Space Odyssey [DVD]

With 'Space Odyssey', the BBC imagines what it would be like to take a crew of space travellers and send them on a voyage of discovery around our solar system. We can watch them cope with Mars, Venus, Saturn on a six year mission of exploration and discovery. There's no time travel, no beaming down to the planet, no science fiction so distant we can't imagine that contemporary technology couldn't do precisely what the BBC has done. And the space travellers aren't American, it's not something the USA has launched ... with a token Russian and Scottish engineer on board. It's a crew anyone could identify with; they're human beings, not robots.

It's a great idea, all the better for being a simple one. With 'Space Odyssey', the BBC has done something special. I'm old enough to remember reading Dan Dare in 'The Eagle', sitting in bed poring over clunky paperbacks and rigid annuals with adventure stories of space travel, or sitting in the cinema, watching excruciating black & white B movies where the wooden acting and flying-saucer-on-a-string special effects made television's 'Thunderbirds' look real by comparison. It was an adventure in the imagination.

Then reality caught up with the world. We had the moon landings, pictures from space, endless coverage of rocket launchings, and the first live action deaths to bring us back down to earth. You no longer had to imagine what space travel was like - the images were now constrained by reality. Oh, '2001' and 'Star Wars' did much to recover the sense of wonder, to introduce special effects and a narrative that could both engross and fire the imagination ... but that boyhood measure of the unknown was gone.

The BBC has always had some sort of responsibility for education - in its earliest days there was pressure on the Corporation to produce programmes which were culturally uplifting. Again, much of that has gone. It's a ratings war now, and we have to suffer a load of cheap tat whichever channel we watch. But with 'Space Odyssey', we're beginning to enter a new era of television education.

Education isn't about pinning your lugs back and listening to someone spout facts at you, facts which you must struggle to remember because, you will be tested later. Education should entertain. Education should engross. Education should fire that sense of wonder and imagination which exists in all of us ... until the education system does its best to iron them out. And in 'Space Odyssey', we get wonder and imagination enough to fill a universe.

The BBC make great play of the series being based on thorough research and the latest scientific knowledge. The makers have gone to great lengths to get it right. But they've got it right by combining startling use of special effects with a sound narrative and a sense of human involvement which captures your interest and your imagination. We've seen a glut of special effects - Hollywood is investing progressively less in encouraging good writing and good stories in favour of churning out special effects. The computer games industry is doing the same ... though some would argue that many computer games now carry a better storyline than most blockbuster movies!

But the special effects in 'Space Odyssey' aren't just there to dazzle and take your eye off the weakness of the plot. They're understated, because they are attempting to capture an imagined reality. You get a real sense of travelling through space, of involvement in the process, whether you are one of the crew out there on your own, or one of the ground crew, struggling to convince them that they aren't really alone. It is an education in the physics of our solar system, but painted with a palette of wonder and curiosity and enough adventure to fire anyone's imagination.

The DVD of the television series should continue to fill you with wonder and inspire you for years to come. It's something for you, something for your kids. It's not the greatest story ever told, but this is some of the finest use of special effects that I've seen. This programme will become a classic.

It's refreshing to see a change in format for space documentaries from the by now jaded celebrity/funky scientist standing around an amazing holographic machine in a high tec lab. Perhaps you won't like all the characters, perhaps there isn't really time to make them your nearest and dearest soap opera star...but then again at least it's a recognizably human crew involved. This is a theme which runs throughout and in my opinion works well if you keep in mind that this IS a genuine effort to inform the viewer and not just to provide melodrama.

The science is solid and not burdened by the tremendous CGI effects. When you're on the respective planets, there is an unnerving sense of oh my God, this is what it may actually look like If I were there. Starkly simple but utterly alien. The best way I can put it is that it is the difference between seeing something through the highly processed eyes of Hollywood cinematography and watching a report on the evening news. It just has more of an authentic feel to it.

The only thing I was incredulous to was the scale of the mission this hypothetical crew were undertaking. Virtually the entire solar system and a comet landing to boot? Now thats not a mission any sane space agency is about to undertake in one launch anytime soon. Don't let this put you off, I did'nt. This is after all, a grand tour of the solar systems sights for those of us who can only dream of what it will (hopefully!) be like for those who would undertake such a journey. Well worth a viewing or two.