Two-hour science documentary, shot on film in HDTV wide-screen format and Dolby surround sound. World premier on PBS, Fall 1999.
The first hour, "Are We Alone?" examines the origin and evolution of life on Earth and traces the search for life on other planets. The second, "Is Anybody Listening?" investigates the emergence of intelligence and the attempt to detect signals from extraterrestrial civilizations.
Scientists appearing in "Life Beyond Earth" include the biologist Norman Pace, the paleontologist Stephen Jay Gould, complexity theorist Stuart Kauffman, neurobiologist Gerald Edelman, the astronomers France Cordova, David Grinspoon and Paul Horowitz, and the physicists J. Richard Gott III and Freeman Dyson.
"Life Beyond Earth" was shot on location in Italy, California, Hawaii, Montana, New Mexico, and at Harvard, Princeton, and Stanford universities. The host station is KCTS, Seattle. Production was funded by Devillier Donegan Enterprises and PBS. A corporate underwriter has not been secured.
Executive Producer: Elizabeth Brock ("Gold Fever," "Take This Heart," "The Art of Magic")
Series Producer: Linda Feferman ("The Astronomers," "Seven Minutes In Heaven")
Producer: Jamie Stobie ("The American Promise," "Common Threads," "Cadillac Desert")
Special Effects: Don Davis ("Infinite Voyage," "Cosmos," "Congo," "Ghost In The Machine")
Director of Cinematography: Jon Else ("Cadillac Desert," "The Day After Trinity")
Timothy Ferris (writer & presenter) is the author of the bestsellers The Whole Shebang: A State of the Universe(s) Report, Galaxies, Coming of Age in the Milky Way, and The Mind's Sky, among other books. He wrote and narrated "The Creation of the Universe," an award-winning 90-minute PBS special that has been called "the best science documentary ever made," and produced the Voyager phonograph record, an artifact of human civilization containing music, sounds of Earth and encoded photographs launched aboard the Voyager interstellar spacecraft. His books have been nominated for the National Book Award and the Pulitzer Prize. Professor Ferris has taught in five disciplines at four universities, and is currently emeritus professor at the University of California, Berkeley.