Product Details

• Amazon Sales Rank: #7698 in DVD
• Released on: 2004-12-27
• Rating: Exempt
• Format: PAL
• Original language: English
• Number of discs: 3
• Running time: 350 minutes

Synopsis
Using dramatic reconstruction, this series explores the ways in which the Industrial Revolution changed the world. Each episode explores a specific triumph of the era, including; The Bell Rock Lighthouse and The Panama Canal.

Customer Reviews

Entertaining, educational and jaw-dropping ...
On the face of it, this doesn't sound like the most rivetting viewing in the world, but in fact this series was the television equivalent of a page-turner.

Normally I'm not a fan of documentaries that feature "reconstructions", usually by dodgy actors with sub-standard props and inept scripts, and I watched the first episode almost by accident. However, within minutes I was hooked.

The documentaries take the form of re-enactments, beautifully realized, of actual events, based on the diaries, newspaper reports and records of the times. The actors are uniformly excellent - Robert Cavanah, Ron Cook, Mark McGann and Steven Berkoff in particular stick in the memory - and the stories that unfold are nothing less than jaw-dropping.

From the beginning-to-end disaster that was the Great Eastern (which effectively killed Brunel) through the magnificent Bell Rock Lighthouse, the Brooklyn Bridge, the Hoover Dam, the Panama Canal and the Trans-Continental railway to Bazalgette's London Sewers (not recommended lunch-time viewing by the way), this gripping series will open your eyes to the pure wonder of constructions we now tend to take for granted. The phenomenal and inspiring vision of the engineers (often in the face of a disbelieving establishment), the cost in human life, the privations, the disasters and the triumphs ... they're all here, with no punches pulled.

The whole thing is held together by Robert Lindsay's measured and intelligent narration - never intrusive, beautifully delivered.

The BBC took an expensive gamble with the making of this series ... but it paid off.

Highly recommended for both the casual viewer and the more serious student of the Industrial Age.

A Wonderful Series, Enthralling
The BBC still do good quality drama and this is definitely top drawer. I watched this on release on BBC2 and was engrossed. Each 'wonder' is put together using actors to portray the significant players in a 'talking head' format, with the eloquent Robert Lindsay as the voice over.

For those who are interested in how the great engineers of yesteryear built their amazing projects, these seven 'wonders' are compulsive viewing. The story from the beginning to the end is woven with intrigue, danger, personal sacrfice but the biggest battles are against nature itself.

Seven Wonders of The Industrial World is rivetting and won't fail to impress. The Seven Wonders are...

The Great Ship - Isambard Kingdom Brunel
The Brooklyn Bridge
Bell Rock Lighthouse
The Sewer King - London's sewer system
The Panama Canal
The Hoover Dam
The Line - The building of the railway, from coast to coast, in the US.

Exceptional and emotive
Each episode fills you with awe of the achievements of the industrial age. The series is inspirational and sees each contruction as a human story- When I look at these constructions now all I can see are the men (and women!) who are in each stone.