''The Genius of Invention'' is a British factual television series that was broadcast on

BBC Two BBC Two is a British free-to-air public broadcast television network owned and operated by the BBC. It covers a wide range of subject matter, with a remit "to broadcast programmes of depth and substance" in contrast to the more mainstream an ...

between 24 January 2013 and 14 February 2013. The series looks over the history of

British inventions The following is a list and timeline of innovations as well as inventions and discoveries that involved British people or the United Kingdom including predecessor states in the history of the formation of the United Kingdom. This list covers inn ...

Production

On 23 August 2013, BBC Two controller

Janice Hadlow Janice Vivienne Hadlow (born November 1957) in Lewisham is a former BBC television executive. She was the controller of the BBC television channel BBC Two, taking over this position in November 2008 having previously been controller of BBC Four. At ...

announced the commissioning of the series. The main presenters of the series were

Mark Miodownik Mark Andrew Miodownik () is a British materials scientist, engineer, broadcaster and writer at University College London. Previously, he was the head of the Materials Research Group at King's College London, and a co-founder of Materials Libr ...

, Cassie Newland and Michael Mosley.

Episode list

Reception

Terry Ramsey of ''

The Daily Telegraph ''The Daily Telegraph'', known online and elsewhere as ''The Telegraph'', is a national British daily broadsheet newspaper published in London by Telegraph Media Group and distributed across the United Kingdom and internationally. It was fo ...

'' gave the series three out of five stars and said that "despite the jumpy style and occasionally annoying chat, it had a lot of appealing science packed in, all neatly wrapped up so it didn’t even feel like we were learning. And it served as a useful reminder of just how much we rely on electricity." ''

The Independent ''The Independent'' is a British online newspaper. It was established in 1986 as a national morning printed paper. Nicknamed the ''Indy'', it began as a broadsheet and changed to tabloid format in 2003. The last printed edition was publis ...

s Tom Sutcliffe said "everything from presentational style to the level of the material it contains it's essentially a children's programme. In fact, it calls for a new verb: to Bluepeterise, a shorthand for the increasingly fashionable technique of dividing the content up between three puppyishly eager presenters". Lucy Mangan, writing for ''

The Guardian ''The Guardian'' is a British daily newspaper. It was founded in 1821 as ''The Manchester Guardian'', and changed its name in 1959. Along with its sister papers ''The Observer'' and ''The Guardian Weekly'', ''The Guardian'' is part of the Gu ...

'' called it "terrible".

DVD release

The series was released in the original English as a region 2 DVD set by a Dutch company in 2015.

References

External links

* * * {{DEFAULTSORT:Genius of Invention, The 2013 British television series debuts 2013 British television series endings 2010s British documentary television series BBC television documentaries BBC high definition shows 2010s British television miniseries Documentary television series about technology English-language television shows Works about the history of photography