The Voyage of Charles Darwin

Please release this title on video/DVD! It is a wonderful, wonderful account of Charles Darwin's Beagle Voyage, and would be a very helpful addition to the curriculum in many a college course on evolution and/or the history of science. It would be great if local PBS stations would pick up this series and show it from time to time, so that interested viewers could at least tape it (the local museum of television history was the only place I could get access to it). It's a real shame that, because of the religious beliefs of a small minority of people (who could simply elect not to watch), the rest of the TV-watching audience are deprived of excellent programming such as this.

Video tapes of the series are available on interlibrary loan from Hampden-Sydney College in Virginia. As one would expect, the quality of the images after 28 years of sitting on the shelf is not good. Nonetheless, I used copies in my two-quarter course on Darwin and evolution. My course, attended by 50 retired persons from our lifelong learning institute program, gave the series rave reviews. My online search indicates that the series is also available via interlibrary loan from Idaho State University. Like many of you, I'd like to purchase DVD's of the series from Time-Life. Please contact me if DVD's become available.

I remember seeing this program when it was broadcast on PBS in the late 1970s. While at the time I thought it was really good, from the perspective of 30+ years on its no-nonsense realism and breathtaking location cinematography become really impressive. I was also impressed that they found an actor (Malcolm Stoddard) who bore such a close resemblance to Darwin it was eerie. (Not quite so close a resemblance of Daniel Burt as Captain FitzRoy.) I never expected that 30+ years on, Darwin's theory of biological evolution would be under greater attack by ignorant Bible-thumping obscurantists, not less. I agree with everyone who has posted opinions regarding this series that wide diffusion and exposure of this story is more important now than ever. Here we are 500 years into the Renaissance and 300 years into the Enlightenment, and yet so many of the people I meet every day seem barely to have gotten out of the Middle Ages, and still others won't be satisfied until they have extinguished the light of true knowledge and replaced it with the darkness of doctrine. While it may be that the series has been withheld from repeat showing in the States owing to fear of the radical Christian Right, it is also possible that the lapse is due to some incredibly arcane and convoluted copyright regulation for which the BBC is so well known.

I have heard that the so-called 'christian' right has had something to do with this first-class film biography of one of the world's greatest scientists not being made available to the public. If this is so, why do contributors, like myself, continue to support Public Television if the directors of WGBH, WNET, and the other PBS stations that are constantly begging us for money refuse to have this marvellous six-part series issued as a DVD or VHS?

This series has been repeated on BBC from its initial transmission in the UK - about five years ago I think. Why it has not re-appeared in the USA is an interesting point but I do know that there is a new TV production about Darwin's life which used his house to shoot some scenes .

That will be interesting to see but should not take anything away from this earlier effort which does remain an excellent introduction to the life and work of arguably one of the most influential people who have ever lived. With the exception of religious or creationist cranks, the evolution of species by natural selection remains the corner stone of biology - and in this series we can see how the young Darwin comes across this insight. Perhaps the debt owned to others is not always acknowleged in this series and the important role of Alfred Russel Wallace who came to the same conclusion as Darwin is glossed over but undoubtedly the series is best when it is on board the Beagle. The role of Captain Fitzroy is also important - and he does not come across as a religious bigot but as a man who ridiculed in his efforts to assist the poor indians he found in Terra Del Fuego . Only recently in England was his name immortalised as well when an area of sea used for weather forcasting was changed to his - in debt to his other work as a map maker and a pioneer in accurate weather forecasting .

A recommended series - and perhaps the BBC have got round to re-issuing it on DVD sometime,