&lt;div class=&quot;track&quot;&gt;&lt;img alt=&quot;&quot; src=&quot;http://hits.guardian.co.uk/b/ss/guardiangu-feeds/1/H.22.2/93147?ns=guardian&amp;pageName=Your+next+box+set%3A+How+The+Earth+Was+Made%3AArticle%3A1647357&amp;ch=Television+%26amp%3B+radio&amp;c3=Guardian&amp;c4=Television+%28Culture%29%2CTelevision+and+radio+TV%2CCulture%2CGeology+%28Science%29&amp;c5=Not+commercially+useful%2CTelevision+Media&amp;c6=Andrew+Gilchrist&amp;c7=11-Oct-13&amp;c8=1647357&amp;c9=Article&amp;c10=Feature%2CReview&amp;c11=Television+%26amp%3B+radio&amp;c13=Your+next+box+set+%28series%29&amp;c25=&amp;c30=content&amp;h2=GU%2FTelevision+%26amp%3B+radio%2FTelevision&quot; width=&quot;1&quot; height=&quot;1&quot; /&gt;&lt;/div&gt;&lt;p class=&quot;standfirst&quot;&gt;From the floor of the Atlantic to volcanic Iceland, this epic series rips through the noisy history of the Earth&lt;/p&gt;&lt;p&gt;Oh, the joys of a presenter-free science series: all those gripping facts and exploding graphics; all that epic music, fast-cut footage and bombastic voiceover; all those chunky 4x4s bearing even chunkier geologists &ndash; and not a self-obsessed semi-celebrity in sight.&lt;/p&gt;&lt;p&gt;Although it first aired on the History channel in 2007, &lt;a href=&quot;http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=jzc4sdbHjig&quot; title=&quot;&quot;&gt;How The Earth Was Made&lt;/a&gt; already feels like a relic, although not quite as old as the sea fossils &lt;a href=&quot;http://www.guardian.co.uk/artanddesign/davinci&quot; title=&quot;&quot;&gt;Leonardo da Vinci&lt;/a&gt; finds atop a breezy alp in 1510 in the first series. How did they get there? The same way a sea lily scaled &lt;a href=&quot;http://www.guardian.co.uk/travel/everest&quot; title=&quot;&quot;&gt;Everest&lt;/a&gt;. And the show&#039;s great strength lies in the fact that it&#039;s in no great hurry to tell you.&lt;/p&gt;&lt;p&gt;Instead, each episode begins with a mystery (or rather a &quot;geological BOMBSHELL&quot;), covering everything from when the &lt;a href=&quot;http://www.guardian.co.uk/world/2008/nov/14/earthquake-san-andreas-fault-california&quot; title=&quot;&quot;&gt;San Andreas Fault&lt;/a&gt; will next let rip (&quot;It waits quietly, deep under our cities, building up the stress to STRIKE ONCE AGAIN&quot;) to why a slice of north America ended up on one side of Loch Ness (&quot;Rocks round here have gone to a depth of 50 miles &ndash; TO HELL AND BACK&quot;).&lt;/p&gt;&lt;p&gt;It&#039;s all hugely entertaining and boasts some fabulous footage, not least the &lt;a href=&quot;http://www.theskyeguide.com/see-and-do-mainmenu-35/27-natural-wonders/174-dinosaurs-at-staffin&quot; title=&quot;&quot;&gt;three-toed dinosaur footprint&lt;/a&gt; on a Scottish beach that went unnoticed until 1994 (oh well, it had only been there 165m years). And the enthusiasm of the geologists is infectious. &quot;Here,&quot; says one, pointing to a faint stain on an otherwise featureless boulder, &quot;a bush was burned by a prehistoric wildfire.&quot;&lt;/p&gt;&lt;p&gt;To the sound of stirring strings, insistent drums and eerie guitar noodling, we journey to the floor of the Atlantic, the sands of the &lt;a href=&quot;http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=VO6vvqCJPws&quot; title=&quot;&quot;&gt;Sahara&lt;/a&gt; and volcanic &lt;a href=&quot;http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=IhRK-RUGwbE&quot; title=&quot;&quot;&gt;Iceland&lt;/a&gt; (&quot;where fire meets its nemesis, ICE&quot;). My only criticism is that they&#039;re a little uneven on myths. Noah and the flood get some thrilling graphics and an awful lot of leeway, while &lt;a href=&quot;http://www.guardian.co.uk/uk/gallery/2008/nov/12/scotland&quot; title=&quot;&quot;&gt;Nessie&lt;/a&gt; is dismissed in two sentences: &quot;There&#039;s no chance you could have, preserved in this loch, an ancient monster from millions of years ago. The loch&#039;s too young.&quot;&lt;/p&gt;&lt;p&gt;Not the sort of thing you want to say too loud in &lt;a href=&quot;http://www.visitlochness.com/around-loch-ness/drumnadrochit.php&quot; title=&quot;&quot;&gt;Drumnadrochit&lt;/a&gt;.&lt;/p&gt;&lt;div class=&quot;related&quot; style=&quot;float: left; margin-right: 10px; margin-bottom: 10px;&quot;&gt;&lt;ul&gt;&lt;li&gt;&lt;a href=&quot;http://www.guardian.co.uk/culture/television&quot;&gt;Television&lt;/a&gt;&lt;/li&gt;&lt;li&gt;&lt;a href=&quot;http://www.guardian.co.uk/science/geology&quot;&gt;Geology&lt;/a&gt;&lt;/li&gt;&lt;/ul&gt;&lt;/div&gt;&lt;div class=&quot;author&quot;&gt;&lt;a href=&quot;http://www.guardian.co.uk/profile/andrewgilchrist&quot;&gt;Andrew Gilchrist&lt;/a&gt;&lt;/div&gt;&lt;br/&gt;&lt;div class=&quot;terms&quot;&gt;&lt;a href=&quot;http://www.guardian.co.uk&quot;&gt;guardian.co.uk&lt;/a&gt; &amp;copy; 2011 Guardian News and Media Limited or its affiliated companies. 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