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James Burke's Connections

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crunchy5

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While reading the In search of thread my mind wandered off and James Burke's Connections came in to my thoughts, I remember loving it but not much else exploding billiard balls and monasteries as book repositories. I've never seen a repeat even in the depths of cable do any others remember it :?:
 
Saw it first time round when I was a teenager and loved it.

I think I saw it again on satellite a couple of years ago, one edition of it anyway, 'twas definitely him demonstrating the latest scientific thinking. ;)
 
Yes, I think UKTV Documentary repeated it a couple of years ago (at about 1.00 am on weekdays or some other accessible time :roll: ).

I saw it first time round as well - IIRC my dad had the book, too.
 
I watched in the 70s and remember it vaguely - My older brother had the book, he was also really into Tomorrows World -

-
 
It pops up on Canadian TV from time to time.
 
A recent letter to James Burke

Dear Mr Burke,

I have a tale of incredible timing which regards your program Connections and I thought you might appreciate it.

The events end with the very sad passing of my Father in Law on the New Year's Eve just past, he had been ill with a failing heart for some time. But I am getting ahead of myself.

My Father in Law, was a school teacher in New Zealand and had a much celebrated career with a special enthusiasm for history - particularly the industrial history of Great Britain. Far and away his favourite telly program was Connections, he would delight in showing episodes to anyone, of any age, who sat still long enough. On one of my visits to his home, I noted that there was an episode missing from his collection and it soon became clear that he only had one series and that there must have been another one made. I returned to England and began to try and track down videos of the missing second series, but failed and began to doubt that I had seen a rogue episode/series at all. By chance, just before another trip to Wellington, I caught one of your episodes and was delighted to note that it was not from series two but that there was a third series!

I told him all about this when I saw him and he was frustrated that he had not seen or heard of the two extra series on TVNZ. Like any good son in law I promised to track down the two series for him. I trawled the catalogues of video shops and kept coming up blank and had all but given up when an email came back from a specialist shop, they didn't have one but had a contact in the US who did. After a few emails had zipped back and forth it became clear that the stock was for educational use and as such would be pricey, to say the least. My wife and I bit the bullet and ordered them, but only to be dashed again. The company could not export them to England because of the copyright, so we had them delivered to some friends in Philadelphia. They took a while to arrive and when they did it was at the same time as the friends were packing up to move house, so naturally the box got put into another box and like a Russian doll packed with micro-film it got bundled up and moved, along with everything else. The moving took time and the box (with the box within the box in it) was one of the last to be opened. Diligently, our friends took it to the post office and sent it on for its second of three legs. A month or so later they finally turned up here in England. Even though I am a good son in law, as I mentioned, but I could not resist the urge to watch the two series back to back and expose my three year old son to some of the delights, so by the time this was done Christmas was upon us. At long last, we bundled the box back up, slipped in some school photos of our lad and a card before taking the whole thing to the post office for it's third and final trip; only to be dashed again. The postage for airmail was more than we had in cash at the time and so we traipsed home, still with the box of DVDs and feeling very sorry for ourselves. After the weekend we went again and did manage to send it out, but missing the Christmas deadline even for air.

The parcel arrived on the morning of New Year's Eve, my Father in law and his wife opened it up and cooed over the photos and placed the card on the windowsill. His heart played up a little at this point and he took a small rest, when he woke up it was suggested he watch a few of the DVDs and take it easy until they headed up to their eldest daughter's for a family dinner. He did so and after watching a couple he added a few notes to his weekly letter out to us in England, as we had hoped all along, he loved the new material and found it every bit as gripping as the original; he told us how much he was looking forward to watching the two series over the coming weeks.

That evening, after they had driven up the valley for the family party the heart played up again. This time it faltered for too long and too gravely and as I said at the beginning, it became the saddest of ends to a year. On Sundays it was a tradition for him to send out his letter, even though it was unfinished and the last in a very long running custom, his wife sent it out to us. We cried to read his last thoughts, but took a huge joy from knowing that the recording made it out just in the nick of time.

I hope this finds its way to you and that the telling does some justice to the epic trip your programs took, to reach a man who liked nothing more than imbuing a passion and energy for the way technology shapes and affects our lives. Thank you for taking the time to read this and most of all for making really great programs.

Yours sincerely,
(Soong [names have been removed and replaced with he/she])

- No reply from his agent yet, but when I saw this thread I thought it would be nice to share it.
 
He did a seriese that interested me, previos to Conections. Covered all sorts includeing the unavalibilty of "sleeping gas" (in hostage/ terrorist situations) and the imposibility of generateing electic power from the gravity holding skyscrapers down.... twas interesting.
 
That was a poignant story, wrong word, soong2 I'm glad you took the time to write it
 
Ta very much. I was hoping to get a reply from his agent today, first day of the week and all; nothing yet though. :roll:
 
I got a copy of one of these years ago - but gave it away. It's NOT the BBC original and is only 25 mins long. There was another one about furtue technology but I can't find. Called something like "The Day After Tomorrow" which is slightly better.

Link

And this book along the same Connections line...

Link

..which I've not had a chance to read yet - but looks pretty dull! :cry:

And this book which, yes, you guessed it, has vanished somewhere. Damn all this house moving!

Link
 
Drat, missed it! James Burke, and the whole TW team were gods to me. I thought they were just brilliant, as were the topics covered.

But James Burke was/is my favourite (partly down to his Apollo stints), with his honest, droll, unaffected style.

Am highly-intrigued by the possibility that somewhere, on the net, there could be a few onlined episodes of his master work, "Connections". One of the many unrepeated-yet-eminently-repeatable gems of yester-TV.
 
You can listen to the Tomorrow's World doc at the Radio 4 site for a long time to come, Ermintrude. Just look for last Saturday's Archive Hour.
 
Ermintruder said:
Drat, missed it! James Burke, and the whole TW team were gods to me. I thought they were just brilliant, as were the topics covered.

But James Burke was/is my favourite (partly down to his Apollo stints), with his honest, droll, unaffected style.

Am highly-intrigued by the possibility that somewhere, on the net, there could be a few onlined episodes of his master work, "Connections". One of the many unrepeated-yet-eminently-repeatable gems of yester-TV.
Click to expand...

My dad was telling me about this a couple of nights ago, and quite a lot of the episodes are available on YouTube now
 
I loved this! One of the key early facts I discovered about Mr Frideswide is that so did he.
 
Be warned!

I relied on YT for Connections (Series 1) rewatches for years, but they have a habit of disappearing! The two later series were made by Discovery, and they're obviously not as diligent protecting their copyrights as the Beeb, so they pretty much stay up all the time.

Thankfully, since 2017, you can buy the DVDs in the UK; I paid about £15 on Amazon, well worth it, it's one of the highlights of British TV, IMHO, along with Life on Earth and The Ascent of Man.
 
If you can find the first episode of Connections on Youtube or somewhere, there are some very interesting and eerie coincidences about the choice of location and subject matter that make it a bit of a difficult watch post-2001.
And here, from a later series, is James Burke putting forward what I would call a very Fortean view of the world (followed by an optimism about what was then the latest technology that may, or may not, turn out to be misplaced)
 
A wonderful, fantastic TV series, which made a huge impression upon me when I watched it live. And it still hits the spot, in the 21st Century, watched on DVD. I cannot recommend it strongly enough...
 
Ermintruder said:
A wonderful, fantastic TV series, which made a huge impression upon me when I watched it live. And it still hits the spot, in the 21st Century, watched on DVD. I cannot recommend it strongly enough...
Click to expand...

My 25 yo son watched it with me when I (finally!) got the DVDs after hearing me bang on about it for years, and he thought it was one of the best and most thought-provoking pieces of TV he'd ever seen and that he'd never forget it.
 
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