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Birthgap

Birthgap (2023) Seen on the 26th May 2026, 105 min. Birthgap correctly identifies a real demographic transition: fertility has fallen, parenthood is being delayed, and many rich societies are ageing into historically unusual population structures. However, judged by the standards of demographic science, history of science, and causal inference, the documentary turns a valid demographic pattern into an overdetermined causal story. BirthgapFacts is right to challenge its strongest claims: the evidence does not justify treating unplanned childlessness as the central cause of low fertility everywhere, nor does it justify global “population collapse” language. The scientifically safer conclusion is that low fertility is a multi-causal demographic transition, not a single-cause crisis. 1. What Birthgap gets right: the phenomenon is real The documentary is not inventing the problem. Fertility decline in high-income societies is real and large. The OECD reports that the average total ferti...
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Ancient Apocalypse

Ancient Apocalypse, 2020-2024 Netflix, seen in 2025.
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Shifty

Shifty BBC, 5 Episodes. Seen on 1st May 2026. My Take on Shifty — Adam Curtis, BBC, 2025 Watching Adam Curtis’s Shifty felt less like watching a documentary about Britain and more like watching an X-ray of the world that formed me. The series covers the last decades of the twentieth century, roughly the period in which my own childhood, adolescence and early adulthood were shaped. I found myself not merely learning history, but recognising the emotional, political and aesthetic architecture of my own identity. What struck me most is how Shifty explains the collapse of an old British settlement: the belief that government, institutions, public culture and social reform could organise society in the service of ordinary people. Curtis presents Thatcherism not simply as a political programme, but as a profound redefinition of freedom. Freedom became market choice, self-interest, personal aspiration, consumer credit, private wealth and individual happiness. The state withdrew, finance e...
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AI Confidential with Hannah Fry

AI Confidential with Hannah Fry Seen on the 11th April 2026, 3 Episodes, BBC Programme: AI Confidential with Hannah Fry Broadcaster: BBC Format: 3-part documentary series Date watched: April 2026 Status: Completed Overall reaction I found this series deeply thought-provoking, especially because I work in AI myself. It did not simply inform me; it challenged me. Across the three episodes, it made me reflect on AI not only as a technological force, but as something that can shape cognition, relationships, movement, care, exclusion, and dignity. What stayed with me most is that my reaction is not anti-AI. It is more precise than that: I came away feeling more cautious, more responsible, and more aware that AI is never neutral in practice. It can support human life, but it can also narrow it. Episode 1 — Echo chambers, cognition, and emotional use of AI This was probably the most shocking episode. It made me much more aware of the effects of AI-driven echo chambers. It did not only ...
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Agatha Christie: Lucy Worsley on the Mystery Queen

Agatha Christie: Lucy Worsley on the Mystery Queen (2022) Seen on the 13th April 2026, 3 episodes BBC. Programme: Agatha Christie: Lucy Worsley on the Mystery Queen Broadcaster: BBC Format: 3-part documentary series Year: 2022 Date watched: April 2026 Status: Completed Overall reaction I really liked this documentary. I already knew Agatha Christie in the general sense in which most people know her — as the mystery queen, through a few films and through the cultural weight of her name — but this series brought her back into focus for me as a person, not just as a brand. Lucy Worsley’s project is explicitly to explore Christie as a complex woman whose life and work reflected the upheavals of the 20th century, and that came through very clearly.  What pleased me most was not only being reminded how prolific Christie was, but discovering again how extraordinary she was. She came across as rebellious, unconventional, inventive, and much more modern than the stereotype of a merely res...
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Rome: A History of the Eternal City

Rome: A History of the Eternal City (2012) Seen on April 3rd 2026, 3 episodes. Programme: Rome: A History of the Eternal City Broadcaster: BBC Format: 3-part documentary series Year: 2012 Date watched: April 2026 Status: Completed Overall reaction This was a very good documentary. I liked the way it tried to tell the story of Rome as a narrative rather than as a pile of disconnected periods. It is obviously very difficult to cover everything Rome means in only three episodes, but I thought the structure worked well. By the end, I felt I could almost divide a future visit to Rome into three great historical-spiritual layers corresponding to the series itself: ancient sacred/pagan Rome, Christian Rome, and papal/Renaissance/modern Rome. That broad tripartite arc matches the programme’s own framing around Rome’s power being shaped and maintained by religion over time.  Episode 1 — Ancient Rome My reaction The first episode deals with ancient Rome, from the founding story of Romul...
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Leonardo da Vinci

https://www.bbc.co.uk/programmes/m00264cj/episodes/player BBC Four, 2 epidosdes. 180 min. Programme: Leonardo da Vinci Format: 2-part documentary series Year: 2024 Date watched: March 2026 Status: Completed Overall reaction This was a revelatory series for me. Before watching it, I had a strong but somewhat abstract sense of Leonardo: the Mona Lisa, the London exhibition with the two Virgin of the Rocks paintings face to face, the mythology around “Da Vinci,” and the broad idea of a genius who lived 500 years ago. But this series gave me a much clearer chronological understanding of his life: who his mother was, who his father was, why he returned to Florence, why he went to Rome, how he moved between patrons, and how all of this shaped him. The 2011 National Gallery exhibition you remembered really did bring the London and Louvre versions of The Virgin of the Rocks together for the first time.  What affected me most is that I came to identify with Leonardo. Not in the simplistic...
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