NOVA - Season 20

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Episodes

Animal Olympians II

Season 20Episode 160 min

Animal Olympians II

NOVA looks at grace, speed, strength and endurance of humans and animals.

The Genius Behind the Bomb

Season 20Episode 260 min

The Genius Behind the Bomb

Physicists Albert Einstein and Leo Szilard reenact the signing of the 1939 letter that alerted President Franklin Roosevelt to the feasibility of atomic weapons. Szilard drafted and Einstein signed the famous warning, which led to the building of the first atomic bomb.

Mind of a Serial Killer

Season 20Episode 360 min

Mind of a Serial Killer

NOVA goes behind the scenes to give the real story behind the FBI unit popularized in the Academy Award-winning film, The Silence of the Lambs. Using a detailed psychological profile, the unit helped the Rochester, New York police department catch a notorious serial killer who targeted prostitutes. Actor Patrick Stewart narrates.

Search for the First Americans

Season 20Episode 460 min

Search for the First Americans

NOVA follows the trail of America's first inhabitants. Did they migrate across a Bering Sea land bridge at the end of the last ice age, as we all learned in school? Or did they arrive thousands of years earlier, possibly by some different route, as new archaeological evidence increasingly hints?

Rafting Through the Grand Canyon

Season 20Episode 560 min

Rafting Through the Grand Canyon

NOVA explores Earth's greatest natural wonder by rafting down the river that created it, repeating the spectacular first canyon voyage of the 19th-century explorer John Wesley Powell. The Grand Canyon tells the story of nearly 2 billion years of Earth history plus the changes caused by three decades of human intervention.

This Old Pyramid

Season 20Episode 690 min

This Old Pyramid

In a 90-minute special presentation, NOVA reveals the ancient secrets of how the pyramids were built by actually building one. A noted Egyptologist, Mark Lehner, and a professional stonemason, Roger Hopkins (This Old House), join forces in the shadow of the Great Pyramid of Giza to put clever and sometimes bizarre pyramid construction theories to the test.

Season 20Episode 760 min

Iceman

Five thousand years ago, a man perished in a mountain storm. In 1991, his frozen body was found along with artifacts of his vanished way of life. NOVA covers the international effort to unlock the secrets of this astonishing discovery.

Private Lives of Dolphins

Season 20Episode 860 min

Private Lives of Dolphins

NOVA delves into the deep sea drama of life among the dolphins at research stations in Florida and Australia. Like humans and chimpanzees, dolphins have evolved a sophisticated social system that provides clues about the origins and purpose of big brains and intelligence.

Brain Transplant

Season 20Episode 960 min

Brain Transplant

Two paralyzed drug addicts travel to Sweden to receive a revolutionary treatment for brain disease that is largely unavailable in the US due to the ban on fetal tissue research. "Brain Transplant" continues the remarkable story of a mysterious malady linked to a bad batch of synthetic heroin that NOVA first covered in the 1986 award-winning film, The Case of the Frozen Addict.

Can You Stop People from Drinking?

Season 20Episode 1060 min

Can You Stop People from Drinking?

NOVA looks at how Russia and the United States are attacking the intractable problem of alcohol abuse with old and new weapons—including prohibition, hypnotism, imprisonment, surveillance, deception, aversion therapy and group therapy as practiced by Alcoholics Anonymous.

Sex and the Single Rhino

Season 20Episode 1160 min

Sex and the Single Rhino

NOVA examines the high-tech efforts to preserve the world's animal diversity. Noah needed only an ark—but today's conservationists need all the tools that biology, ecology, diplomacy and politics can muster if endangered species are to survive beyond the next century.

The Hunt for Saddam's Secret Weapons

Season 20Episode 1260 min

The Hunt for Saddam's Secret Weapons

NOVA follows the international team of advisors who are fulfilling the UN mandate to dismantle Iraq's weapons of mass destruction. Nuclear technology, poison chemicals, missiles and giant guns are some of the threats that inspectors must hunt down in a cat-and-mouse game with the Iraqis.

Can Bombing Win a War?

Season 20Episode 1360 min

Can Bombing Win a War?

The Gulf War was fought in 38 days of non-stop bombing and four days of swift ground action. Did bombing win it? NOVA looks at the history of strategic bombing and asks whether bombing has now achieved preeminence in warfare.

The Deadly Deception

Season 20Episode 1460 min

The Deadly Deception

For four decades, 400 African American men from Macon, Alabama were unwitting participants in a government study of untreated syphilis. NOVA tells the story of this notorious human experiment. George Strait, ABC News Medical Correspondent, hosts.

Nazis and the Russian Bomb

Season 20Episode 1560 min

Nazis and the Russian Bomb

NOVA tells the story of the German scientists abducted to the Soviet Union after World War II to help build an atomic bomb. The success of the crash program in 1949, with the explosion of the first Soviet nuclear weapon, shocked the world.

In the Path of a Killer Volcano

Season 20Episode 1660 min

In the Path of a Killer Volcano

NOVA covers scientists on the brink of a sputtering, shaking, impatient volcano, trying to forecast when it will go off. When it does, Mount Pinatubo in the Philippines goes big time, producing the largest volcanic eruption in 80 years.

Can Science Build a Champion Athlete?

Season 20Episode 1760 min

Can Science Build a Champion Athlete?

Athletes are training smarter, running faster, jumping higher and generally outperforming their predecessors—thanks to high technology. NOVA covers the record-setting trend for improving sports performance with science.

Diving for Pirate Gold

Season 20Episode 1860 min

Diving for Pirate Gold

These days, piracy on the high seas often involves sonar, magnometers, metal detectors and other high-tech equipment for finding and plundering sunken ships. NOVA explores the swashbuckling seafaring pirates of old and their present-day successors.

Murder, Rape and DNA

Season 20Episode 1960 min

Murder, Rape and DNA

Wherever we shed our body cells, we leave an indisputable identity card: our DNA. NOVA investigates the new science of DNA typing which is putting increasing numbers of murderers and rapists behind bars.

Season 20Episode 2060 min

The Lost Tribe

NOVA covers both sides of the stormy controversy over the Tasaday tribe. When these isolated cave dwellers were discovered in the Philippines in 1971, they were hailed as a Stone Age relic. Now, many anthropologists denounce them as fakes.

Recently Updated Shows

Recently updated shows that might be of your interest.

Late Night with Seth Meyers

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Late Night with Seth Meyers

Seth Meyers, who is Saturday Night Live's longest serving anchor on the show's wildly popular "Weekend Update," takes over as host of NBC's Late Night — home to A-list celebrity guests, memorable comedy and the best in musical talent.

As the Emmy Award-winning head writer for "SNL," Meyers has established a reputation for sharp wit and perfectly timed comedy, and has gained fame for his spot-on jokes and satire. Meyers takes his departure from "SNL" to his new post at "Late Night," as Jimmy Fallon moves to The Tonight Show.

Hazbin Hotel

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Hazbin Hotel

The series focuses on Charlie, the princess of Hell, and her quest to open a hotel for rehabilitating demons. Hell suffers from overpopulation and Heaven solves the problem by routinely exterminating demons yearly. Charlie, who has grown up in Hell, wants to find an alternate solution to the mass slaughter. She opens the Happy Hotel which aims at teaching demons and sinners to become better people. There is substantial resistance, though, and Charlie and her friends must work together to keep the hotel running.

GenreComedy, Fantasy, Horror

This City is Ours

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This City is Ours

This City is Ours is the story of Michael, a man who for all of his adult life has been involved in organised crime... but for the first time in his life, Michael is in love. For the first time in his life, he sees beyond the day-to-day, he sees a future: something to win and something to lose - Diana.

This City is Ours tells the story of Michael and Diana's love affair, set against the disintegration of Michael's crime gang. For years, together with his friend Ronnie, Michael has successfully been bringing cocaine into the City and beyond, directly from Columbia; but when a shipment goes missing, then he knows their Kingdom is under attack.

GenreDrama, Crime

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