Presenter Michael Mosley posed grand questions about how we "arrived at the modern world" and how "history made science and science made history".
There were expensive graphics, and soon Mosley was striding purposefully through Times Square at night thinking more big thoughts, intercut with yellow cabs and out of focus neon lights.
So far, so familiar.
But what's this? Less than two and-a-half minutes into the film, Mosley is driving through the Nevada desert. And blimey ... where's the convertible?
But no. Challenging our deepest assumptions about documentary, we see a British presenter driving in the United States in an ordinary car.
Not only did it clearly have a roof, it was Japanese. And not only was it Japanese, it was a Toyota.
For the next 40 minutes or so, we could relax again, but just as we were wondering whether our eyes had deceived us and Mosley had in fact driven the obligatory convertible, we were back in the States, this time in California.
The usually twangy guitar music, some stray harmonica. The smell of sagebrush, and here's Mosley in his car. And blow me down if, on a lovely hot day, he isn't still stuck beneath a roof!
Hats off to the man ... it's time more documentaries had the courage to break the rules.
Here's what I'm waiting for next:
- A visit to Las Vegas that doesn't include a close-up of a roulette ball landing on a number
- The resolution of a British family crisis that doesn't end with a group visit to a bowling alley
- A piece about the City without an aerial shot of the Gherkin
- Someone contemplating a serious illness who doesn't take a pensive walk by a canal or a stroll on a deserted beach.
