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The Best Episodes of NOVA Season 21

Every episode of NOVA Season 21 ranked from best to worst. Discover the Best Episodes of NOVA Season 21!

Binge this in 18h 20m•Peaking at 8.1/10

PBS' premier science series helps viewers of all ages explore the science behind the headlines. Along the way, NOVA demystifies science and technology, and highlights the people involved in scientific pursuits.

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Episode Rankings

  1. #1 Fan Favorite
    NOVA Season 21 Episode 20 - In Search of the First Language
    8.1/10(17 votes)

    S21:E20

    NOVA explores the common threads that link the more than 5,000 languages of Earth, including a controversial theory that claims to reconstruct words from a time when only a handful of languages were spoken, recalling the biblical story of the Tower of Babel.

    Director:Unknown
    Writer:Unknown

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  2. NOVA Season 21 Episode 1 - Codebreakers
    8.0/10(10 votes)

    S21:E1

    NOVA delves into the history of secret communications and the people who wrack their brains to decipher them. The program probes the most celebrated of all cryptographic coups: the breaking of the World War II codes used by Japan and Germany and how codebreaking helped shorten the war.

    Director:Unknown
    Writer:Unknown

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  3. NOVA Season 21 Episode 3 - Daredevils of the Sky
    8.0/10(9 votes)

    S21:E3

    NOVA follows members of the US Aerobatic Team as they prepare for and compete in the 1992 World Aerobatic Championship. The sport, as precisely choreographed as gymnastics-except that it takes place in airplanes at 200 miles per hour-has always been on the leading edge of developments in aviation.

    Director:Unknown
    Writer:Unknown

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  4. NOVA Season 21 Episode 10 - Aircraft Carrier!
    8.0/10(9 votes)

    S21:E10

    NOVA experiences the relentless, round-the-clock life aboard the US Navy aircraft carrier, Independence-where every day is a constant drill of launching and landing aircraft atop a floating city of 5,000 people. The action includes Top Gun mock combat exercises and live-ammunition patrols over Iraq.

    Director:Unknown
    Writer:Unknown

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  5. NOVA Season 21 Episode 2 - Dinosaurs of the Gobi
    7.9/10(10 votes)

    S21:E2

    Velociraptors and primitive birds are among the fabulous fossil finds as NOVA accompanies an American Museum of Natural History expedition to the Gobi Desert. The trip relives the exploits of the Museum's dashing explorer of the 1920s, Roy Chapman Andrews -said to be the real-life model for Indiana Jones.

    Director:Unknown
    Writer:Unknown

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  6. NOVA Season 21 Episode 18 - Rescue Mission in Space
    7.7/10(9 votes)

    S21:E18

    Hobbled by defective eyesight because of its original, bungled prescription, the Hubble Space Telescope was recently repaired in a dramatic Space Shuttle mission. NOVA follows the exploits of astronauts who saved the day, and the stunning work that Hubble has performed in the months since its repair.

    Director:Unknown
    Writer:Unknown

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  7. NOVA Season 21 Episode 12 - Secret of the Wild Child
    7.6/10(128 votes)

    S21:E12

    NOVA profiles "Genie," a girl whose parents kept her imprisoned in near total isolation from infancy. When social workers discoverd her as a teenager, Genie had not learned to walk or talk. This NOVA documentary includes never-before-seen footage of Genie during her rehabilitation and probes how and when we learn the skills that make us "human."

    Director:Unknown
    Writer:Unknown

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  8. NOVA Season 21 Episode 16 - Killer Quake!
    7.6/10(19 votes)

    S21:E16

    NOVA probes the 1994 Los Angeles earthquake. Even as the city struggles to repair itself from the tragedy, seismic pressure continues to build. Scientists fear that newly discovered faults could, at any moment, trigger California's most devastating natural disaster.

    Director:Unknown
    Writer:Unknown

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  9. NOVA Season 21 Episode 6 - In Search of Human Origins, Part One
    7.4/10(12 votes)

    S21:E6

    In the first of a three-part series, noted anthropologist Donald Johanson probes the earliest ancestors of the human species - reaching back more than three million years to a strange ape who walked upright. Johanson takes viewers to the site in Ethiopia where he discovered the fossil remains of this missing link nicknamed "Lucy."

    Director:Unknown
    Writer:Unknown

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  10. NOVA Season 21 Episode 7 - In Search of Human Origins, Part Two
    7.3/10(13 votes)

    S21:E7

    Anthropologist Donald Johanson looks at how our human ancestors of two million years ago made their living. Contrary to popular myth, scavenging was a more lucrative living than hunting-and may have contributed to the development of human intelligence.

    Director:Unknown
    Writer:Unknown

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  11. NOVA Season 21 Episode 8 - In Search of Human Origins, Part Three
    7.3/10(13 votes)

    S21:E8

    At what point did our distant ancestors become anatomically like us? And, more importantly, when did they begin to act like us? Anthropologist Donald Johanson looks at what it is that makes us human.

    Director:Unknown
    Writer:Unknown

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  12. NOVA Season 21 Episode 19 - Journey to the Sacred Sea
    7.0/10(8 votes)

    S21:E19

    NOVA travels to Lake Baikal, the world's oldest and deepest lake, containing one-fifth of all the fresh water on Earth. Investigating Baikal from above, below and all around, NOVA charts its dramatically changing environment over the course of four seasons.

    Director:Unknown
    Writer:Unknown

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  13. NOVA Season 21 Episode 4 - Journey to Kilimanjaro
    0.0/10(0 votes)

    S21:E4

    NOVA explores ice-capped mountains-on the equator. These African giants are magical islands of life towering above the scorched plains. Giant forest hogs, bearded vultures, the elusive bongo and other exotic creatures live in this harsh and isolated high country.

    Director:Unknown
    Writer:Unknown

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  14. NOVA Season 21 Episode 5 - Can Chimps Talk?
    0.0/10(0 votes)

    S21:E5

    NOVA covers exciting and controversial research with chimpanzees who have been trained to express themselves with human symbols. Are they speaking their minds? Or are they just aping their trainers?

    Director:Unknown
    Writer:Unknown

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  15. NOVA Season 21 Episode 9 - Can China Kick the Habit?
    0.0/10(0 votes)

    S21:E9

    NOVA visits the most cigarette-addicted nation in the world-China. Western advertising and trading practices have exacerbated the fatal romance with smoking in the world's most populous country, where lung cancer cases are beginning to strain the nation's health care system.

    Director:Unknown
    Writer:Unknown

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  16. NOVA Season 21 Episode 11 - The Great Wildlife Heist
    0.0/10(0 votes)

    S21:E11

    Polly wants a crackdown when it comes to the illegal trade in the world's most beautiful and intelligent birds: parrots. NOVA goes undercover with a US government sting that breaks an international parrot smuggling ring, landing some surprising suspects.

    Director:Unknown
    Writer:Unknown

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  17. NOVA Season 21 Episode 13 - Haunted Cry of a Long Gone Bird
    0.0/10(0 votes)

    S21:E13

    NOVA explores the legacy of the great Auk, a magnificent flightless bird that was hunted to extinction over a century ago. In a journey retracing its migratory route, host Richard Wheeler kayaks from Newfoundland to Cape Cod and discovers that other marine species face the Auk's luckless fate.

    Director:Unknown
    Writer:Unknown

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  18. NOVA Season 21 Episode 14 - What's New About Menopause
    0.0/10(0 votes)

    S21:E14

    NOVA tackles the long-taboo subject of menopause, profiling new research and examining the medical and ethical controversies that arise when science enables women to postpone menopause or even to bear children long after "the change." Stockard Channing narrates.

    Director:Unknown
    Writer:Unknown

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  19. NOVA Season 21 Episode 15 - The Tribe that Time Forgot
    0.0/10(0 votes)

    S21:E15

    NOVA travels deep into the Amazon wilderness in search of a mysterious tribe- a tribe that dismembered and partially ate three prospectors in 1976. Locating the group, NOVA lives with them for three months, gaining insight into the customes and beliefs of a people whose lifestyle has not changed for centuries.

    Director:Unknown
    Writer:Unknown

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  20. NOVA Season 21 Episode 17 - Buried in Ash
    0.0/10(0 votes)

    S21:E17

    Ten million years ago, an enormous volcanic eruption buried much of what is now Nebraska in up to 10 feet of ash, preserving countless skeletons of prehistoric big game animals. NOVA joins the discoverer of this treasure trove to learn what life was like when a lot more than buffalo roamed the West.

    Director:Unknown
    Writer:Unknown

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Season 21 Ratings Summary

"In Search of the First Language" is the best rated episode of "NOVA" season 21. It scored 8.1/10 based on 17 votes. Directed by Unknown and written by Unknown, it aired on 12/27/1994. This episode is rated 0.1 points higher than the second-best, "Codebreakers".