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The Best Episodes of 40 Minutes Season 8

Every episode of 40 Minutes Season 8 ranked from best to worst. Discover the Best Episodes of 40 Minutes Season 8!

The Best Episodes of 40 Minutes Season 8

40 Minutes was a BBC TV documentary strand broadcast on BBC Two between 1981 and 1994. The documentaries could be on any possible subject, the...
  1. Background image for Dolebusters
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    #1 - Dolebusters

    S8:E1

    The East Kent Dole Fraud team cracking down on "fiddlers and scroungers".

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    Director:Unknown
    Writer:Unknown
  2. Background image for I Want to Live
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    #2 - I Want to Live

    S8:E2

    Kate Matthews extraordinary fight against cancer to survive, after learning that she has just 12 weeks to live.

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    Director:Unknown
    Writer:Unknown
  3. Background image for The Gypsies Are Coming
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    #3 - The Gypsies Are Coming

    S8:E3

    The impact of 2,500 gypsies and travellers on the sleepy market town of Appleby in Cumbria, which each June the travellers invade for the annual horse fair.

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    Director:Unknown
    Writer:Unknown
  4. Background image for Desirable Dwellings
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    #4 - Desirable Dwellings

    S8:E4

    Lucinda Lambton has photographed houses for 27 years. She conducts a personal and enthusiastic tour around her favourites - some of Britain's oddest, most individual and delightful homes. Lucinda's travels take her to a Hollywood hacienda in Derbyshire, created for a man who banished straight lines; a clairvoyant's bijou residence in the air; a Gothic castle now being built by a ruralist in deepest Cornwall; a haunted Victorian hotchpotch of a place north of the Humber, where the tiles don't match; and a circular confection of great charm in Devon, created by the Misses Parminter.

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    Director:Unknown
    Writer:Unknown
  5. Background image for A Policewoman's Lot
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    #5 - A Policewoman's Lot

    S8:E5

    Out on patrol with the policewomen of the West Midlands Force, revealing the change in their role since the 1975 Sex Discrimination Act.

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    Director:Unknown
    Writer:Unknown
  6. Background image for Making the Grade
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    #6 - Making the Grade

    S8:E6

    The inside story of the examinations of the Royal School of Music, following four musicians and their examiner through their rehearsals and preparation, and into the exam. room itself.

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    Director:Unknown
    Writer:Unknown
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  8. Background image for Greenfinches
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    #7 - Greenfinches

    S8:E7

    Three soldiers - all members of the Ulster Defence Regiment, all in the-front line of Northern Ireland's tense security troubles - and all three are women.

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    Director:Unknown
    Writer:Unknown
  9. Background image for Jam Today
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    #8 - Jam Today

    S8:E8

    Highlighting the desperation that debt can bring to people's lives.

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    Director:Unknown
    Writer:Unknown
  10. Background image for To Have and to Hold
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    #9 - To Have and to Hold

    S8:E9

    Three women who have had to face the break-up of long and seemingly happy marriages, and to being single once again.

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    Director:Unknown
    Writer:Unknown
  11. Background image for The Day I Met the Queen
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    #10 - The Day I Met the Queen

    S8:E10

    Memorable meetings between subjects and their monarch - revealing the special place the Queen holds in the hearts of her subjects.

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    Director:Unknown
    Writer:Unknown
  12. Background image for The Kingdom of Fun
    5.6/10(5 votes)

    #11 - The Kingdom of Fun

    S8:E11

    The largest leisure and shopping complex in Europe, the Metro Centre in Tynemouth, and its creator John Hall.

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    Director:Unknown
    Writer:Unknown
  13. Background image for Our Darren
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    #12 - Our Darren

    S8:E12

    Darren Lillywhite was 17, mischievous and high-spirited. He and his mates were a lively lot, always getting into scrapes around the village of Cranleigh, where they grew up. Darren had owned his prized Vauxhall Astra for just a few weeks. One August evening in 1987 he drove it into a roundabout and was thrown from the car. Now he is paralysed from the neck down and can do nothing for himself. Darren has been at Stoke Mandeville Hospital for ten months, but his family is determined to get him back home. Terry and Marilyn Lillywhite have built a special extension to their house. If Darren makes it, his family, neighbours and friends will all be joining in the celebration. No one can help liking Darren. 'I don't feel bitter about it at all,' he says. 'It's like being born again, really....'

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    Director:Unknown
    Writer:Unknown
  14. Background image for Jealousy
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    #13 - Jealousy

    S8:E13

    The effects of jealousy on three victims.

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    Director:Unknown
    Writer:Unknown
  15. Background image for Cairo Vets
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    #14 - Cairo Vets

    S8:E14

    The Brooke Hospital for Animals in Cairo aims to provide the best veterinary care for the poorest section of the community.

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    Director:Unknown
    Writer:Unknown
  16. Background image for I Like the Girls Who Do
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    #15 - I Like the Girls Who Do

    S8:E15

    Celebrates the cartoonist Gerald Scarfe's hero, music-hall comedian Max Millar.

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    Director:Unknown
    Writer:Unknown
  17. Background image for Knickerbockers in Knightsbridge
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    #16 - Knickerbockers in Knightsbridge

    S8:E16

    The story of Hill House School and its unique headmaster, Colonel Stuart Townend.

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    Director:Unknown
    Writer:Unknown
  18. Background image for Ghost Train
    4.4/10(5 votes)

    #17 - Ghost Train

    S8:E17

    A journey by Intercity into the world of the supernatural. Do you believe in ghosts? Helen McCormick does. She found an ancient crucifix in her cellar - and then saw a medieval monk walk past her kitchen window. Ambulanceman Ken Lobley rescued his aunt after a warning from an apparition. Nichola Thompson, aged 13, was reading, looked up, and saw her grandmother - wearing the pink shroud she'd been buried in two years earlier. Rev Jack Richardson investigates spooky Harnham Hall in Northumberland. He blesses the earthly remains of Kate Babington, who died a prisoner at Harnham in 1670. Eddie Burks, a 'clairsentient', is summoned to an RAF base to contact the ghost of an airman. Eerily, he describes how the man died and why he returns. And four nurses spend the night in 'the most haunted house in Britain' - with strange tales to tell the following morning....

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    Director:Unknown
    Writer:Unknown
  19. Background image for Raging Belles
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    #18 - Raging Belles

    S8:E18

    The two top women's wrestlers in Britain fight for the most coveted prize, The British Ladies' Championship Belt

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    Director:Unknown
    Writer:Unknown
  20. Background image for By Steam to Sennar Junction
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    #19 - By Steam to Sennar Junction

    S8:E19

    A dedicated engineer and tough businessman goes from South Wales to the Sudan to rehabilitate Sudan's decaying railways.

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    Director:Unknown
    Writer:Unknown
  21. Background image for Wedding at Easington
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    #20 - Wedding at Easington

    S8:E20

    One in six in the old coal-mining district of Easington is out of work. Tom and Dawn are both unemployed and it is their wedding day. What does the future hold for them?

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    Director:Unknown
    Writer:Unknown
  22. Background image for Violent
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    #21 - Violent

    S8:E21

    Apparently unprovoked and irrational acts of violence. Why do they happen? What are the effects on the victims?

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    Director:Unknown
    Writer:Unknown
  23. Background image for Catwalk
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    #22 - Catwalk

    S8:E22

    It's said that 2,000 dogs and 4,000 cats are destroyed in Britain every day. Celia Hammond was a top fashion model. Now she's so furious about the destruction of healthy animals that she's given up her career, even her personal life, to rescue as many strays as she can. She prowls the wastelands and alleyways of London to save frightened, injured and lost cats. Her ultimate aim is to set up her own low-cost spaying and neutering clinics.

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    Director:Unknown
    Writer:Unknown
  24. Background image for Two Sides of a Street
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    #23 - Two Sides of a Street

    S8:E23

    A real life soap opera is unfolding in Cardross Street, West London. A Royal Ballet star, a man who owns a share in a race horse, and a peer's daughter now live side by side with old folk who have rented their houses all their lives. Once the street was filled with families. Now it's being taken over and tarted up by the young rich with no children. 'Funeral today - skip tomorrow' is how the locals describe what's happening. Had they been able to afford it, the old timers could have bought their homes for £200. Now unmodernised two-up two-downs with outside loos are snapped up at £150,000. 'For the old people the street is a way of life,' says the Hon Henrietta Roper-Curzon . 'For us it is just a transitory thing. When they leave it's in a hearse. We leave in the removal van'. With John Pitman.

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    Director:Unknown
    Writer:Unknown
  25. Background image for Inside Broadmoor
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    #24 - Inside Broadmoor

    S8:E24

    The famous high-security hospital and a new therapeutic regime.

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    Director:Unknown
    Writer:Unknown
  26. Background image for Laid Off
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    #25 - Laid Off

    S8:E25

    Following two people, one in the North and one in the South of England, from the time they are made redundant through three months of job-hunting.

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    Director:Unknown
    Writer:Unknown

Season 8 Ratings Summary

"Dolebusters" is the best rated episode of "40 Minutes" season 8. It scored /10 based on 0 votes. Directed by Unknown and written by Unknown, it aired on 10/20/1988. This episode is rated 0.0 points higher than the second-best, "I Want to Live".