Tag Archives: Lucy Worsley

DVDs, Movies, TV

A quartet of important PBS programs, now on DVD

We are always writing about PBS’ specials and programs because they are, well, special programs.

A few choices:

NOVA: Pluto and Beyond
When the New Horizons spacecraft whizzed by Pluto in 2015, we Earthlings were dazzled by the breathtaking images it beamed home. They revealed a never-before-seen alien landscape – a world of mountains made of ice mixed with plains of frozen-solid methane and nitrogen. After more than two years of poring over the data, NASA has made remarkable new discoveries about everyone’s favorite dwarf planet.

But New Horizons didn’t stop there. On New Year’s Day 2019, the probe flew by an object known now as Ultima Thule, believed to be a primordial building block of the solar system. This is the most distant flyby in NASA’s history – 4 billion miles from Earth. If successful, it will shed light on one of the least understood regions of our solar system: the Kuiper Belt. NOVA was embedded with the New Horizons mission team as the team uncovered in real time the secrets of what lies beyond Pluto.

NATURE: Equus: The Story of the Horse
Ever since the beginning of time, humans and horses have had an extraordinary and unusual partnership. As a result, horses have helped shape the human world. In this program, viewers join anthropologist Dr. Niobe Thompson and equine experts on a two-part adventure around the world and throughout time to discover the origins of the horse and what makes us so perfect for each other. In part one, Origins, viewers experience a stunning 3D reconstruction as a realistic animation of the 45 million-year-old ancestor of the horse, the Dawn horse, rises from a fossil bed and begins a transformation into the magnificent animal we know today. Viewers discover why horses have almost 360-degree vision and gallop on a single toe.

In part two of the program, Chasing the Wind, viewers encounter extraordinary horse breeds old of the Siberian Arctic to the scorching heat of the Arabian Desert. Filmed over 18 months across three continents, the program not only explores the horse and its biology but how humans have partnered with the horse throughout the centuries, creating more than 400 breeds found all around the world.

USS INDIANAPOLIS: The Final Chapter
In the waning days of World War II, less than three weeks before the Japanese surrendered, the U.S. Navy experienced a catastrophic disaster. The USS Indianapolis, the pride and joy of the U.S. Navy, had just delivered the components of the atomic bomb destined for Hiroshima when she is sunk by a Japanese sub. 300 sailors go down with her, and the 900 survivors drift for four and a half days, battling the sun, thirst, sharks, and their own fear. Ultimately, only 316 of them are pulled from the sea alive.

https://youtu.be/lyIboZvBa2I

The sinking of Indianapolis remains the U.S. Navy’s worst single loss of life at sea. The program flashes back and forth in time between the Indianapolis’ history and her ultimate fate, and 2017, when explorers finally found the ship’s remains 18,000 feet below the surface of the Philippine Sea. Viewers will hear first-hand accounts from survivors about those horrific days trying to survive and how they feel today, now that the USS Indianapolishas been found.

Victoria & Albert: The Wedding
This two-part British drama produced by BBC Studios for PBS and BBC gives an insider’s look into the elaborate planning that went into one of the most famous weddings of all time: the romantic 1840 union of Queen Victoria and her consort Prince Albert. Host and Royal historian Lucy Worsley, along with a team of experts, oversees the meticulous recreation of the most important and fascinating elements of the wedding celebration, from the food and the music to the tiered cake, exquisite white wedding dress, and more.

Scouring all available materials, including Victoria’s own diaries for details, the program reveals how the pomp and pageantry secured the nation’s unwavering attention as Victoria gained favor with her subjects and invented the modern ideal of marriage.

DVDs, Movies, TV

Learn how King Henry VIII got ahead in marriage . . . six times!

And you thought the Mormons had it tough.

The 16th--century legend of King Henry VIII is turned on its crowned head as the dramatic stories of his six tumultuous marriages are told from the wives’ perspectives in Secrets of the Six Wives (PBS Distribution). The fascinating documentary will be available on DVD March 14; the program will also be available for digital download.

With extraordinary attention to detail–including actual first-person accounts pulled from historical records and secrets and stories from the women who surrounded each Queen–the program offers an ambitious approach to the oft-told tales.

Led by UK author and historian Lucy Worsley, who moves seamlessly from the present to the past and appears throughout the series as an observer and commenter on the happenings at court, the program gives history a new point of view. Worsley is the Joint Chief Curator at Historic Royal Palaces, and a face familiar to British audiences as a regular historical contributor to BBC, whose best-selling books bring new angles on centuries of British history.

The series’ three episodes follows the trajectory of a well-known British nursery rhyme used to teach children the order of the six wives, “Divorced, Beheaded, Died; Divorced, Beheaded, Survived.” Additional information about each of the episodes included on this DVD are below:

Episode 1
Young Henry is smitten with Spanish princess Katherine of Aragon, who became his first wife, until her “inability” to deliver a suitable heir destroyed their marriage. Henry’s wandering eye leads him to Mary Boleyn then to her sister, the infamous Anne Boleyn, as he begins divorcing his first wife.

Episode 2
Viewers learn that Anne Boleyn was not necessarily the “harlot” described by history, but instead a strong and intelligent woman.  After Anne’s famous beheading, King Henry marries his professed “true love” Jane Seymour, who bore the King’s only son but died soon after the child’s birth.

Episode 3
Taking place in Henry’s later years and traces the failed marriages he had with Anne of Cleves, whom he divorced, but who got a very good settlement and ended up as one of the richest women in England, and Catherine Howard, a teenager who Lucy discovers was exploited by older men from a young age. She was also beheaded. Henry remained married to his sixth wife, Katherine Parr, until his death.

Whether as witness to, participant in, or wry commentator on the marital dramas as they unfold, Worsley shines an empathetic light on the featured women and, in doing so, delivers a new take on the legend of King Henry VIII.

Murray says the cast of Secrets of the Six Wives features mostly new faces from the U.K., helping to bring the story a contemporary feel. Starring as the six wives are Paola Bontempi (Katherine of Aragon); Claire Cooper (Anne Boleyn); Elly Condron (Jane Seymour); Rebecca Dyson Smith (Anne of Cleves); Lauren McQueen (Catherine Howard); and Alice Patten (Katherine Parr). Notable veteran actor Richard Ridings (who voices the character of Daddy in the popular children’s show Peppa Pig) appears as the older King Henry VIII in episode 3. Scott Arthur plays Young King Henry VIII in episodes 1 and 2.