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I ran across The Atheist Experience the other day, which was particularly interesting because of the call-in nature of the show. Brian Dunning of Skeptoid.com also has a video project underway (InFact iirc), Phil Plait of Bad Astronomy has one on the hush hush, and the SGU and friends have Skeptologists. But there aren't many skeptical or atheist TV shows/series out there as far as I can tell. Which ones would you recommend?

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5 Answers

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NOVA

Nova on PBS is quite good as well. There's actually two NOVAs. The "regular" one and their "ScienceNOW" edition hosted by none other than Neil deGrasse Tyson

NOVA has recently been running on series on our close relatives (great apes).

From the Wikipedia page on NOVA:

Nova often includes interviews with scientists directly involved in the subject, and occasionally footage from the actual moment of a particular discovery. Some episodes have focused on historical aspects of science.

Neil deGrasse Tyson has often been compared to Carl Sagan in his ability to convey science (especially astrophysics) to the general public in an entertaining way without dumbing it down.

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Nova's good, thanks for the reminder, and I love Tyson so ScienceNOW is a favorite of mine. – Skrivener Dec 16 at 18:05
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Skeptical or atheist TV shows/series - I've got a list of several. Some of the following are pro-science more than 'skeptic/atheist' (which I should point out, aren't necessarily the same anyway!) but are well worth checking out.

On air now / recent / available internationally:

  • The Mentalist. (on the whole - some debate)

  • Lie to Me.

  • Numbers.

  • House MD (atheist)

  • Big Bang Theory (not seen it myself, promoted at the last TAM)

In the past / can get on dvd / UK or Australian:

  • Jonathan Creek - read my review here

  • Outnumbered

  • Q.I - excellent quiz show, catch some classic comments on YouTube by the very skeptic/ atheist Stephen Fry.

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I totally forgot about Jonathan Creek, my wife and I loved that show, was sad to see it dwindle away. – Skrivener Jan 1 at 20:01
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Mythbusters

[A] popular science television program produced by Australian company Beyond Television Productions originally for the Discovery Channel in the United States. The series has since been distributed by a number of international broadcasters, including SBS in Australia and BBC2 in the UK. The series stars special effects experts Adam Savage and Jamie Hyneman, who use basic elements of the scientific method to test the validity of various rumors, myths, movie scenes, internet videos and news stories in popular culture. — Wikipedia

The show is great for all ages and Adam Savage is a well know skeptic.

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As a side note, I live in the UK and here they re-record the voice over (with a British guy) and also edit the shot to 45 minutes and after watching a US version the UK cut is much better. – rjstelling♦ Dec 16 at 12:01
Good one, I forgot about Mythbusters! Why exactly is the UK cut better? The US version is about the same length. I have seen highly abbreviated single-story excerpts spliced into Beyond Tomorrow (Australia) - does anyone know if it's been shown in its entirety down under? – Skrivener Dec 16 at 18:04
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I'm just posting this to test out the wiki feature, but feel free to add any additional responses in this answer if you can edit it. - Skrivener.

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There is an excellent skeptical radio call-in show in Edmonton, Alberta, Canada called "Skeptically Speaking". The show is every Friday at 6pm MST on CJSR FM88.5 or online via ustream. Questions to the guests can be submitted online, and I think there's a call in phone (and skype). The show is also available as a podcast.

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I guess this isn't TV, but since a video feed is streamed from the recording both during the show (when you watch it live) it could be considered. – Brian Gregory Jan 30 at 15:50

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