Michael Palin
Himalaya
Starring: Michael Palin, Dalai Lama and a slew of Himalayan characters
Directors: Roger Mills and John Paul Davidson
The series: After six travel-related BBC documentaries that started with his recreation of Phileas Fogg's global race against the clock in Jules Verne's Around the World in 80 Days, Michael Palin's beautifully filmed accounts of lesser-visited destinations are always entertaining. Once better known for his input in British comedy ensemble Monty Python, Palin's travelogues are always tinged with humour, but little of the irreverent or skewed Python variety.
This six-part series, screened last year, skirts the Himalayan region from west to east - with a little zigzagging in between - starting in Afghanistan and ending in Bangladesh. This makes for an enormous diversity of ethnic groups and associated culture and landscape. Yes, landscape - because, crucially, this series investigates areas and countries in which the Himalaya range has some significance. Hence, Afghanistan is included as an area through which the west - historically, Britain - gained access to the Himalayas, through the Khyber Pass to Pakistan. Likewise, Bangladesh is visited, as the sprawling fertile delta that consists largely of the muddy deposits of two rivers whose sources are in the mountains to its north.