The scenery on a big HD TV rates a "7", but the horrendous talking heads and the complete one-sidedness (John Muir is a God, Pinchot is the Devil) viewpoint of the program rates a "1".
The pacing was just awful. Realizing that Yosemite and Yellowstone are, arguably, the most important National Parks, way too much time and footage was spent on these two spots and far too little was spent on parks such as Isle Royale and the Florida Everglades, to name two of many parks that were given the short shrift.
Further, it was jarring to switch from the beautiful scenery to the awful, pedantic and hard to watch commentators. Particularly annoying was talking bobble head William Cronon, who's constant head shaking was reminiscent of the girl in the clip from Gumnaam that's at the beginning of Ghost World (check it out on youtube). Carl Pope of the Sierra Club, with his grating voice, did nothing to further his organization's cause. Revenge of the Nerds came to mind in watching these commentators.
Also, the overly dramatic, painfully slow reading of many boring letters did little to help the narrative.
I really wanted to like this. I believe that the National Parks are very important, but this dreadful waste of 12 hours did nothing for this viewer.
The pacing was just awful. Realizing that Yosemite and Yellowstone are, arguably, the most important National Parks, way too much time and footage was spent on these two spots and far too little was spent on parks such as Isle Royale and the Florida Everglades, to name two of many parks that were given the short shrift.
Further, it was jarring to switch from the beautiful scenery to the awful, pedantic and hard to watch commentators. Particularly annoying was talking bobble head William Cronon, who's constant head shaking was reminiscent of the girl in the clip from Gumnaam that's at the beginning of Ghost World (check it out on youtube). Carl Pope of the Sierra Club, with his grating voice, did nothing to further his organization's cause. Revenge of the Nerds came to mind in watching these commentators.
Also, the overly dramatic, painfully slow reading of many boring letters did little to help the narrative.
I really wanted to like this. I believe that the National Parks are very important, but this dreadful waste of 12 hours did nothing for this viewer.