Watched the Timothy Ferris TV special “Seeing In The Dark”, last night. Overall, I enjoyed it; it was well produced and had a nice feel to it, and it was nice to see a program that was centered around “our” aspect of astronomy.
However, I did feel it didn’t quite reach its full potential in a few places:

1) More time might have been spent interviewing passers-by at the sidewalk astronomy event to illustrate the interest of, and the impact on, the general public when amateurs put on these events.

2) More time might have been spent on star parties and the participants, particularly throughout a night of observing and imaging.

3) Although, he was trying to dramatize his own youthful experiences stargazing, by going back to the fifties (a la Beach Blanket Bingo), I think he missed a golden opportunity to grab today’s youth with footage of high school observing groups – or young astronomy award winners.

4) After professing the wonders of viewing the night sky, the end of the film shows him and his son inside playing guitars, while a computerized astrophotography set-up does all the astronomy. After the time he’d spent infecting the viewer with the lore of astronomy, that just seemed to be an odd way to end it.

But, for all that, the photography and graphics were really well done, and I’d watch it again. 8/10