All Rise...

Judge David Johnson found life beyond his pants.

The Charge

Are we alone?

The Case

If you're a scientist who has devoted his entire life to searching for extraterrestrials and hasn't found much time to get out there and test the dating waters, then yes…there's a good chance you may indeed be alone.

The eggheads at NOVA have taken to exploring the final frontier, examining the scientific plausibility of organic life developing on planets and moons floating around in space.

Needless to say, Finding Life Beyond Earth is pretty heady material, stuffed sideways with all manner of cosmological jargon and buttressed by experts expounding on the empiricism.

It's not all ET-hunting. The producers also take the opportunity to dwell on large-scale questions of outer space. Building off big discoveries of recent years—thanks to the far-reaching optics of telescopes and the development of hipper, cooler new theories—there is much new material to share with the public as it relates to interstellar trivia and these researchers blow it all out.

Granted, you're going to need some built-in sympathy towards the subject matter, as this 120 min runtime will test the endurance of even the most battle-hardened amateur astronomer. Still, Finding Life Beyond Earth is another reliably solid feature from NOVA; they've been at this stuff for years and it shows in the execution.

The DVD: 1.78:1 anamorphic widescreen, 2.0 stereo, no extras.

The Verdict

Not Guilty. Beam me up.

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