I'll tell you why so serious

A story that's too fascinating to pass by...

A terrific literary drama and character piece that shows how the process of creating art can be seen differently by those doing it and those looking at it from the outside.

Strong acting helps the film overcome an uncertain premise and create characters that hold our attention absolutely.

Wow!How did National Geographic, a once respected scientific organisation the world over, come to this?And the answer is apparently through a takeover by Fox and Rupert Murdoch. Enough said.The first and most jarring thing that strikes you about this series is its overly dramatic host Jason Silva. Not someone I've ever heard of before, and someone I will go out of my way to avoid in future. His "narration" alone is probably enough to avoid this series, at least unless you really want to spend the whole time fast forwarding him out.And then the two episodes I forced myself to watch seemed overwhelmingly to emphasise violence. Some of it way beyond what is suitable for children or even young teens, not only for the regular sprays of blood, but also the rather callous and superficial portrayal of various acts of killing. And a bit of (implied) sex adds spice too, doesn't it (according to the storyboarding of whoever put this together). It may be typical of violent video games, and clearly this "history documentary" is aimed at the same audience - I would guess teenage boys or men who have never grown up. (In other words, the typical Murdoch audience.) But I was pretty sick of most of this within about five minutes.Did it make sense? Did it teach anything much about history? Not particularly. How it managed to leap between eras and locations and events and miss out on others was often mystifying. Unfortunately we're seeing more and more of this sort of pseudo-history series on TV. After all, history is so boring without special effects, isn't it. It just can't get an audience without livening it all up a bit. And thus Rupert continues on his quest to lower the collective IQ of humanity.

For a science and history documentary series with an obviously huge budget, Origins: The Journey Of Humankind does just about everything it can to ruin itself. There is obviously some genuinely fascinating information in here but it has been drowned in Hollywood melodrama. With ridiculously over-the-top historical re-enactments, including silly and unconvincing "pre-historic" scenes, relentlessly pounding music all the way through, and Jason Silva wildly over-acting his three-camera presentation, this smacks of a production by people who think their audience is so dull and short on attention span that they need history explained to them as a sci-fi adventure movie. It doesn't inform as much as it irritates. What a waste of an opportunity to explore history.

The era of Murdoch has arrived at National Geographic. The sneaky indoctrination, the half-truths, the thinly disguised falsehoods and the pandering for the lowest common denominator. Origins, their new "documentary mini-series", is a disgusting product of the Fox "imagination". I'd be very, very surprised if there are scientists that appear here and there that are comfortable with the editing. From homo sapiens "swinging in the trees" to fire being a game changer a stupidifing mere 12,000 years ago, in an age with "no society, no protections, no guarantees", to cooking at such a time mandating a society were "women cook and men hunt." A totally idiotic, scientifically-illiterate, mischievous narrative of nonsense. Fire predates homo-sapiens. The protections of society are a major hominization driver from millions of years ago, and there are no evidence whatsoever that points to a women-cook, men-hunt, sexual division of labor at such times. This is what you get when scientific literacy takes a nose dive. this is what you get when you pander to the prejudices and illusions of knowledge from the dregs of your costumer base. This is where National Geographic goes to die in everything but a hollow brand name. Yes, I am furious. You should be too.

Many of us who like documentaries have lamented how American television outlets, such as the National Geographic Channel, have dumbed-down the genre. (In the case of NGC this was not unexpected especially after Fox got involved with them and took significant ownership.)"Origins" is further evidence of the sad state of this genre.One key problem is the presenter. Nominally this series is anthropology illustrated, and typically such a presenter would be an expert in the field. That is not necessary though as often a great orator or actor can present in a documentary; but here we get neither. The presenter is too forced, too fake. If this series is aimed at 5 year-olds (as the narration may suggest) using exaggerated speech might be acceptable, but this series is being presented as something for the wider audience.Then there is the content. Oh dear, the content. The opening scenes of the first episode focus on "fire" and the present goes on about man harnessing the power of the sun (cue image of our star) and... wait.. what? The sun? Our star runs by nuclear fusion, but then the narrative switches to humans with wooden fires...The show doesn't get better.This is just television for busy parents, to place their children in front of the screen to keep them occupied.