NOVA: Season 29
Season 29 Lore Primer
Key plot threads, lore context, and character stakes you need to remember before diving into this season.
- Directly follows the overarching narrative developments of NOVA Season 28.
- Faction dynamics and core character alliances shift under escalating external stakes.
- Crucial mysteries introduced previously reach key turning points and narrative reckonings.
- Sets up serialized story arcs that build directly toward the climactic season finale.
Episode Guide
Season 29 Progress Shield
Search for a Safe Cigarette
Oct 2, 2001 · 55 min
The program chronicles the tobacco industry's decades long effort to create a "safer" cigarette.
18 Ways to Make a Baby
Oct 9, 2001 · 55 min
The program investigates the brave new world of assisted reproduction.
Secrets of the Mind
Oct 23, 2001 · 55 min
This NOVA program delves into the mind-tingling efforts of neuroscientist V.S. Ramachandran to discover how the brain works.
Sex: Unknown
Oct 30, 2001 · 55 min
The film investigates the complicated world of gender identity.
Russia's Nuclear Warriors
Nov 6, 2001 · 55 min
NOVA takes an intimate look at the men who are in control of Russia's nuclear missiles, standing just a heartbeat from the top Russian politicians and Armageddon. Hosted by Vladimi
Bioterror
Nov 13, 2001 · 55 min
The film follows three New York Times reporters as they delve into the murky past of bioweapons research and grapple with the current threat of anthrax and other attacks.
Life's Greatest Miracle
Nov 20, 2001 · 55 min
A sequel to the most popular NOVA of all time, "Miracle of Life," the program once again uses the extraordinary microimagery of Swedish photographer Lennart Nilsson to track human
Methuselah Tree
Dec 11, 2001 · 55 min
Marked by striking imagery and a poetic style, the film dramatizes the life cycle of the world's oldest living thing, the bristlecone pine of California's White Mountains.
Flying Casanovas
Dec 25, 2001 · 55 min
The program, with Sir David Attenborough narrating, celebrates the extraordinary antics male bowerbirds get up to when courting a female.
Death Star
Jan 8, 2002 · 55 min
The program probes the deep mysteries of gamma-ray bursts, the most powerful celestial explosions since the big bang.
Neanderthals on Trial
Jan 22, 2002 · 55 min
The film probes the enigma of our Neanderthal cousins and the roots of our own ancestry.
Secrets, Lies, and Atomic Spies
Feb 5, 2002 · 55 min
The program chronicles the lives and covert activities of the so-called "atom spies" in the 1940's, including the big one that got away, Theodore Alvin Hall.
The Missing Link
Feb 26, 2002 · 55 min
A paleontological tour-de-force and suspenseful scientific detective story, the program documents the search for the ancestor of all four-limbed animals, including humans.
Shackleton's Voyage of Endurance
Mar 26, 2002 · 55 min
In October and November 1999, NOVA journeyed into ice-choked Antarctic waters and onto the shores of rugged Elephant and South Georgia Islands as we followed in the footsteps of Si
Why the Towers Fell
Apr 30, 2002 · 55 min
Can lessons learned from the Twin Towers' collapse make new buildings safer?
Fire Wars
May 7, 2002 · 55 min
In the program, NOVA accompanies the men and women of a wildland firefighting crew known as the Arrowhead Hotshots as they battle one of the most destructive wildfire seasons ever,