OUR earth is alive — not just with its wondrous flora and fauna, its bugs, fish, beasts, and birds with, either as pinnacle or the butt of creation, humankind — but Earth itself, our planet, is no inert, dead rock: it seethes with energy.
We now know that the inner life of the planet issuing forth in volcanoes and deep-sea vents is what enables and gives rise to all the life forms that we encounter on land and in the sea. Only the titanic birth and death of stars create the chemical reactions generating new suns, their planets, and their internal atomic fission. These brew, in turn, primordial soup, providing — with the right conditions — enough natural history to provide endless more series for Sir David Attenborough.
In the new series Solar System (BBC2, Mondays), Professor Brian Cox shares with us, magnificently, the latest information about our sister planets, asking each of them in turn: Are you, or have you ever been, alive? The latest generations of research satellites enable us to peer far more closely at their surfaces and into their depths, to look for the evidence of energy necessary to produce life — and such knowledge of our own solar system will provide the clues to identify planets in far-off galaxies where life is likely.
Professor Cox is more boyish than ever, his enthusiasm boundless, engaging with us directly and laughing when his experiments to demonstrate this or that process go wrong. Some Christians will find this a quasi-blasphemous attempt to debunk Genesis and dislodge our creator God; for me, it is an exhilarating and pregnant work of theology, awesomely expanding our understanding of God’s infinite creativity.
Instead of creating life, Homo sapiens (just follow current news bulletins) has always been better at dealing death: BBC2 offered a deep account of one example in Bombing Brighton: The plot to kill Thatcher (Tuesday of last week). This was a remarkable and open-handed TV documentary. Forty years on, survivors — victims, relatives, IRA members — all spoke openly; and the murderers and the police who eventually caught them were offered equal respect.
We heard the Republican conviction: the systemic abuse that Northern Irish Catholics suffered from police, politicians, and the British army amounted to a declaration of war between them, justifying any violence; and also the scars of loss still affecting victims’ families.
Most remarkable was the testimony of the bomber himself, Patrick Magee, sought out by Jo, the daughter of Sir Anthony Berry MP, whose body had been identifiable only by his signet ring. They have now met hundreds of times: a model of how reconciliation and common humanity can prevail despite the bitterest situation.
Angela Rippon at the BBC (BBC4, Saturday) celebrated the former newsreader’s 80th birthday with a warm-hearted gallop through her decades of TV, in which, over and over again, she shattered barriers of male prejudice and domination.