8.8/106 votesLoading...#1 - The Kneale Tapes
Season 3 Episode 2 - Aired 10/15/2003
Time Shift profiles Nigel Kneale, the brains behind such disconcerting chillers as The Stone Tapes and The Ouatermass Experiment.
Director: N/A
Writer: N/A
- 8.4/1011 votesLoading...
#2 - The Golden Age of Liners
Season 9 Episode 2 - Aired 10/22/2009
Paul Atterbury travels around Britain finding out how the great ocean liners made such a mark on the popular imagination and why they continue to enchant.
Director: N/A
Writer: N/A
- 8.4/108 votesLoading...
#3 - Klezmer
Season 12 Episode 3 - Aired 10/14/2012
Michael Grade narrates the story of klezmer, from its origins in Jewish folk music performed at weddings and Bar Mitzvahs to a musical sensation enjoyed by millions worldwide.
Director: N/A
Writer: N/A
8.4/105 votesLoading...#4 - Penny Blacks & Twopenny Blues: How Britain Got Stuck on Stamps
Season 16 Episode 3 - Aired 11/14/2016
A look at how the introduction of the penny post changed Britain, and how enthusiasm for the first stamps led to the emergence of stamp-collecting as a popular hobby.
Director: Matthew Thomas
Writer: Matthew Thomas
- 8.3/1010 votesLoading...
#5 - Last Days of Steam
Season 8 Episode 3 - Aired 10/16/2008
Documentary that tells the surprising story of how Britain entered a new age of steam railways after the Second World War and why it quickly came to an end.
Director: N/A
Writer: N/A
- 8.2/105 votesLoading...
#6 - Retrial by TV: The Rise and Fall of Rough Justice
Season 11 Episode 1 - Aired 4/3/2011
Documentary about the BBC's Rough Justice series, which began investigating miscarriages of justice in the early 1980s and helped overturn the convictions of 18 people in 13 cases.
Director: N/A
Writer: N/A
- 8.2/1045 votesLoading...
#7 - How to Be Sherlock Holmes: The Many Faces of a Master Detective
Season 13 Episode 7 - Aired 1/12/2014
Film charting the evolution of Sherlock Holmes on screen, from silent movies to the latest film and television versions. Featuring contributions from Sherlocks past and present.
Director: N/A
Writer: N/A
- 8.1/107 votesLoading...
#8 - A Study in Sherlock
Season 5 Episode 15 - Aired 12/24/2005
Documentary explores the continuing appeal of Sherlock Holmes through his various screen incarnations, from early silent films through the classic portrayals by Basil Rathbone and Peter Cushing to the BBC's most recent Rupert Everett version. Contributors include Minette Walters, Kim Newman and Edward Hardwicke.
Director: N/A
Writer: N/A
8.1/107 votesLoading...#9 - Bouffants, Beehives and Bobs: The Hairstyles That Shaped Britain
Season 13 Episode 3 - Aired 11/13/2013
Timeshift takes a loving and sometimes horrified look back at the iconic hairdos and 'must have' haircuts that both men and women in Britain have flirted with in the past 60 years.
Director: N/A
Writer: N/A
- 8.1/1011 votesLoading...
#10 - The Engine That Powers the World
Season 15 Episode 3 - Aired 9/23/2015
The story behind the invention of the diesel engine in the 19th century that later became the workhorse of the 20th and 21st century.
Director: N/A
Writer: N/A
8.0/107 votesLoading...#11 - Flights of Fancy: Pigeons and the British
Season 16 Episode 5 - Aired 2/7/2017
Timeshift ventures inside places of sporting achievement, scientific endeavour and male obsession - the lofts of pigeon fanciers - to tell the story of a remarkable bird.
Director: Jake Hayes
Writer: N/A
- 7.9/1014 votesLoading...
#12 - Crime and Punishment - The Story of Capital Punishment
Season 10 Episode 9 - Aired 4/5/2011
Documentary tracing the story of the ultimate sanction, examining such matters as the protocols of the public execution and the 'science' of hanging.
Director: N/A
Writer: N/A
7.9/108 votesLoading...#13 - Booze, Beans & Bhajis: The Story of the Corner Shop
Season 16 Episode 4 - Aired 12/19/2016
Babita Sharma traces the history of the corner shop in Britain, from its Victorian suburban origins, its crucial role serving the home front in World War Two, and its fortunes in the hands of successive waves of immigration. She and her parents visit the corner shop which was once run by them as a family, and discuss how it shaped her upbringing.
Director: Linda Sands
Writer: Babita Sharma
- 7.8/106 votesLoading...
#14 - The Joy of (Train) Sets
Season 12 Episode 7 - Aired 1/23/2013
The Model Railway Story: Documentary which explores how the British have been in love with model railways for over a century, with unique archive and contributions from modellers.
Director: N/A
Writer: N/A
- 7.8/108 votesLoading...
#15 - The Ladybird Books Story: The Bugs that Got Britain Reading
Season 13 Episode 5 - Aired 12/22/2013
Timeshift documentary about Ladybird books, which once informed people on such diverse subjects as how magnets work and what to look for in winter, but also helped to teach many to read.
Director: N/A
Writer: N/A
- 7.7/1011 votesLoading...
#16 - Full Throttle: The Glory Days of British Motorbikes
Season 13 Episode 1 - Aired 10/28/2013
Documentary which explores the British love of fast, daring and sometimes reckless motorbike riding during a period when home-grown machines were the envy of the world
Director: N/A
Writer: N/A
7.7/106 votesLoading...- 7.6/105 votesLoading...
#18 - Emmylou Harris's Ten Commandments of Country
Season 7 Episode 5 - Aired 10/12/2007
Live performance in which Emmylou Harris presents her ten rules of what makes a great country song, personally chosen from her own extensive repertoire. Filmed in Los Angeles in an intimate venue, the show features songs with Emmylou accompanied by her blue grass band. Each track illustrates one of her 10 Commandments, with a short introduction to explain why it was chosen and what element of country music it best represents.
Director: N/A
Writer: N/A
- 7.6/1013 votesLoading...
#19 - How to Win at Chess
Season 9 Episode 5 - Aired 12/21/2009
In a programme showing how to play better chess, British grandmasters Dan King and Ray Keene go through a demonstration game from opening gambit to checkmate.
Director: N/A
Writer: N/A
7.6/1011 votesLoading...#20 - How Britain Won the Space Race: The Story of Bernard Lovell and Jodrell Bank
Season 15 Episode 6 - Aired 11/16/2015
How Bernard Lovell's telescope was used by both the Americans and the Russians to track their competing spacecraft and put Britain at the forefront of radio astronomy.
Director: N/A
Writer: N/A
7.5/106 votesLoading...#21 - Live on the Night: The Story of Live TV Drama
Season 4 Episode 6 - Aired 10/14/2004
In the days before editing ensured slick production values and blemish-free performances, TV drama was a live medium. Bill Nighy narrates a Time Shift retrospective on a time when things didn't always go to plan on screen.
Director: N/A
Writer: N/A
- 7.5/107 votesLoading...
#22 - Bread: A Loaf Affair
Season 9 Episode 8 - Aired 3/24/2010
Documentary about the rise of the popular loaf in Britain. After the holy grail of affordable white bread was achieved, dietary experts began to trumpet the virtues of brown.
Director: N/A
Writer: N/A
- 7.5/1030 votesLoading...
#23 - Dear Censor - The secret archive of the British Board of Film Classification
Season 11 Episode 6 - Aired 9/29/2011
Documentary examining the work of the BBFC, casting an eye over some of the most infamous cases in its history and analysing how it works with film-makers themselves.
Director: N/A
Writer: N/A
- 7.5/1012 votesLoading...
#24 - When Coal Was King
Season 13 Episode 2 - Aired 11/4/2013
Documentary which explores the lost world of coal mining and the rich social and cultural lives of those who worked in what was once Britain's most important industry.
Director: N/A
Writer: N/A
- 7.5/106 votesLoading...
#25 - A Very British Map: The Ordnance Survey Story
Season 15 Episode 2 - Aired 9/9/2015
For over 200 years, Ordnance Survey has mapped every square mile of the British Isles, capturing not just the contours and geography of our nation, but of our lives. Originally intended for military use, OS maps were used during wartime to help locate enemy positions. In peacetime, they helped people discover and explore the countryside. Today, the large fold-out paper maps, used by generations of ramblers, scouts and weekend adventurers, represent just a small part of the OS output. As Ordnance Survey adjusts to the digital age, Timeshift looks back to tell the story of a quintessentially British institution.
Director: N/A
Writer: N/A
The Best Episodes of Timeshift
Every episode of Timeshift ranked from best to worst. Let's dive into the Best Episodes of Timeshift!
Documentary series which ranges widely over Britain's social and cultural history, its narrative-led storytelling offering a richly immersive and varied window onto the past.
Genre:Documentary
Network:BBC Four
Best Episodes Summary
"The Kneale Tapes" is the best rated episode of "Timeshift". It scored 8.8/10 based on 6 votes. Directed by N/A and written by N/A, it aired on 10/15/2003. This episode scored 0.4 points higher than the second highest rated, "The Golden Age of Liners".