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The Best Episodes of NOVA Season 4

Every episode of NOVA Season 4 ranked from best to worst. Discover the Best Episodes of NOVA Season 4!

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...
Genre:Documentary
Network:PBS

Season 4 Ratings Summary

"Hitler's Secret Weapon" is the best rated episode of "NOVA" season 4. It scored 7.7/10 based on 11 votes. Directed by N/A and written by N/A, it aired on 1/5/1977. This episode is rated 0.3 points higher than the second-best, "The Hot Blooded Dinosaurs".

  • Hitler's Secret Weapon
    7.7/1011 votes

    #1 - Hitler's Secret Weapon

    Season 4 Episode 1 - Aired 1/5/1977

    NOVA traces the development of Hitler's V-2 rocket through rare footage obtained from the National Archives—some never broadcast before on television.

    Director: N/A

    Writer: N/A

  • The Hot Blooded Dinosaurs
    8.0/1011 votes

    #2 - The Hot Blooded Dinosaurs

    Season 4 Episode 2 - Aired 1/12/1977

    If you were a dinosaur scientist, what would you do with a pile of fossil bones? How would you even start to put the giant jigsaw puzzle together, never mind discover anything about how these dinosaurs lived? NOVA explores the incredible world of the dinosaur scientist.

    Director: N/A

    Writer: N/A

  • What Price Coal?
    NaN/100 votes

    #3 - What Price Coal?

    Season 4 Episode 3 - Aired 1/19/1977

    What is the price we are prepared to pay for coal? NOVA looks at the environmental and health safety issues raised by the government, industry, and the victims.

    Director: N/A

    Writer: N/A

  • The Sunspot Mystery
    7.8/1012 votes

    #4 - The Sunspot Mystery

    Season 4 Episode 4 - Aired 2/2/1977

    NOVA explores the research on the 1976 drought in the western United States which led some solar scientists to discover the link between weather patterns and the 11 year sunspot mystery.

    Director: N/A

    Writer: N/A

  • The Plastic Prison
    NaN/100 votes

    #5 - The Plastic Prison

    Season 4 Episode 5 - Aired 2/9/1977

    NOVA follows the lives of three boys who have combined immuned deficiency—a disease that leaves its victims with no immune system.

    Director: N/A

    Writer: N/A

  • Incident at Brown's Ferry
    NaN/100 votes

    #6 - Incident at Brown's Ferry

    Season 4 Episode 6 - Aired 2/23/1977

    NOVA recreates March 1975 at Brown's Ferry, an Alabama nuclear power plant—the largest in the world—that suffered a seven-hour fire which came very close to developing into a major public disaster.

    Director: N/A

    Writer: N/A

  • Bye Bye Blackbird
    NaN/100 votes

    #7 - Bye Bye Blackbird

    Season 4 Episode 7 - Aired 3/2/1977

    NOVA looks at blackbirds, their winter habit of nesting in the millions, and the destruction they do to crops.

    Director: N/A

    Writer: N/A

  • The Pill for the People
    NaN/100 votes

    #8 - The Pill for the People

    Season 4 Episode 8 - Aired 3/9/1977

    NOVA profiles chemist Russell Marker who made the birth control pill possible by discovering a synthetic substitute for the hormone progesterone.

    Director: N/A

    Writer: N/A

  • The Gene Engineers
    NaN/100 votes

    #9 - The Gene Engineers

    Season 4 Episode 9 - Aired 3/16/1977

    NOVA explores the history of genetic engineering and the possible risks and benefits of this area of research

    Director: N/A

    Writer: N/A

  • The Human Animal
    NaN/100 votes

    #10 - The Human Animal

    Season 4 Episode 10 - Aired 3/23/1977

    NOVA investigates the controversial theory of Harvard University biologist E.O. Wilson, that many aspects of human behavior are genetically determined.

    Director: N/A

    Writer: N/A

  • The Wolf Equation
    NaN/100 votes

    #11 - The Wolf Equation

    Season 4 Episode 11 - Aired 3/30/1977

    In the winter of 1976-77, 80 percent of the wolf population in Northwest Alaska was the target of aerial hunts. Although the area is roamed by the Western Arctic caribou herds—a natural predator of the wolf—the caribou population has been steadily decreasing in number. NOVA examines how the Dept. of Fish and Game is handling the the problem of wolf control.

    Director: N/A

    Writer: N/A

  • The Dawn of the Solar Age
    NaN/100 votes

    #12 - The Dawn of the Solar Age

    Season 4 Episode 12 - Aired 4/20/1977

    Solar energy is increasingly popular as a home heating source. But only recently has it been seriously considered as a source of industrial power. NOVA looks at this new industrial approach, such as the use of a huge windmill in Ohio, giant machines that may generate electricity from the heat of the tropical seas or from the motion of waves, and an orbiting solar power station able to beam microwaves to earth.

    Director: N/A

    Writer: N/A

  • The Business of Extinction
    NaN/100 votes

    #13 - The Business of Extinction

    Season 4 Episode 13 - Aired 4/20/1977

    NOVA explores the huge international illegal trade in animals, penetrates the thriving underworld of smugglers and assesses the effects on vanishing wildlife.

    Director: N/A

    Writer: N/A

  • The Red Planet
    7.8/108 votes

    #14 - The Red Planet

    Season 4 Episode 14 - Aired 4/27/1977

    NOVA traces 300 years of speculation, investigation and discovery that have centered on Mars—particularly the theory that the planet could support life. Questions raised by NASA's 1976 Viking mariner missions about how the vast canyons were formed are also explored.

    Director: N/A

    Writer: N/A

  • Tongues of Men (1)
    NaN/100 votes

    #15 - Tongues of Men (1)

    Season 4 Episode 15 - Aired 5/11/1977

    In part one of this two-part exploration of the diversity of world languages, NOVA examines how and why the bewildering confusion of languages came about.

    Director: N/A

    Writer: N/A

  • Tongues of Men (2)
    NaN/100 votes

    #16 - Tongues of Men (2)

    Season 4 Episode 16 - Aired 5/18/1977

    In part two of this two-part series on the diversity of language, NOVA explores how man has coped with the confusion of language and asks if the growing acceptance of English is the answer.

    Director: N/A

    Writer: N/A

  • Linus Pauling: Crusading Scientist
    8.0/107 votes

    #17 - Linus Pauling: Crusading Scientist

    Season 4 Episode 17 - Aired 6/1/1977

    NOVA profiles Linus Pauling—the only person to have received two unshared Nobel Prizes for his work in nuclear weapons.

    Director: N/A

    Writer: N/A

  • Across the Silent Barrier
    NaN/100 votes

    #18 - Across the Silent Barrier

    Season 4 Episode 18 - Aired 6/22/1977

    NOVA explores the different means by which hearing-impaired people have learned to penetrate the world of the hearing by visiting with Kitty O'Neil—a woman record-holding speed car racer; Frances Parsons, an advocate of hearing-impaired persons' rights; and workers at Silent Industries—a factory in Los Angeles founded by a deaf man.

    Director: N/A

    Writer: N/A

  • The New Healers
    NaN/100 votes

    #19 - The New Healers

    Season 4 Episode 19 - Aired 6/29/1977

    NOVA explores the delibitating diseases that are often caused by poverty and follows two paths to health care in Tanzania and the United States.

    Director: N/A

    Writer: N/A