ten years from its own genesis...'voyage to the planets' still looks as good as it did back in 2004. At that time I actually caught it on TV by sheer accident and for about 15 minutes actually thought it was a real event....as in a space version of Big Brother - in those days anything seemed possible.So, this is a great space documentary that serves its purpose as being good eye candy but also informative. As a person who has always wanted to go to Pluto, I was delighted to see what the surface of the last unchartered area of our galaxy looks like - all thanks to the BBC. Likewise, the landing on Venus was jaw dropping to watch at that moment in time. The view of Jupiter from Io, also devilishly spectacular!However, the biggest thumbs up for this documentary is that after 10 years it sill looks good and still feels as good to watch, CGI hasn't dated it yet. It is also has a good quality running time which is great for sitting back, slow-motion tossing popcorn and squirting orange juice while pretending you and your buddies are in zero gravity. The DVD release is also a 2 part set which follows the same format as the original TV showing. Cool.

1 let's suspend belief for a moment and let's stop pretending we could, might or ought know "how it is" or "ought to be" there in space. Human knowledge in that area is probably primitive as say middle ages maps are compared to today's satellite maps, so we really have no clue. 2 considering this is "just" a BBC TV docu-simulation, it gets much better than many big budget Hollywood blockbusters, and that is just incredible. 3 all in all, a show worth watching as it portrays the CGI enhanced and fictionalized account of what we know of the solar system this far. 4 probably fictionalizing and CGI-ing the whole thing is the only way to make it palatable to a large public. Ever watched clips from REAL space missions and REAL space probes? The quality is generally average to poor and the comparison would be between looking at a chest x-ray (and what it tells about the human body ) and compare it with a CGI-ed cyborg movie...which one would be most entertaining? Yet the chest x-ray is real, while the cyborg flick is just fictionalized SFX. 5 actors do a good job. None i'll tell my grandchildren about, but very fair for it being a BBC docu-simulation.

Jeez, It's been nearly 40 years since we landed on the moon, even so, the people who made this "documentary" still managed to forget that other planets are a *long* way off--so long that light takes time to travel between here and there. It takes light (and radio communications) 1.5 seconds just to get from the Moon to the Earth, 2 minutes from Venus, 4 minutes from Mars, 36 from Jupiter, and a whopping 72 minutes from Saturn. Yet Mission Control was watching and managing everything in real-time. Wrong, wrong, wrong! The whole premise for this flick was flawed, didn't anyone take physics in high school? How could the science advisor's have made such a huge mistake??!!! Waste of good special effects budget. Better luck next time, BBC.

...programs I have seen on TV in many years.As far as I can tell, they really did get everything right. I have been interested in astronomy and the Solar system for some years and the scientific information in the program, such as surface conditions on Venus and Mars, the volcanic activity of Io, and magnetic fields of Jupiter, all seems very convincing. There's a lot of education in this show and it gives the layman the best possible feel as to what the solar system is really like.The factual element combined with the excellent drama makes for a great show. The acting is first rate. So much so they don't really appear to be acting at all. It could easily be a fly-on-the-wall documentary. You get to care about the characters.I can't rate this highly enough. Truly wonderful. Worth the price of a big TV even if this is the only show you ever watch!