My recommendation is going to seem odd, but it really is enchanting: Time Team

It is a British show that ran from the early 1990s, where a team of archaeologists perform 3-day archaeological digs to answer specific questions. Like they get a letter from some farmer in Sussex who asks them to "figure out what these weird lumpy rings are in my field."

The team consists of the goofball presenter - Tony Robinson of Blackadder fame - the tech guys with their geophysical technology, the "digger" archaeologist who runs and performs the digs themselves, the historian who combs through libraries and old documents to unearth documentary evidence, and the landscape historian who can walk around an area and maps the "lumps and bumps" to discern what may be underground, or why the landscape is the shape it is. Finally, there's Vic, their illustrator, who help you visualize what this broken piece of pottery might be from, or how the village would have looked in Roman times.

The whole thing is just enchanting. Very British, but also a lot of fun.

The first two seasons they respond to letters from people asking specific questions, and then they go and try to answer the questions, using all their skills and tools. They end each day in a local pub, drinking and chatting about what they found today, and what they will do tomorrow. On the end of the third day they give a presentation to the local community showing what they have found.

Later seasons, the Time Team are famous, and are invited to excavate and explore protected areas that no other archaeological team has been allowed to touch, as well as the oddball lumps and bumps in farmers fields.

The process of deduction is exposed for the viewer to see, completely. The first day they think they might have uncovered one thing, but the second day, more information comes to light and they change what they are doing and looking at and how they are thinking about it, and the third day it may change entirely again! They are completely honest with their evaluations, and admit when they are right or wrong, and go into detail about what clues led them one way, and which finds didn't fit that conclusion and made them re-think it all.

It's just wonderful fun. Fascinating. And its surprisingly culturally broad - men, women, children, all different races, and everyone working together and respecting each other's expertise and value to the service of the scientific process. My wife and I love it.