When the American insult of "dumbing down" began to be widely used by the critics of the BBC, executives coined a provocative antonym. They were, they insisted, in fact "braining up" the schedules in comparison with the programming of the 70s. This declaration of cerebral content becomes literal this week with Brain Story, in which a scientist billed in the credits as Professor Susan Greenfield CBE (giving her the odd distinction of joining Jimmy Savile and Thora Hird as the only TV presenters to list their state honours after their name) examines the head.
The reference to her CBE really wasn't necessary, because Professor Greenfield claims a significant distinction merely by speaking her first link. The global overview documentary series - in which the presenter has a new city and a new outfit for each speech - has always belonged to men: Attenborough, Bronowski, Clark, Robert Winston, Henry Louis Gates. In TV history, Greenfield becomes as significant a pioneer as Margaret Thatcher and Betty Boothroyd in politics, although a less frightening TV presence than either.
The fear was that Greenfield had been admitted to the club even as the wrecking ball swung towards it. Many critics have felt in recent years that the factual grand tour is a genre reaching its end. Greenfield redresses one of the objections - paternalism - but faces the others. In a multi-channel environment, will the audience still attend to complex information over 50 minutes of documentary? Do attempts to inject human interest inevitably dilute intelligence?
On these questions, Greenfield is lucky with her subject. In a series about the history of art, anecdotes and visual gimmicks tend to distract from the argument. In this area, the weird stories are central to the thesis. The human interest tales help to explain how the brain makes humans interesting.
Rather like a series about motoring which starts in the scrapyard rather than the showroom, Greenfield uses damaged brains, with one everyday function removed, to show how the whole should work. An Alzheimer's patient - a subject played merely for sentimentality in some parts of television - becomes here the basis for an investigation of the brain's impact on personality.
The sort of freak medical cases loved by newspapers - the amputee who can still feel their missing arm, the brain-damaged concert-goer who can no longer be moved by music - all have a purpose beyond peculiarity here. The cases of Van Gogh and a modern female patient are used to explore whether epilepsy encourages artistic creativity and spiritual visions.
Those stories touch on the subversive nature of Brain Story. Greenfield's amiability on screen disguises the fact that she's often being as provocative as the more openly challenging Richard Dawkins. The underlying question of the series is whether experiences which many consider sacred and profound - religious belief, romantic love, appreciation of art and music - are simply the result of how our heads are wired.
In the stand-out moment of the first programme, a surgeon works inside the skull of a patient kept awake during the operation. (It should already be clear that Brain Story is a series not ideally suited to a TV supper.) About to remove a tumour from Sarah's brain, he needs to establish which bumps on the cauliflower control speech, in order to avoid the risk of his incisions leaving her mute. So Sarah counts while he presses on her exposed cerebrum with electrodes which will jam her signals. When the countdown halts, he knows he's located her speech lobes.
It's famously said that once you start to think about the process of walking, you're at risk of falling over. In the same way, watching Brain Story is a curiously self-conscious experience. You find yourself reflecting on the processes which allow the presenter to think and then speak her script, and the viewer to hear and then understand it. The programme is also difficult to review, making you aware of the possibility that any emotion you feel - interest, admira tion, pleasure - is merely the result of electrical storms on your cortex.
Well, my neurons say that while Greenfield's material helps her - because the brain is a subject of both academic and general interest - this episode (produced and directed by Andrew Cohen) shows far fewer concessions than most recent landmark documentary series to the American market or fears about the audience's attention-span.
A common critical gibe against TV presenters is that they don't have a thought in their heads. No one will be able to say this about Professor Greenfield, because at one point she wears a device (a literal thinking cap) which allows us to watch the pulsing of her brainwaves as she speaks to us. (We'll all have our own private list of hosts who'd be unwise to wear this device during their shows.) And, anyway, her accessible braininess is established throughout a documentary which is in two senses cerebral. She's the first TV personality able to explain to you what personality is.
Brain Story, tomorrow, 9pm, BBC2
