''Extreme Engineering'' is a
documentary
A documentary film (often described simply as a documentary) is a nonfiction Film, motion picture intended to "document reality, primarily for instruction, education or maintaining a Recorded history, historical record". The American author and ...
television series that aired on the
Discovery Channel
Discovery Channel, known as The Discovery Channel from 1985 to 1995, and often referred to as simply Discovery, is an American cable channel that is best known for its ongoing reality television shows and promotion of pseudoscience.
It init ...
and the
Science Channel
Science Channel (often simply branded as Science; abbreviated to SCI) is an American pay television channel owned by Warner Bros. Discovery. The channel features programming focusing on science related to wilderness survival, engineering, manu ...
. The program featured future and ongoing
engineering
Engineering is the practice of using natural science, mathematics, and the engineering design process to Problem solving#Engineering, solve problems within technology, increase efficiency and productivity, and improve Systems engineering, s ...
projects. After ending of season 3 it airs under the ''Build It Bigger'' name. The series last season aired in July 2011.
Danny Forster first hosted the series in season 4 and has been the host since season 6.
Origins of the show
''Engineering the Impossible'' was a 2-hour special, created and written by Alan Lindgren and produced by
Powderhouse Productions for the Discovery Channel. It focused on three incredible, yet physically possible, engineering projects: the
Gibraltar Bridge, the 170-story
Millennium Tower and the over
Freedom Ship. This program won the
Beijing
Beijing, Chinese postal romanization, previously romanized as Peking, is the capital city of China. With more than 22 million residents, it is the world's List of national capitals by population, most populous national capital city as well as ...
International Science Film Festival Silver Award, and earned Discovery's second-highest weeknight rating for 2002. After the success of this program, Discovery commissioned Powderhouse to produce the first season of the 10-part series, ''Extreme Engineering'', whose episodes were written by Alan Lindgren, Ed Fields and several other Powderhouse writer-producers. Like ''
Engineering the Impossible'', the first season of ''Extreme Engineering'' focused on extreme projects of the future. Season 2 (and all seasons since) featured projects already in construction around the world.
Episodes
Series overview
Pilot
Season one
[Amazon Prime Masters of Engineering. 11:58 minutes into the episode 4 Icarus' Dream. October 31, 2020.] episode 4, Icarus' Dream. Master's of Engineering. Amazon Prime Television.
Season 1: 2003
Season 2: 2004
Season 2 was the first season produced in HDTV for
HD Theater.
Season 3: 2005–06
Season 4: 2006
Powderhouse Productions produced six episodes for season 4 with host Danny Forster. After ending of season 3 it airs under the ''Build It Bigger'' name on
HD Theater,
The Science Channel
Science Channel (often simply branded as Science; abbreviated to SCI) is an American pay television channel owned by Warner Bros. Discovery. The channel features programming focusing on science related to wilderness survival, engineering, manuf ...
, and
Discovery Channel
Discovery Channel, known as The Discovery Channel from 1985 to 1995, and often referred to as simply Discovery, is an American cable channel that is best known for its ongoing reality television shows and promotion of pseudoscience.
It init ...
.
Season 5: 2006
Season 6: 2007
Season 7: 2009
Season 8: 2010
Season 9: 2011
See also
* ''
Mega Builders''
* ''
Megastructures'', a similar show on the National Geographic Channel
* ''
Impossible Engineering''
References
External links
Powderhouse Productions homepageWAGtv homepage*
ttps://web.archive.org/web/20061022082043/http://shopping.discovery.com/product-41853.html?rel_productId=59639 ''Extreme Engineering'' episode guide at Discovery Channel''Build It Bigger'' official website at Science Channel*
*
*
(Washington Post article)
Symposium W.S.V Simon Stevin, student association of the Mechanical Engineering faculty of the Eindhoven University of Technology
{{Discovery Channel programming
2003 American television series debuts
2011 American television series endings
2000s American documentary television series
2010s American documentary television series
Documentary television series about industry
Engineering projects
Discovery Channel original programming