Season 15

The first episode opens with a fascinating documentary on Ethiopia from the French series Ushuaia. Ethiopia, a surprising country for the complexity of its aspects; with a changing, arid territory and large salt lagoons; with the Omo Valley populated by men and women, whose origins seem to date back to the dawn of time, inhabited by a fauna unique in the world. Ethiopia, the country of origins. In the reportage by Alberto Angela and Michelangelo Pepe, we will discover the most important gold mine of the Roman Empire, Las Medulas in Spain, declared a World Heritage Site by UNESCO. 100 years after its construction, the Panama Canal, one of the greatest engineering works that connects the Pacific Ocean to the Atlantic, will be doubled. By taking the Panama shortcut, in fact, ships save the 15-20 days needed to circumnavigate all of South America. And over 95% of global freight traffic takes place by sea.

A journey to the edge of the imagination, 600 km off the coast of Chile, in the Juan Fernandez archipelago. This is Robinson Island (that of the hero of Daniel Defoe's novel, in turn freely inspired by the real adventure of Alexander Selkirik). The gigantism and the profusion of wild and original flora make this place one of the greatest examples of endemic botanical phenomenon on the planet and a model of nature conservation. Alberto Angela and Michelangelo Pepe, on the trail of Saint Exupery, the author of one of the most read books in the world, The Little Prince. Was he really shot down by a German pilot while flying from Corsica to France? Lorenzo Pinna, assisted by Caterina Borelli, will take us to the tunnel, located on the seabed under the Bosphorus, which will connect European Istanbul to Asian Istanbul with a subway. During the works, the remains of 32 ships from 1000 AD were found.

We will travel to Asia with Nicolas Hulot along the Mekong, a river over 4,000 km long, to discover the people who still live along the river. We will follow him into caves, inside waterfalls, in Buddhist temples, flying over forests and floating houses, to reach the lost city of Beng Melea, a short distance from the historic site of Angkor Vat, the famous temple-mountain, with its five ringed towers, erected at the time our cathedrals were built and immersed in the jungle. Nothing remains of the living beings that populated the Earth thousands of years ago. Everything has been pulverized. But in some cases, thanks to the fossilization of animals and plants, today we can reconstruct the skeletons of dinosaurs, or entire forests of prehistory. This is what happened in Argentina, where Alberto Angela and Michelangelo Pepe went to film an extraordinary example of a petrified forest, with the trees still all aligned.

Following in the footsteps of the greatest explorers of the Poles, Planet Earth, with the help of British Navy helicopters, leads the BBC's high-definition cameras to film from above the incredible spectacle of humpback whales as they feed. Other cameras film under the ice. These are never-before-seen images of our planet and the great protagonists of the ice worlds: polar bears, seals, walruses and the heroic emperor penguins, who manage to survive at deadly temperatures, defending their fertilized eggs. The civilizations of the past have left tombs, imperial palaces, temples. That is, places of power or worship. Instead, the most impressive remains of Roman civilization are almost always places where people had fun: theaters, amphitheatres, like the Colosseum, or the Baths, like the grandiose ones of Caracalla, in Rome, where people walked, met, with large spaces for hot and cold water pools, gyms, outdoor games.

The oceans cover two-thirds of the planet's surface, yet they are still largely unexplored. For animals that live on the surface or in the deepest abysses, the most difficult task is finding food and conserving energy. Planet Earth's cameras travel across the vastness of the planet to show how high the stakes are to survive in this boundless, fruit-poor environment. Once upon a time, anyone who lost their legs in an accident was handicapped for life. Today there is a young man who walks and runs with prosthetics. He is Oscar Pistorius. Much has been said about him, but less about his legs: they are a prodigy of technique and craftsmanship and the laboratory that produced them is located in Iceland. Francesca Marcelli went to visit this refined technological workshop. Becoming an athlete for the Olympics is the sum of many factors: a suitable constitution, lots of training, but also a particular determination and the commitment to keeping your biological machine in full efficiency.

We continue our journey along the Ganges, the endless river that runs through India. The plains that were once fertile wilderness inhabited by tigers, lions and cheetahs have now become the most densely populated place on the planet. Thanks to the presence of the sacred river, this region has seen the birth of great civilizations and religions; but how have the plants and wild creatures of the plains adapted to survive in a world increasingly dominated by man? The Svalbard Islands, practically the last inhabited outpost before the Arctic ice pack, have become a large natural laboratory for the study of climate change and home to the coldest university in the world: UNIS, a prestigious university desired by the Norwegian government with the intention of making it a center of excellence for its education and research system. In the report by Andrea Pasquini.

Superquark opens the evening with a documentary dedicated to the leopard, or rather to a female leopard, filmed in her first steps and in her hunts as an adult. The documentary is the result of 3 years of stalking and filming by the two authors (Derek and Beverly Joubert), who filmed her since she was 8 days old. It is a very adventurous biography, so to speak. It is often said that Italy's oil is its natural and cultural beauty. Why then do our French and Spanish neighbors have an increasing flow of tourists and we are declining? What is happening in the tourism industry and what can be done, in the report by Cristiano Barbarossa. Located at the entrance to the Venice lagoon, the island of Lazzaretto Novo has probably had a strategic function since ancient times in controlling the waterways towards the hinterland. Archaeological finds testify to the human presence there since the Bronze Age.

The last episode of Superquark airs with a documentary that is very different from the usual. Not a nature documentary, but a true story. A story that dates back 2000 years, and that made ancient Rome tremble. It is the so-called gladiator revolt, led by a rebel gladiator named Spartacus. At the end of the documentary this event will be framed in its historical context by Prof. Alessandro Barbero; while Alberto Angela and Michelangelo Pepe will lead us to the discovery of gladiator burials, never found before. Medellin, in Colombia, has long been one of the drug trafficking centers, and also one of the areas with the highest concentration of violence. Various initiatives have tried to improve the situation; but there is one, in particular, that has proven to make inroads into the psychology of young people, especially those "at risk" kids who could be attracted by organized crime contracts. Cristiano Barbarossa went to Medellin to see what it is all about.

In tonight's BBC documentary, the story of the sperm whale and his long life. We find him at the age of 30, at the height of his physical power. We follow him in his fantastic dives, hunting for prey, but we also see him in difficult moments, when he has to deal with his eternal enemies, the orcas. The sperm whale, in the Pacific seas of the 1940s, finds himself facing an event never seen by his ancestors, who have swum in the oceans for millions of years: war. It is just one of the many moments experienced by this immense mammal, before reaching 80 years of age and the last resort of his journey. Numerous and interesting reports: every day we discover news of scams and frauds, often on a large scale: in the use of European funds, in the counterfeiting of brands, etc. Some frauds, in particular, directly affect citizens: they are food frauds.