The Wave

There has never been a more exciting time to study one of the most mysterious phenomena in space. This month, The Sky at Night team investigate the science of black holes and discover the incredible techniques being used to uncover their secrets, and even help us answer bigger questions about our universe.

Each episode of Doomsday: 10 Ways the World Will End opens with strange and frightening phenomena erupting across the globe: glass rains from the sky, a hole appears in the atmosphere, gravity becomes distorted, global communications break down, mass illness descends. We come to discover that these are the effects of catastrophic events that new research reveals could hit planet earth: a rogue planet collision, a gamma ray burst, methane seabed eruption, nuclear war. Through incredible CGI, we rewind to the beginning of the disaster to reveal what is happening.

Through the glitter and the grunge, from The Monkees to Coldplay, Rodney Bingenheimer–a.k.a. Rodney on the ROQ–has reigned over the Los Angeles music scene for over two decades.

With this simultaneously harrowing and lyrical debut feature, Jan Němec established himself as the most uncompromising visionary among the radical filmmakers who made up the Czechoslovak New Wave. Adapted from a novel by Arnošt Lustig, Diamonds of the Night closely tracks two boys who escape from a concentration-camp transport and flee into the surrounding woods, hostile terrain where the brute realities of survival coexist with dreams, memories, and fragments of visual poetry. Along with visceral camera work by Jaroslav Kučera and Miroslav Ondříček—two of Czechoslovak cinema’s most influential cinematographers—Němec makes inventive use of fractured editing, elliptical storytelling, and flights of surrealism as he strips context away from this bare-bones tale, evoking the panicked delirium of consciousness lost in night and fog.

Composer and musician Neil Brand presents a series on the movie musical - from Hollywood to China and the USSR, and from Snow White and Gene Kelly to Grease and La La Land.

BBC political editor Nick Robinson examines the public's anxieties about immigration and reveals the facts of an issue that has transformed British politics. With Britain braced for a new wave of migrants from eastern Europe, a subject once regarded as toxic is now at the forefront of political discussion. The programme dissects the decisions which led to the biggest surge of immigration in modern history and asks whether politicians can control immigration as much as they claim, looking at the potential consequences of their pledges.

A wave of far-right politics is sweeping Europe, with parties promising to smash the ruling elite, end migration and re-shape the EU. With elections just days away the Jean Mackenzie travels across the continent to find out why the Right is on the rise, meeting those celebrating its success, and those fighting to stop it. Could Europe, as we know it, be about to change?

With this simultaneously harrowing and lyrical debut feature, Jan Němec established himself as the most uncompromising visionary among the radical filmmakers who made up the Czechoslovak New Wave. Adapted from a novel by Arnošt Lustig, Diamonds of the Night closely tracks two boys who escape from a concentration-camp transport and flee into the surrounding woods, hostile terrain where the brute realities of survival coexist with dreams, memories, and fragments of visual poetry. Along with visceral camera work by Jaroslav Kučera and Miroslav Ondříček—two of Czechoslovak cinema’s most influential cinematographers—Němec makes inventive use of fractured editing, elliptical storytelling, and flights of surrealism as he strips context away from this bare-bones tale, evoking the panicked delirium of consciousness lost in night and fog.

A sci-fi horror story, set in New York in 2022 when about 20 million citizens, half of New York's population, are out of work. Voluntary death is encouraged by government clinics and people live on a green food called Soylent. An America plunged into a permanent heat wave, where nature has disappeared. Mostly homeless, its inhabitants are fed only by strange plankton-based biscuits distributed by a sprawling company. In 1973, Richard Fleischer's "Soylent Green", starring Charlton Heston, was the first science-fiction film to evoke a climatic and environmental catastrophe for which man is solely responsible.

The creation of the band's second album, which took the gothic synth-pop foundations of the band and combined them with arena-ready anthems leading to critical acclaim and the international hit singles Mothers Talk, Shout and Everybody Wants to Rule the World. With full co-operation of the band members, this documentary explores how the album was recorded, leaving its indelible imprint on New Wave.