Discovery Science Launches

Boutique TV: If you're wondering what that means tune in to Discovery Science which launches Monday Sept. 27.
Phone your local cable TV provider to find out the exact channel.
When I started writing on TV for The Hamilton Spectator in 1971 there were 10 regular network channels and no cable channels.
These days something like 959 channels are available if you have the money to pay for all of them --and the money.
Narrowcasting is now the rage.
For old movies it's Turner Classic Movies. For breaking Toronto news it's CP 24. For golf The Golf Channel.
And someday there may be The Bowling Channel, The Ferret Channel and The Curling Network.
Discovery Science is a new cable service operated under the umbrella of CTV and is a fact-based channel with a wide panorama.
It's the third of three new Discovery-branded channels. Discovery World HD and Investigation Discovery launched in August.
The first show sent to me on a preview DVD is Meteorite Men.
At first glance it's about these two guys who go around digging up meteorites.
At second glance it's an explanation on how our universe came together and why a rock that crashed into earth thousands of ytears ago may hold all kinds of answers about our planet's past and future.
Geoff Notkin and Steve Arenold are the well matched explorers and we watch them as the dig all over the place. In one Kansas farm field their equipment indicates something big and buried lies beneath the prairie soil.
But it turns out to be a rusted farm implement.
They demonstrate how their equipment works --many of the gadgets they had to build themselves.
And when they do hit it big the rocks are transported to an Arizonan university campus where scientists are able to tell us all kinds of things about the iron-rich meteor.
I found the hour went by in a fash and the ruminations of the intrepid explorers was thrilling at times.
Meteorite Men premieres Monday night at 9.
On Tuesday at 9 there's another new series Sci Fi Science Woth Michio Kaku. I found this onme less enthralling and a bit too technical for your truly.
Also debuting (and unseen by me) are Science Of The Movies (Monday), Popuylar Science's Future Of (Wednesdays at 9) and Humanology (Thursdays at 9).
For more information go to ScienceChannel.ca.
METEORITE MEN PREMIERES ON DISCOVERY SCIENCE MOND. SEPT. 27 AT 9 P.M.
MY RATING: ***1/2.