This interesting but far from definitive documentary espousing the theories of historian Tim Maltin basically absolves everyone involved, from the crew of the Titanic to Captain Stanley Lord of the nearby Californian, from responsibility for the sinking of the Titanic and the hundreds of lives lost in the disaster. Mind you, Maltin's theory is an interesting one, but this documentary goes too far in presenting this idea as fact -- just as it errs in repeatedly asserting that Maltin was the first person to ever raise the idea regarding the Titanic's sinking in the first place. The same theory was raised -- though not explored -- by a British government enquiry in 1992.

Maltin's approach is to look exclusively at the events and facts of the night of April 14-15, 1912 -- what survivors had to say during interviews and in testimony to boards of enquiry in both the U.S. and England and what the weather and ocean conditions were in that area of the Atlantic that night. He tracks down information on conditions from the archived logs of nearby ships that passed through that area the same day as Titanic, uncovering data that seem to jibe and explain the observations offered by a selective group of important eyewitnesses, such as the lookouts, Second Officer Charles Lightoller, passenger Lawrence Beesley, Captain Lord of the Californian, and others.

The theory, in a nutshell, is this: that atmospheric conditions, particularly the interaction of warm layers of air intersecting with the much colder air associated with the Labrador Current, created a "cold mirage" effect -- basically an optical illusion caused by the refraction of light -- that rendered the approaching iceberg "invisible" until it emerged out of a haze dead ahead of the vessel, too late to be avoided. The moonless night, calm ocean and bright stars all played into this atmospheric phenomenon. As for Captain Lord, the same atmospheric effect made Titanic appear to be a much smaller ship, just as he testified. Thus, Lord was convinced the ship he saw could not have been Titanic.

Maltin's theory sounds plausible and is certainly deserving of further attention and study, but the presentation of it in this documentary seems rather selective -- both in terms of the survivor testimony he focused on and additional facts which aren't even acknowledged, much less addressed here. For instance, this documentary makes Captain Smith out to be beyond reproach, when in fact his career was littered with numerous and significant accidents. Maltin gives Smith a total pass on traveling at high speed through an area he knew to be rife with icebergs -- yes, I know that is how things were done on clear nights back in those days, but numerous warnings should have given the captain pause. It is the place of Californian in this theory that bothers me the most, however. For one thing, one cannot say with complete confidence that the nearby ship sighted by many on Titanic that night was the Californian and not a "mystery ship." To his dying day, Lord insisted that the ship he observed from his deck was too small to be Titanic -- while Maltin's theory accounts for just such an observation, his "scintillation" theory as to why the other ship did not respond to the Californian's Morse signal lights is not overly convincing to me.

More importantly, though, this documentary fails to point out that the Titanic fired off numerous flares following the collision, thus completely side-stepping the question of how the captain of the nearby ship failed to notice them (apparently, in his book, Maltin uses the same light refraction theory to explain that the rockets would have appeared to be much lower in the sky than they actually were to those on the Californian).

I also must say that I wanted to hear what oceanographic experts had to say about Maltin's theory, since he is essentially an historian making a scientific argument, but no such experts appear in the documentary. Instead, we watch Maltin conduct "tests" just a few hundred yards offshore of Nova Scotia and interview boat operators who sail into the Labrador Current on a regular basis today. That's just not good enough for me. Maltin's theory may actually explain some or all of the reasons behind the Titanic tragedy -- so, yes, this documentary is certainly worth watching -- but in the end I'm going to need more evidence before I can really buy into it.