It isn't a TV series, so I don't know if it counts....

Growing up, we watched Animals are Beautiful People(1974) quite often.  It has footage apparently shot while they were filming The Gods Must be Crazy (which we didn't watch).  There's not much narration, but it contains some quite memorable scenes, paired with classical music.

Might have watched nature documentaries in the '80's, when visiting my grandparents, but wouldn't have a clue which ones they were.  All I really remember was Bob Ross (and other painting shows) and the Lawrence Welk Show  

I remember growing up with Mutual of Omaha's Wild Kingdom. All I really remember were the sponsor commercials and Marlin's famous line to the effect "I'll watch from a safe distance while Jim approaches the deadly alligators."

@stargazer

I bought Wild Kingdom on DVD. The eight sets contain about eighty 25 minute episodes, which is a lot of the series but not all of it. I also own the complete series of Planet Earth and The Blue Planet on  DVD and Blu-ray.  I also love PBS’ Nature and own a lot of that series.  The shows have such interesting photography which makes them appealing and very enjoyable to watch over and over again. It seems like the BBC has some of the best nature documentaries, although PBS has done a great job for many years with Nature.  PBS used to have more wildlife shows like Marty Stouffer’s Wild America, and occasionally Nova would have an animal documentary. There were shows like Cosmos which made astronomy interesting.  🙂

Not a TV series, but The Riot and the Dance is my favorite, there's only two so far: Earth and Water. Both are terrific minus the snakes, not a fan of the snakes.  

SnowAngel

@snowangel

Posted by: @snowangel

Not a TV series, but The Riot and the Dance is my favorite, there's only two so far: Earth and Water. Both are terrific minus the snakes, not a fan of the snakes.  

SnowAngel

I don’t think I have seen either of those.  Although snakes are not my favorite animals I might even like a documentary that has them. I kind of enjoyed Steve Irwin’s The Crocodile Hunter, but I liked Steve Irwin much better than than the crocodiles. Remember when he said “Crikey!” ? It’s so too bad that he’s gone.  He was such an excellent host.

Posted by: @snowangel

Not a TV series, but The Riot and the Dance is my favorite, there's only two so far: Earth and Water. Both are terrific minus the snakes, not a fan of the snakes.  

SnowAngel

      You took the words right out of my mouth, I am a massive fan of The Riot and the Dance, but I sadly haven't been able to watch the 2nd one yet. Anyway, my family always enjoyed Marty Stouffer’s Wild America, especially some of his more comedic episodes. On the whole, I really appreciate a good, christian nature documentary, but I also do enjoy Discovery and National Geographic (I see more of the latter, seeing as we have Disney+), but I don't like the evolution and "were killing the environment!" agendas in these, but the visuals are stunning!

There were also space documentaries like From the Earth to the Moon which was hosted and narrated by Tom Hanks.  I have it on blu-ray when it was released again for the fiftieth anniversary of the moon landing in 2019.  The documentary itself was made in 1998 and had some beautiful special effects for that time.  It quite accurate to history and well portrayed the lives of the astronauts. There is also the film Apollo 11, which has the clearest footage of that mission and the moon landing.   The PBS special 8 Days to the Moon and Back has the astronauts’ voices with recreated footage. The technology to show the realism of space flight exists today, but during the 1960’s only photography and simple TV cameras were there to record the events. The DVD is well worth viewing.  All of these documentaries are great for learning about the space program and its achievements.

I really liked the new, very clear footage in Apollo 11 - especially the launch and pre-launch segments. It was rather strange seeing 60s-style fashions (among the spectators) in such crystal clear clarity.

Another series I can recommend is When We Left Earth: The NASA Missions, a 6-episode miniseries created by the Discovery Channel in 2008. It begins with Project Mercury, continues with Gemini and the Apollo landings in some detail, and ends with the shuttle and Hubble Space Telescope missions. It has some excellent footage of the missions that I hadn't seen before. (I found the special features rather disappointing as they show launch replays to music rather than the usual sounds of the launch).

@stargazer

I own the Apollo 11 blu-ray, and I am amazed at how good it looks on my 40 inch TV screen. I don’t think I have ever seen When We Left Earth.  It would be nice if the networks would show the programs more often than just on the anniversaries of the events.  Recently I bought The First Man on the Moon, a biography of Neil Armstrong on DVD.  It was a Nova episode and a very good story of Armstrong’s life.

Posted by: @snowangel

Not a TV series, but The Riot and the Dance is my favorite, there's only two so far: Earth and Water.

 

I was wondering if someone would mention this series. I have not seen it myself, but N.D. Wilson helped produce it, so I've watched the trailers for it. When my animal-loving daughter gets a little older I'll probably buy it for her.

And since I have little kids, I have to throw in a nod for Wild Kratts because they watched that show A LOT a year or two ago. My youngest still does on occasion. It's pretty silly, but it has a lot of good nature facts thrown in. 

Posted by: @stargazer

Another series I can recommend is When We Left Earth: The NASA Missions, a 6-episode miniseries created by the Discovery Channel in 2008.

Love, love, love this series. @narnian78, you must get a copy and watch it!!! It's my favorite space documentary series. I bought it for my son a few years back, but he prefers Apollo 11 and the Traveler's Guide to the Planets. 

I'm hoping someone on here can help me out, a year or two ago, I watched a show on space that I would say, while not explicitly Christian, I would classify it under intelligent design. It basically talked about how life could exist on Earth ONLY because it fell under the qualifications of being a certain distance from the Sun, the Sun being the perfect size and heat, the Earth having a certain tilt and rotation speed, etc etc. And then it went on to talk about the location in our Milky Way Galaxy being perfect for allowing us to view the rest of the universe in which we live. 
For the life of me I cannot remember the name of that show! (I would guess it came out in the 90s or 2000s.) Does anybody have a clue what it might be? I'd like to buy it if I can find it again. 

@fantasia

Sometime I will look for When We Left Earth (perhaps online).  I would recommend From the Earth to the Moon if you like something about the beginning of the space program. Of course the astronauts are played by actors, who are very convincing.  However, the series is nonetheless excellent and historically accurate. 🙂

I have been watching Life , a documentary about survival in the natural world narrated by David Attenborough.  The wonderful photography and Attenborough’s narration make this an outstanding and well worth viewing television series.  It is an incredible and excellent history of the natural world. The series was made in 2009 and features high definition footage and is available on blu-ray. By all means watch this beautiful documentary if you get the chance.

Some very fine DVD’s and blu-rays are available of PBS’ Nature series. I watched The Himalayas last night, one of the older episodes from about ten years ago. It is well worth watching and purchasing them if you like them. Amazon and eBay often have the older shows, and they usually are inexpensive. I wish there were more from the beginning of the series when George Page was the host back in the 1980’s and ‘90’s. There were only a few of these available on DVD, and they were sometimes added as bonus episodes. 

THE PLANETS, narrated by Zachary Quinto is beautifully filmed. If it has a flaw, the series assumes you have a very large television screen (at least 30 inches).

The series never names it specifically but it clearly endorses the "Jupiter is Nemesis" theory of the Late Heavy Bombardment.