John Cleese hosts this four-part BBC series on why human faces look and work the way they do, moving between lab experiments, historical portraiture, and street interviews. One episode tests what makes a face read as beautiful, showing how symmetry and averaged features score higher with test subjects across different cultures, then complicating that with case studies where fashion and history override the formula. Another breaks down expression itself, using slow-motion footage and muscle mapping to show how a genuine smile differs physically from a faked one, and how the same expression can mean different things in different countries. A third episode turns to fame, asking why certain faces become instantly recognizable worldwide and what that recognition does to the people wearing them. Throughout, Cleese talks with psychologists, plastic surgeons, and everyday interview subjects rather than relying on narration alone, and the series keeps returning to how much information passes between two people before either says a word. It closes by treating the face less as an accessory than as the main channel humans use to read each other.