Doc Zone Season 5, Episode 39: Life is a Highway

Meltdown: The Men Who Crashed the World

Greed and recklessness by the titans of Wall Street triggers the largest financial crash since the Great Depression. It's left to US Treasury Secretary Hank Paulson, himself a former Wall Street banker, to try and avert further disaster.

60 min

Meltdown: A Global Tsunami

The meltdown's devastation ripples around the world from California to Iceland and China. Facing economic ruin, desperate world leaders are at each other's throats.

60 min

Queen Elizabeth in 3D

See Her Majesty as you have never seen her before. Featuring spectacular 3D footage of the Queen's coronation in 1953 and her recent tour to Canada, look back at her special relationship with Canadians over her almost sixty year reign.

60 min

Meltdown: Paying the Price

The victims of the meltdown fight back. In Iceland, protestors force a government to fall. In Canada, ripped off autoworkers occupy their plant. And in France, furious union members kidnap their bosses.

60 min

Meltdown: After the Fall

Investigators begin to sift through the meltdown's rubble. Shaken world leaders question the very foundations of modern capitalism while asking: could it all happen again?

60 min

Africa on the Move: A Dream of Millions

A dazzling four-part documentary series that captures the vibrancy of Africa's diverse people and rich cultures. We'll meet men and women, many of them young, who embody the amazing changes occurring on a daily basis across 53 countries.

60 min

Twins Who Share a Brain

A year in the life of the Hogan twins, a set of craniopagus twins who live in Canada. Throughout the year, the girls' family worries that they may not survive, yet alone thrive.

60 min

Africa on the Move: The Power of Song

A dazzling four-part documentary series that captures the vibrancy of Africa's diverse people and rich cultures. We'll meet men and women, many of them young, who embody the amazing changes occurring on a daily basis across 53 countries.

60 min

Surviving the Future

Today's visions of the future both utopian and apocalyptic. From scientists striving to create the world of tomorrow to corporations thriving on the status quo, and the citizens and consumers in between, we ask a simple and profound question: Can our high-tech civilization survive the 21st century?

60 min

Africa on the Move: The Modern Warrior

A dazzling four-part documentary series that captures the vibrancy of Africa's diverse people and rich cultures. We'll meet men and women, many of them young, who embody the amazing changes occurring on a daily basis across 53 countries.

60 min

Where Did I Put My Memory?

For Canadians, memory loss is our second greatest health fear - after cancer. Are we all doomed to lose our minds? Or are there ways to keep our memories - and even make them better?

60 min

Africa on the Move: A Women's World

A dazzling four-part documentary series that captures the vibrancy of Africa's diverse people and rich cultures. We'll meet men and women, many of them young, who embody the amazing changes occurring on a daily basis across 53 countries.

60 min

Pet Pharm

Big pharma is promoting mood altering drugs for pets. Is it a sign of our compassion, or evidence of an overly indulgent society chasing its tail?

60 min

We Will Remember Them

We've filmed with families and friends of fallen soldiers from all across Canada. In this two-hour documentary you'll see these soldiers as civilians, and you'll see them in the uniforms they were proud to wear. And you'll learn how they lived—and how they died: some in brutal firefights, some in roadside explosions and some in tragic friendly fire incidents.

60 min

Are We Digital Dummies?

One thing is certain about human nature...we're born talkers. Twelve billion text messages are sent worldwide, every day. Thirteen million Canadians use Facebook. But is all that access to technology making us happy?

60 min

Playing God with Planet Earth

Scientists are experimenting with radical schemes to cool the planet. Will these experiments save us or be a form of technological suicide?

60 min

Apocalypse 2012

We probe the science behind the prediction of mass extinction, meet the survivalists and explore why doomsday prophesies hold such powerful sway.

60 min

Blowout: Is Canada Next?

Blowout explores the aftermath of the Gulf oil disaster and builds a disturbing picture of how a comparable spill would impact Canada's East coast.

60 min

Cat Crazed

Cat Crazed celebrates our love affair with cats and encourages a new relationship with our most popular pet – one where all cats are loved and none are abandoned.

60 min

Thoroughly Modern Marriage

We explore how marriage has evolved in the twenty first century, from couples "living apart together" to open marriage and gay unions.

60 min

End of Men

In the early 21st century men's roles are in a profound state of flux, as the worst recession in since the 1930's has destroyed millions of male jobs. Men are facing an uncertain future and a starker choice: adapt or perish.

60 min

Abandon Ship: The Sinking of the SV Concordia

The Sinking of the SV Concordia is the dramatic story of how 48 Canadian high school students survived a terrifying ordeal at sea.

60 min

Remote Control War

Billions of dollars are driving an unnoticed shift to Robots in the military that has revolutionized how war is fought, the rules of war, and creating new technologies that will soon change our world.

60 min

The F Word

Explores why younger women are rejecting Feminism, the "F word"... even while women's rights are eroding.

60 min

Inside Hana's Suitcase

The poignant story of two young children who grew up in pre-WWII Czechoslovakia and the terrible events that they endured just because they happened to be born Jewish.

60 min

Famine and Shipwreck, An Irish Odyssey

Every March 17, Canadians celebrate St. Patrick’s Day with parades, whiskey and songs. But for the millions of Canadians of Irish descent, there is a story of unspeakable sadness lying at the heart of Canada’s Irish experience. It is a story seldom mentioned, even today. Some call it the Irish potato famine. Others call it the Great Starvation. And others do not shrink from calling it a great crime. The saga has a million stories. In Famine and Shipwreck, an Irish Odyssey, we discover a story that’s one in a million. In the Spring of 1849, a coffin-ship called the Hannah, carrying 180 Irish emigrants fleeing Ireland’s potato famine, hits an ice reef in the strait near Cape Ray, off the coast of Newfoundland. The captain, a 23 year-old Englishman, takes flight in the only lifeboat, leaving his passengers to either drown or freeze to death. Seventeen hours later, the survivors are rescued by another famine ship, the Nicaragua. Famine and Shipwreck, an Irish Odyssey tells this extraordinary tale of horror and survival. The documentary combines drama, treated with visual effects, to recreate the shipwreck and heroic survival of some of the passengers, with powerful documentary scenes, involving descendants of the passengers from both sides of the ocean, historians’ testimonies and impressive archives of letters, photographs, documents, newspaper articles and art. Through the film, we follow Canadian descendant Tom Murphy and his mother Jane on their emotional quest to discover how their Irish ancestors, Bridget and John Murphy, managed to survive both starvation and shipwreck to finally build a new life in the green fields of Canada. They head to Ireland where they meet fourth generation cousins, Sharon Donnelly and her husband Padraig. They retrace the story of the famine and the horrible conditions their Murphy ancestors endured before boarding the Hannah, and during the crossing. They set sail to the place where the ship sank, and briefly experience the wintry conditions in which the Hannah survivors waited for rescue. At least one million famine victims are buried in mass graves all over Ireland. Another million, probably more, left the country forever. Twenty-five per cent of Canadians boast Irish blood, in Ontario, it’s 50%, in Quebec, it’s one out of three. Most came during "The Great Starvation", the Irish potato famine. Between 1845 and 1850, the potato blight struck Northwest Europe. Ireland was hit worse than other countries. The poor depended on their potato crops to survive. When other European governments took measures to calm the crisis, the British parliament left the fate of Ireland in the hands of her 10,000 landlords. At the height of the catastrophe they did nothing to prevent starvation and continued to ship thousands of livestock and tons of grain to England. "No landlords starved during the Great Famine, it’s the poor who starved", says Irish historian Peter Gray in the film. Some call it an act of extermination. In order to survive, the poor were forced to abandon all their property and take refuge in Dickensian workhouses or board coffin-ships bound for Canada and the United States. But that was another famine nightmare and many never made it alive. The film was shot in Ireland, Quebec, Ontario and off the coast of Prince Edward Island, in 2010. It never would have been possible without the incredible efforts of Paddy Murphy from Ontario who traced his genealogy back to his Irish roots in South Armagh, Ireland. As the descendants of those who survived the shipwreck and of those who stayed behind in Ireland discover their shared past, Canada and Ireland will discover through them how inextricably they are bound. Famine and Shipwreck, an Irish Odyssey is a Galafilm production, produced in association with the Canadian Broadcasting Corporation and Radio-Canada, with the financial participation of the Canadian Media Fund, the Quebec tax credit and the Federal tax credit, and developed with the financial participation of the SODEC.

60 min

The Gangster Next Door

The Gangster Next Door is the harrowing story behind the headlines of the country’s bloodiest gang war - shockingly led by young men raised in the most middle-class of families. And yet they’ve stooped to new lows to win increasingly brazen gang battles, targeting previously off-limits gangster girlfriends and wives and shattering the lives of true innocents, like the four-year-old left alive in the backseat of a Cadillac, his mother shot dead at the wheel. At stake: billions in illicit drug money.

60 min

Magical Mystery Cures

As boomers become seniors, products that offer them a chance to retain the appearance of youth line store shelves and dominate late-night TV infomercials. But do these products perform the almost miraculous cures they claim? Or are they just the latest incarnation of “snake oil”, hustled by promoters such as P.T. Barnum with his travelling medicine shows so many years ago? Back then, fraud and deception were the aim, and innocent audiences were duped with pseudo-scientific terms intended to confuse rather than inform.

60 min

Gardening Confidential

60 min

Generation Boomerang

A look at children of those born during the baby boom generation and why they continue to reside with their parents as young adults.

60 min

Love, Hate & Propaganda: The Cold War #1

IN THE SHADOW OF FEAR: The conclusion of WWII marks the end of the alliance with the Soviet Union and the beginning of the Cold War. Soon citizens living on both sides of what will be known as the Iron Curtain find themselves living in fear of a nuclear holocaust - A fear that will last more than forty years.

60 min

Love, Hate & Propaganda: The Cold War #2

TURNING UP THE HEAT: When it is clear there are enough weapons to blow the planet to smithereens it's time to move the Cold War to a different front - our daily lives.

60 min

Facebook Follies

Social networking is a great way to stay in touch and share information. But it's also a great way to break up a marriage, lose a job or wind up in jail.

60 min

Love, Hate & Propaganda: The Cold War #3

CRACKS IN THE WALL: On both sides of the Iron Curtain the messages are being pumped out, but what happens when your side's propaganda no longer rings true?

60 min

Love, Hate & Propaganda: The Cold War #4

WAR OF WORDS: Early 80's the Cold War has reached a peak. Something has to give, but who will blink first?

60 min

Haiti's Orphans

Following the journey of the families and orphans of the Haiti earthquake. A glimpse of the will to survive, the passion to help and ultimately, the cost of life and love.

60 min

My Life After 9/11

A series of deeply personal accounts by people who were directly affected by devastating terror attacks.

60 min

Life is a Highway Part 2

Life is a Highway covers the boom years in Canada's record business during the 1990s, a time when Canadian music, in all its ragged glory, truly comes of age.

60 min

In Search of the G Spot

The G Spot - object of so many fantasies and of so much controversy. But does it really exist?

60 min

The Trouble with Experts

We all count on experts to tell us how to vote, raise our kids, invest our money and fix our homes - but should we trust them?

60 min

Marketing the Monarchy

A look at the marketing frenzy surrounding the royal family

60 min

Inside the Cirque

Doc Zone goes behind the curtain and under the stage to reveal how it's all done. The incredible logistics behind the Cirque du Soleil - the biggest road show in history.

60 min

1 Day

On any ordinary day in Canada, extraordinary things happen. Canadians have remarkable stories to tell.

60 min

Customer (Dis)Service

We are in a customer service crisis; ineffective representatives, long wait times, overseas call centers and a dysfunctional relationship have left customers angry, frustrated and confused. Are the good old days long gone, or have we gotten what we asked for?

60 min