With the pandemic sweeping the globe, most non-essential workers are self-isolating, which includes us, engineers. Although free time allows us to catch up on some unfinished projects, it also allows us to binge-watch our favorite shows and movies. It’s also great to know there are movies and T.V. shows catered to engineers or have engineering aspects to them, which is more prevalent than you might think. It also begs the question of how many people became engineers by watching something on the television or at the movies? Below is a collection of great shows and movies that every engineer might enjoy.
1: Mr. Robot
(Image credit: U.S.A. Network)
Quite possibly the best "engineer as the hero" show I've seen. It even featured a Raspberry Pi as a crucial tool in defeating a challenge! Robot is a great thriller starring Rami Malek as Elliot Alderson, who is a cybersecurity engineer for a company known as Allsafe. He also has a strong case of social anxiety disorder and clinical depression, which he mitigates via hacking, which often leads him into becoming a cyber-vigilante. He gains the attention of a shadowy insurrectionary anarchist known as Mr. Robot (played by Christian Slater), who runs a hacktivist outfit dubbed fsociety, that aims to cancel all consumer debt by destroying data at one of the worlds largest corporations, which just happens to be Elliot’s company Allsafe.
2: Star Trek
(Image credit: StarTrek.com)
This roundup wouldn’t be complete without mentioning Star Trek, whether it be the myriad of T.V. shows or movies. Most everyone has their favorites, and each iteration is different in its storyline. Still, one thing remains the same throughout- and that’s the engineers trying to hold the ship together when disaster strikes. Without them, there would be no seeking out new intelligent life, or the exploration of new worlds, and no one would boldly go anywhere. What’s great about the show is that some drew inspiration from them and became engineers themselves, including astronaut May Jemison, who would be cast in an episode of Star Trek The Next Generation. The new Star Trek Picard series is great too!
3: MacGyver
(Image credit: Flikr)
Don't thank me, thank the gravitational pull of the moon. MacGyver has to be the pinnacle of shows for engineers; it allowed us to learn how to diffuse a nuclear bomb with nothing but a wrench, paperclip, and a pair of shoelaces. There are two versions of the show, the 1985 series and the 2016 reboot, but the premise is much of the same. In the original, MacGyver (played by Richard Dean Anderson) is hired by Peter Thornton, the Director of Operations at the Phoenix Foundation (a non-profit think tank), and acts as a troubleshooter for a variety of tasks. Each job requires him to figure out ways to overcome obstacles using everyday items and a Swiss Army knife he always has with him, for the most part.
(Image credit: Netflix)
Discovery Network’s Extreme Engineering series ran from 2003 to 2011 and was hosted by Danny Forster, who highlighted construction and engineering projects on a large scale. While some were completed beforehand, such as the Hong Kong airport, others were still ongoing, including the Gotthard Base Railway Tunnel under the Alps in Switzerland. The show also showcased future projects in the design phase and even provided possible disaster scenarios that could happen during construction.
(Image credit: IMDb)
Impossible Engineering is another great show that focuses on modern-day engineering projects and the engineering pioneers who blazed a trail for today’s engineers. Each one-hour episode showcases how giant structures, buildings, trains, and trains are designed using CAD-based software and built by the trained crews of construction workers and on-site engineers. Some of the more notable episodes include building the H.M.S. Queen Elizabeth Aircraft Carrier, Panama Canal Redevelopment, and the Halley VI Research Station in the Antarctic.
(Image credit: Flikr)
Hidden Figures is an excellent movie about the lives of three African American engineers and mathematicians who worked at N.A.S.A. during the Space Race. The movie loosely details the lives of Dorothy Vaughan (mathematician/human-computer), Mary Jackson (mathematician/aerospace engineer), and Katherine Johnson (mathematician). The trio was responsible for calculating flight trajectories for Project Mercury, John Glenn’s orbit around the earth (he asked Katherine directly if the numbers produced by the computer were correct, or else he wouldn’t fly), and the math needed for the Apollo 11 trajectory to the moon and back. You can also read my more in depth review after this link.
(Image credit: IMDb)
The Andromeda Strain (both the 1971 film and 2018 miniseries) has more of a bioengineering edge, and tells the story of a team of scientists recruited to investigate a deadly disease of extraterrestrial origin after a satellite crashes to earth. The five scientists try to unlock the microorganism’s secrets in a futuristic underground laboratory powered by a small nuclear reactor. If the microorganism manages a containment breach of the facilities many secured levels, a 15-minute self-destruct sequence would be automatically initiated that will nuke the laboratory. Once initiated and deemed unnecessary, a lone scientist must get to a power-down control panel and deactivate the system before the explosion.
8: The 33
(Image credit: IMDb)
The 33 is based on a real-life event that occurred in 2010 at the San Jose copper/gold mine in Copiapo, Chile, which trapped 33 miners after a cave-in. The workers were trapped 2,300-feet underground for 69 days before being rescued. Exploratory drilling was done shortly after the accident, and after some time, engineers found a note taped to one of the drill bits that informs them the miners are safe. After some corruption and mounds of red tape removed, the Chilean government enlisted drilling help from their own agencies, N.A.S.A., and around a dozen corporations from around the world.
9: Kon-Tiki
(Image credit: IMDb)
Kon-Tiki is another movie based on actual events, this time on the legendary explorer Thor Heyerdahl and his 4,300-mile journey across the Pacific on a balsawood raft in 1947. Thor had a theory that South Americans could settle in Polynesia in pre-Columbian times using nothing more than wooden rafts and assembles a team of highly-skilled individuals to help test his theory. The movie details how they built the impressive raft, and the great adventure that awaited them in the vast ocean.
10: Splice
(Image credit: IMDb)
Splice details why genetic engineers should never meddle with nature. The movie stars Adrien Brody and Sarah Polley, a pair of genetic engineers looking to achieve fame by splicing together the D.N.A. of many different animals to create a hybrid of medical uses for the company N.E.R.D. (Nucleic Exchange Research and Development). After previously creating dog-sized worm creatures that mated and produced offspring, the pair feel they could do the same and create a human/animal hybrid that they feel could revolutionize science. Boy, were they wrong.
These are just a handful of T.V. shows and movies that either cater to engineers or feature engineering of some kind in their various plots. Hundreds of others can be found online through almost every streaming service, and if you’ve never seen the ones listed above, take a chance and watch them; at the very least, they provide great entertainment.
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