NOVA

PBS' premier science series helps viewers of all ages explore the science behind the headlines. Along the way, NOVA demystifies science and technology, and highlights the people involved in scientific pursuits.

Seasons

53

Episodes aired

1.020

Latest aired

S53E08

Total runtime

39d

Timeline when each season aired

1. Season 1 March 1974 – May 1974 13 episodes
2. Season 2 November 1974 – April 1975 17 episodes
3. Season 3 January 1976 – June 1976 20 episodes
4. Season 4 January 1977 – June 1977 19 episodes
5. Season 5 January 1978 – June 1978 21 episodes
6. Season 6 January 1979 – December 1979 19 episodes
7. Season 7 January 1980 – December 1980 20 episodes
8. Season 8 January 1981 – December 1981 20 episodes
9. Season 9 January 1982 – January 1983 19 episodes
10. Season 10 January 1983 – January 1984 21 episodes
11. Season 11 January 1984 – January 1985 20 episodes
12. Season 12 January 1985 – December 1985 20 episodes
13. Season 13 January 1986 – January 1987 21 episodes
14. Season 14 January 1987 – December 1987 21 episodes
15. Season 15 January 1988 – December 1988 22 episodes
16. Season 16 January 1989 – December 1989 20 episodes
17. Season 17 January 1990 – December 1990 20 episodes
18. Season 18 January 1991 – December 1991 19 episodes
19. Season 19 January 1992 – December 1992 20 episodes
20. Season 20 January 1993 – December 1993 20 episodes
21. Season 21 January 1994 – December 1994 20 episodes
22. Season 22 January 1995 – May 1995 13 episodes
23. Season 23 October 1995 – April 1996 19 episodes
24. Season 24 October 1996 – April 1997 21 episodes
25. Season 25 October 1997 – December 1998 20 episodes
26. Season 26 October 1998 – October 1999 20 episodes
27. Season 27 October 1999 – May 2000 21 episodes
28. Season 28 October 2000 – April 2001 17 episodes
29. Season 29 October 2001 – May 2002 17 episodes
30. Season 30 September 2002 – April 2003 16 episodes
31. Season 31 September 2003 – May 2004 18 episodes
32. Season 32 September 2004 – December 2005 18 episodes
33. Season 33 September 2005 – December 2006 20 episodes
34. Season 34 September 2006 – June 2007 15 episodes
35. Season 35 October 2007 – May 2008 17 episodes
36. Season 36 October 2008 – June 2009 17 episodes
37. Season 37 October 2009 – May 2010 18 episodes
38. Season 38 October 2010 – April 2011 18 episodes
39. Season 39 September 2011 – April 2012 19 episodes
40. Season 40 October 2012 – May 2013 20 episodes
41. Season 41 September 2013 – May 2014 22 episodes
42. Season 42 September 2014 – July 2015 22 episodes
43. Season 43 September 2015 – May 2016 22 episodes
44. Season 44 September 2016 – December 2017 28 episodes
45. Season 45 January 2018 – December 2018 23 episodes
46. Season 46 January 2019 – November 2019 23 episodes
47. Season 47 February 2020 – November 2020 16 episodes
48. Season 48 January 2021 – January 2022 25 episodes
49. Season 49 February 2022 – December 2022 19 episodes
50. Season 50 February 2023 – November 2023 18 episodes
51. Season 51 January 2024 – December 2024 18 episodes
52. Season 52 January 2025 – November 2025 20 episodes
53. Season 53 January 2026 – November 2026 17 episodes

• 

  S01E01 The Making Of A Natural History Film

  March 3 · 55min find the promo

  Show synopsis

  NOVA premieres on public television with a behind-the-scenes look at the making of a nature film. Oxford Scientific Films Unit shows how it tackles such problems as filming a wood-wasp laying its egg inside trees, the hatching of a chick and the courtship rituals of the stickleback.

• 2

  S01E02 Where Did the Colorado Go?

  March 10 · 55min find the promo

  Show synopsis

  NOVA explores the mighty Colorado River which today has become the life-blood of the Southwest, providing water and electricity to the farms and cities of California, Nevada, and Arizona. The program examines the political expediency and technological over-optimism that has led to some major miscalculations of the river's capacity.

• 3

  S01E03 Whales, Dolphins, and Men

  March 17 · 55min find the promo

  Show synopsis

  NOVA explores the impact of whaling and the goods it produces for the industry, verses the grace and beatury of this intelligent mammal of the sea.

• 4

  S01E04 The Search For Life

  March 24 · 55min find the promo

  Show synopsis

  Does life exist outside this planet? The Viking lander will set down on Mars in July 1976 to try to find out just that. NOVA explores how life started on Earth and examines the Viking Lander being built in its germ-free room before starting its long journey.

• 5

  S01E05 Last of the Cuiva

  March 31 · 55min find the promo

  Show synopsis

  How does a primitive nomadic tribe of the Amazon basin cope with the encroachment of Western settlers? NOVA looks at both sides of the story, revealing the misunderstandings between the two cultures.

• 6

  S01E06 Strange Sleep

  April 7 · 55min find the promo

  Show synopsis

  Medicine was transformed in the 19th century by the discovery of anesthesia; surgery, until then hasty, bloody and completely unable to deal with internal disorders, subsequently took its place in the front rank of medical practice. This NOVA docudrama depicts the pioneers of medicine.

• 7

  S01E07 The Crab Nebula

  April 14 · 55min find the promo

  Show synopsis

  In 1054 AD, the Chinese recorded the explosion of a star so bright that it lit the sky for three weeks, even during the day. It was the explosion of a dying star that was bigger than our sun. NOVA explores this mysterious explosion that led to the discovery of Crab Nebula.

• 8

  S01E08 Bird Brain: The Mystery of Bird Navigation

  April 21 · 55min find the promo

  Show synopsis

  Birds migrate in search of perpetual summer, sometimes traveling as much as 20,000 miles every year. NOVA uses radar to track and identify migrating birds that travel at night, focusing on how they coose routes tat avoid bad weather and make the best of prevailing winds—information that can aid meteorologists.

• 9

  S01E09 Are You Doing This for Me, Doctor?

  April 28 · 55min find the promo

  Show synopsis

  The advance of medicine depends inevitably on the testing of experimental procedures on human volunteers from either the healthy or the sick. Yet such procedures are often dangerous, and may not be of direct benefit to the subject. NOVA examines how individuals' interests are safeguarded, and asks, under what circumstances experiments should be conducted on children.

• 10

  S01E10 The First Signs Of Washoe

  May 5 · 55min find the promo

  Show synopsis

  Washoe is a chimp more like a person: she talks with her hands. NOVA visits with Washoe and her teachers—Professor Allen Gardner and Dr. Trixie Gardner—to learn more about this unusual animal.

• 11

  S01E11 The Case of the Midwife Toad

  May 12 · 55min find the promo

  Show synopsis

  When Paul Kammerer committed suicide in 1926, it was taken by most of his fellow biologists as a tacit admission of guilt that he had faked his experiments purporting to show the inheritance of acquired characteristics. Arthur Koestler joins NOVA in an in-depth examination of Kammerer's infamous experiment.

• 12

  S01E12 Fusion: The Energy of Promise

  May 19 · 55min find the promo

  Show synopsis

  Nuclear fusion offers the promises of an unlimited, clean source of energy. But achieving fusion has proved one of the most difficult and elusive goals of the physicist. NOVA tells the story of the twists and turns and the international competition along the road toward the achievement of fusion; and details the recent breakthroughs which seem at last to have brought it within reach.

• 13

  S01E13 The Mystery Of The Anasazi

  May 26 · 55min find the promo

  Show synopsis

  Who were the people that built the first cities -- complete with apartment blocks -- in North America? They were the Anasazi Indians, who lived in the Southwest for some eight or nine thousand years and who then, in about 1300 AD, abruptly abandoned their cities and apparently disappeared. NOVA traces the steps of this ancient sophisticated culture.