Humanist Blockbusters: Depicting the Evolutionary Epic on Television

This chapter outlines the emergence of major, big-budget science documentaries with evolutionary themes in the early 1970s. Introducing the category of humanist blockbusters to describe the approach to the evolutionary epic developed at the BBC, the chapter demonstrates how producers refined the abstract progressive narratives of earlier popular science for a primetime audience. The chapter introduces experimental approaches to science broadcasts on evolution, how the humanist blockbuster transferred over to natural history documentaries and how this mode was exported globally. Whether dealing with cosmic, natural or human history, the chapter argues that the series that had widespread success and influence all had at their core progressive, secular, materialistic accounts of science and humanity.