicles how these disposable diversions were subject to intense government scrutiny for their influence on American children and how they were created in large part by the children of immigrants whose fierce loyalty to a new homeland laid the foundation for a multi-billion-dollar industry that is an influential part of our national identity.

The astounding story of the Chinese province of Guangdong – and the local people protecting its extraordinary wildlife from the modern world. Lying on the Tropic of Cancer, what should be desert is a wonderland of mountain forests, river deltas and coastal ecosystems, with over 1,000 species of animals. But with a booming economy, Guangdong is also the most densely populated province in China, home to over 126 million people. This beautiful, dramatic and epic natural history documentary celebrates not only the wildlife of Guangdong, but also reveals how its people cherish and protect it from the modern world.