Here’s a question. What motivates people to do, well, ‘questionable’ things? Todd Samson is on a mission to find the answers in his new series, Todd Sampson’s Why?.
Todd Sampson said: “‘Why?’ It’s our very first question. Our way of understanding the world. This series explores the ‘whys’ of some of the most fascinating people on the planet. We’ll dive into the death-defying desires of base jumpers, explore the forward-thinking doomsday preppers, investigate the tangled life of a donor dad and delve into the mystical world of an alien church.
“Some ‘whys’ may never be fully answered, and some may be hard to swallow. But it’s by understanding others that we better understand ourselves.”
“Todd does Doomsday Preppers in the US. He uncovers what people are doing and why it’s become such a big business to build doomsday shelters in the US, especially for the uber rich. He also does another episode with a man in New York who is fathering about 175 children by a sperm donor.”
WHY? People do questionable things. We’re on a mission to understand why.
WHY? It’s the first question we ask — our way of understanding the world.
This documentary series explores the “whys” behind some of the most fascinating people on the planet. We dive into the tangled lives of Donor Dads, the forward-thinking fears of Doomsday Preppers, the mystical faith of an Alien Church and the death-defying desires of BASE Jumpers.
Some “whys” may never be fully answered. Some may be hard to swallow. But by understanding others, we can better understand ourselves.
PRODUCTION CREDITS
A Baltimore Films production. Writer, Creator, Executive Producer and Host: Todd Sampson. Filmed, Directed and Produced by: Jeff Siberry. Story Producers: Johanna Gibson and Melanie Sauer. Line Producer and Production Manager: Janny Biltoft. ABC Commissioning Editor: Julie Hanna. ABC Head Documentary and Specialist: Susie Jones.
Todd Sampson challenges conventional thinking in new ABC series WHY?
Todd Sampson is set to challenge audiences once again when his new series WHY? premieres Tuesday 24 February at 8.30pm on ABC TV and ABC iview.
In a world increasingly divided by uncertainty and judgement, WHY? steps into the grey. Across the series, Sampson immerses himself in lives shaped by belief, obsession, conviction and risk, meeting people whose choices are confronting and sometimes deeply unsettling.
Rather than asking whether they are right or wrong, this series asks something far more intriguing: WHY?
Each episode explores a different moral and psychological frontier, from Donor Dads to Doomsday Preppers, Alien Church worshippers to BASE jumpers, inviting audiences to sit with discomfort, challenge assumptions and reflect on the instincts that shape human behaviour.
As Sampson explains: “some “whys” may never be fully answered. Some may be hard to swallow, but it’s through understanding others that we may better understand ourselves.”
This series resists simple answers, instead, offering insight into the fears, desires and beliefs that quietly drive us all.
PRODUCTION CREDIT: A Baltimore Films production. Writer, Creator, Executive Producer and Host: Todd Sampson. Filmed, Directed and Produced by: Jeff Siberry. Story Producers: Johanna Gibson and Melanie Sauer. Line Producer and Production Manager: Janny Biltoft. ABC Commissioning Editor: Julie Hanna. ABC Head Documentary and Specialist: Susie Jones.
The complexities of unregulated sperm donation sees half brothers and sisters all around the world. We meet a father who has children in the hundreds. Many of the mothers can’t afford IVF and instead choose to go down the private path to take away some of the anonymity and costs associated with donor clinics.
Donor Dads is not a story about right or wrong. It is a story about autonomy, intention and consequence. It explores how hope, desire and access are reshaping the most fundamental human act: creating life. In a world where biology can be shared with a message and a meeting point, regulation lags behind reality, and the long-term impacts remain unknown.
They are stockpiling food and weapons, learning survival skills, and building bunkers beneath the earth. To them, collapse is not a distant fantasy or a Hollywood trope. It is a real and imminent possibility. They call themselves preppers.
Todd spends a week embedded with the family and the group, observing their routines and training. What quickly becomes apparent is the depth of their commitment. This is not casual contingency planning. This is a way of life.
But the more Todd witnesses, the more he begins to question the driving force behind it all. Why devote so much time, energy and resources to events that may never happen?
In the 1950s, a London taxi driver claimed he received a message from outer space. His name was George King, and according to him, the message was not a warning or a threat, but a revelation. Humans were not alone in the universe.
From this encounter, King founded the Aetherius Society, an international religion built on the belief that humanity’s spiritual progress is overseen by higher intelligences from beyond Earth.
What began as one man’s extraordinary claim would grow into a global movement with branches across the world and a devoted following that continues decades after King’s death.
In this episode, Todd Sampson sets out to understand why people believe.
This is where people come to learn how to jump. BASE jumping is an extreme sport in which participants leap from fixed objects such as buildings, antennas, spans and cliffs, deploying a parachute at dangerously low altitude.
Unlike skydiving, there is no reserve chute, no margin for error and almost no time to correct mistakes.
BASE jumping is responsible for numerous fatal accidents every year, making it one of the most dangerous pursuits on Earth.
