This is my commentary on legendarily weird 1970s TV documentary series In Search Of…, aka Great Mysteries of the World. Will Leonard Nimoy convince you of the existence of Nessie? Stay tuned!
Season 1
1. The Other Voices Can we talk to plants? Well obviously. But will they talk back?
2. Strange Visitors Who built Mystery Hill? No, really, I’m curious.
3. Ancient Aviators Is a picture of a monkey on a desert plain really a runway? Sure, why not.
4. The Bermuda Triangle Not just water, apparently.
5. Bigfoot Yeah. Friggin’ Bigfoot, y’all.
6. Killer Bees Don’t laugh, bees are probably pretty mysterious.
7. Earthquakes A strange mix of genuine information and disaster porn.
8. The Mummy’s Curse Shocking news! A bunch of people from the 1920s are dead.
9. Martians Less weird than you’d expect.
10. Atlantis Way dooown below the oooocean.
11. Psychic Detectives Nimoy + Psychic Detectives = fizzle, surprisingly.
12. A Call From Space A fairly useful introduction to SETI.
13. Teaching ESP I foresaw nothing convincing, and I was right.
14. Nazi Plunder Less von Danken and more Len Deighton
15. Amelia Earhart A plane, crashing? Surely there’s more to it than that.
16. Dracula Nice travelogue of Romania, I guess.
17. Easter Island Massacre Surprisingly non ridiculous.
18. Ghosts Makes the unusual case that ‘ghosts are boring’.
19. Life After Death Step into the light
20. The Loch Ness Monster The. Loch. Ness. Monster.
21. UFOs Have you seen the saucers?
22. Voodoo Trying to think of a pun on the word Haiti. Failing.
23. Inca Treasure The real Inca treasure is Inca friendship.
24. The Magic of Stonehenge And just what is a ‘henge’ anyway?
Season 2:
1. The Lost Dutchman Mine Meta-In Search Of…
2. The Man Who Would Not Die Magic Atlantean superbeing or dodgy European guy? You decide.
3. Firewalkers Does what it says on the tin.
4. Mayan Mysteries Previous communiques invalid. Maya replacing Atlanteans. Over.
5. Astrology This is the dawning of the Age of Aquarius, Captain.
6. Michael Rockefeller I’d say ‘the poor man’s Amelia Earheart’, but young Michael was quite rich.
7. Hurricanes Oh boy! Mayhem!
8. The Ogopogo Monster Canadian Nessie, eh?
9. Pyramid Mysteries When there are so many bullshit options, you can’t eat just one!
10. The Dead Sea Scrolls Frankly, not their best episode, and in fairness, not my best review.
11. Reincarnation How will you recognise me in the next life? I’ll be wearing a red rein-carnation! … I’ll see myself out.
12. The Shark Worshipers Hey, if you’ve got to worship something, you could do worse.
13. Anastasia Is this cranky old woman really the last of Nicholas II’s children? If so, where’s her wacky talking bat?
14. The Secrets of Life Relatively sensible episode about advances in biological research
15. Immortality I’m going to live forever. I also intend to learn how to fly. High.
16. Swamp Monster The legendary Honey Island Monster episode. A classic.
17. Hypnosis Sleeeeeeeeeep!
18. Troy Will this episode prove to be In Search Of’s Achilles Heel?
19. Witch Doctors Oo ee oo ah ah… Oh, wait, this is actually a serious episode.
20. Haunted Castles Hauntings to the max! Castles to the min.
21. Butch Cassidy Was he Redford or Newman? That’ll keep me up all night.
22. Deadly Ants Them. Them! THEM!
23. The Coming Ice Age *checks thermometer* Could it come a little sooner?
24. The Garden of Eden If you change the meaning of a bunch of quotes, then the Bible becomes literally true.
Season 3
1. UFO Captives *Reggae beat* U-F-O-a cap-tives! Com-ing to Am-er-ica. I say-a U-F-O-a captives…
2. Tornadoes Everyone knows it’s windy.
3. Cloning Cloning. Cloning. Clonng. Clonnc.
4. Water Seekers Dowsing makes great TV. The best.
5. Jack the Ripper *Sigh* Okay then. Let’s do this.
6. Cryogenics A freeze is coming.
7. Siberian Fireball Used up all my Tunguska jokes writing the article. Sorry.
8. The Great Lakes Triangle Makes the Bermuda Triangle look plausible.
9. Monster Hunters Can they find Sasquatch (no).
10. Bermuda Triangle Pirates Fifteen men on a dead man’s chest vanished without trace.
11. Indian Astronomers It’s about Native American astronomy. Not great?
12. Sherlock Holmes Solving the mystery that is a fictitious character.
13. The Lost Vikings There is evidence of Norse activity in North America before Columbus, but you won’t find it here.
14. Dreams and Nightmares This one’s just odd. And cool. Odd and cool.
15. Animal ESP If you do not like this episode, I… well, I just don’t know what to say.
16. The Money Pit Mystery Plausible? No. Awesome? F*** yeah!
17. Psychic Sea Hunt Underwater dowsing! Remote viewing! Cubes! This episode has it all.
18. The Angel of Death Joseph Mengele. I have no jokes. Probably for the best.
19. Noah’s Ark Sigh.
20. The Diamond Curse Like reenactments? You’ll love this retelling of the story of the Hope Diamond.
21. Ghostly Stakeout Who you gonna call? No really, call someone. A nice chat will be more fun than this episode.
22. Brain Power But maybe the real brain power was the friends we made along the way.
23. Sodom and Gomorrah Less sexy than you might think.
24. King Tut No relation to King Tsk.
Season 4
1. Tidal Waves You might say it’s Point Broken! Yes, you can use that.
2. Carlos: the Most Wanted Man in the World Does what it says on the tin.
3. The Amityville Horror Even duller than the movie.
4. Australian UFOs Grab a tinny and park your arse for some dinky-di, fair dinkum Down Under probin’.
5. Immortal Sharks The episode about Immoral Sharks is more fun. Trust me.
6. The Lost Colony of Roanoke Croatoan!
7. The Shroud of Turin Close relative of the Facecloth of Budapest and the Shower Curtain of Milan.
8. Mexican Pyramids Viva!
9. The Abominable Snowman Are we there yet(i)?
10. Pompeii Ashes to Ashes.
11. DB Cooper Oh, hai DB.
12. The Ten Commandments Take two tablets.
13. The Dark Star Not the John Carpenter film, unfortunately.
14. The San Andreas Fault Can’t fault this episode. It is meticulous to a fault.
15. The Missing Heir A surprisingly interesting episode about a share certificate. No, really.
16. Vincent van Gogh I’m not inclined to make a joke about this one. Make your own.
17. Wild Children Okay episode about a feral child in France.
18. The Mary Celeste Surprisingly down-the-line documentary.
19. Earth Visitors More ancient aliens, this time in the US Southwest.
20. John the Baptist Can this monastery get ahead?
21. Air Disaster Predictions My prediction is that one or more air disasters will take place at some time in the future.
22. The Bimini Wall The underwater walls of Atlantis and Ernest Hemingway’s brother make for odd television.
23. Glenn Miller What happened to Glenn Miller? And how many times do I misspell it ‘Glen’? Find out here!
24. Past Lives Remember that episode on Reincarnation? It’s basically that.
Season 5
1a. UFO Cover Ups, Part 1 Hangar 18! Roswell! All that jazz.
1b UFO Cover Ups, Part 2 A continuing stoooooory of a freezer that’s not full of aliens