Plenty to Like, Plenty to Dislike

How sad is this?

A lot of perfectly good film show their cards early, establish a unique premise and let the audience explore a topic at a leisurely pace, without much in terms of surprise. this film is not one of those films.

One of the film's great tricks is that, for a time, you think it will go down a rabbit hole of unrealistic glorification.

This series is about discovery, and the origination of what we take for granted. There is no in-depth treatise intended, but it reveals a path from the beginning of a technology, the advances along the way, and what we have now. Personally, even with my strong science background, it was fascinating. I wasn't expecting an entire episode of how modern water purification works. That it started with contaminated water in metro areas and developed into the safest time in world history to drink tap water is what makes this series compelling. Who knew the entire city of Chicago was raised to install a sewer system? How did that lead to subways? Beer is good to drink. Who created the modern time zones we use today? How was fiber optic technology developed? I only wish there were more episodes to watch.

This show has good intentions, but we found it to be an extremely poorly written show. One of the worst written shows we have ever watched in our lives. Or maybe it's just poorly researched. This show is like reading a high school book report from a student who never actually read the book in the first place. For example, they will start talking about one important topic, or tease you with a question about something... but then they will NEVER finish talking about that topic nor answer that question for you! So they leave you hanging without "tying up" any of the loose ends, or actually giving you an education about anything! For example, in the episode about how humans invented artificial cooling devices, the show simply says "And then the refrigerator was invented, one of the most important inventions of all mankind." And then they move onto other less important topics. Um, hello?! HOW was the refrigerator invented? HOW does the refrigerator even work?! Another example: In the episode where they are talking about the invention of "sound recordings", THEY DON'T EVEN TELL YOU how Edison figured out how to record or playback sound on wax records! It's an EPISODE ABOUT SOUND RECORDINGS, FOR CHRISSAKE!! And yet all they say is, "Edison invented the first record player." Wait, what? How in the world did he do that? Any more details that you'd like to share with us about this major invention that changed the entire world? Nope, they've already moved onto the next scene, which is usually the host doing something completely irrelevant for 10 minutes. And then, for the rest of the episode, they never come back to fill you in on the details that they skipped. But then, the show BOUNCES ALL OVER THE PLACE with a variety of unimportant facts! By doing so, this show DOES NOT GIVE ANY VALID NOR USEFUL NOR EDUCATIONAL INFORMATION TO THE VIEWER, and you can't truly make sense of the stories that they're trying to share. And the host is absolutely terrible -- he is extremely fake & condescending & pandering to the audience. He tries waaaay too hard to be a host. It's very clear that he has never been in front of the camera before. In any case, it seems like these people tried really hard with this show, but each episode ends up leaving you way more confused & frustrated than before you started watching the episode. You actually go INTO the show with more knowledge than when you LEAVE the show. Would love to see this show get a MAJOR overhaul with some ***PROFESSIONAL WRITERS*** who ACTUALLY DO SOME RESEARCH and CAN KEEP FOCUSED and TELL A STORY FROM START TO FINISH. Until that happens, this show should get ZERO STARS. Every single episode is literally as bad as what I described in this review. Truly terrible show. Terrible, terrible, terrible, terrible. We have never seen a worst TV show.

For such interesting topics, I was really disappointed.It was quite obvious that this production crew was more concerned with creative 'shots' and post production editing than actually making a useful documentary. It got to the point where I was actually laughing at how hard they were trying to be creative and original with the production shots. There were also a ton of stock footage shots that had very little to do with the specific topic at hand. Like, footage of people walking around modern-day downtown Chicago.The host was brand new to me, and, I couldn't stand him. Very condescending and somewhat annoying. I love science and shows showcasing science, but this was just a show about how to have cool camera shots ruin a good show.

I watched the episode on Édouard-Léon Scott de Martinville, inventor of the phonautograph. Fascinating topic.I barely made it to the end. Between the host Steven Johnson's patronizing condescension as if his audience were three year olds, and the dreadfully slow pace at which information leaked out between all his cutesy stammers and stutters, not to mention the pauses to make room for yet another unneeded production gimmick, I found this program simply unbearable.This was a wonderfully interesting subject. The first recordings of the human voice! Amazing.But in some bizarre attempt to dumb it down to a 1st grade intellect, all the fascination was stripped away leaving a sickly sweet Leave it to Beaver meets Disney patina.And most incredibly, the real gem of the show, the actual digitization of the original "phonoautographs" into renderable audio files, garnered a whopping 15 seconds of screen time.One wonders if, perhaps, the producers were less enamored with personality and more on the actual subject matter, we may have been treated to a better treatment of it.Even my 9 yr old found it slow and condescending. And when she realized that no further recording would be forthcoming, her exact words, unprovoked or influenced by me, were, "Aaaah. Bummer."