Astronomy 101 was one of my favorite classes freshman year of college. Fully understanding that I was just one of six billion flesh sacks scuttling across a small rock orbiting a medium sized star on the outskirts of one of millions of galaxies expanding infinitely outward was incredible. Though it fills Alfie in Annie Hall with dread, this realization gave me a joyous freedom that is hard to describe. Earth and Space does its best to keep you from any embarrassing college-freshman existential revelations, although it will function as the informational equivalent of Astro 101 and Geology 101.
Earth and Space is comprised of the first seasons of History Channel’s How the Earth Was Made and The Universe. The inimitable Neil Pedley has already reviewed How the Earth Was Made for this website, and I refer you to his excellent review for info on that half of this box set. So, The Universe in ten and a half hours, can it be done?
Serious astronomy buffs will probably laugh at the level of science in these documentaries, but what about plebes like you and me? It’s a definite mixed bag. There are a lot of facts thrown at you: I occasionally found myself taking notes (which I do for all reviews) as rapidly as a frightened student just before mid terms. But the information tends to fly by in a quick flash, followed by long periods of melodramatic proclamations.
If you’ve seen any recent pseudo-informative television documentaries then you have a good idea of the style. Constant pounding music, fast cuts, decent graphics repeated over and over, and an overbearing narration making much bigger claims then the science backs up. Fine, it’s TV, and they need to keep eyeballs glued so they can sell that advertising time, but are people really so dumb that they can’t calm down the rhetoric and the editing speed a little bit?
Ok, but that’s the style of the day, History Channel didn’t invent it. How does it do within these terms? Again, a mixed bag. Some episodes are great, entertaining and informative. Alien Galaxies does a good job covering basic cosmology in 42 minutes, and Life and Death of a Star is also admirably done. The episodes focused on our solar system are more problematic. The Moon does a good job going over the history of our understanding of the moon, but doesn’t get as deep into the moon’s effect on Earth as I would’ve liked. Jupiter: The Giant Planet is a mix of interesting information about Jupiter and its moons and hyperbole about the drama of the weather on Jupiter’s surface. And then there are the execrable The End of the Earth and The Most Dangerous Place in the Universe, designed only to appeal to apocalypse fetishists.
The series tries to humanize its information with relatable metaphors and basic explanations. There’s nothing wrong with this as such (yes, nerds, it does distort and simplify, but these people aren’t trying to take away your NSF grants, just learn a little something) but the show does little to explain or justify the metaphors. The real problem, though, is the attempt to make every single bit of the science directly relevant to the lives of the viewer. Again, I ask, are people so self-obsessed that they need be so condescended?
The conflict between informative quality programming and goofy relatability is best summed up in the first episode: Secrets of the Sun. The first half of the episode is a brisk, well-explained history of the formation and function of the sun. The second half is an absurd fear-mongering “exposé” of coronal mass ejections, events that send waves of electrons and protons out from sunspots. If a huge CME were to hit the Earth square on, it could be the equivalent of a giant Electro Magnetic Pulse, damaging our infrastructure. It could do that. Do you really want to hear people talk about it for twenty minutes while dramatic apocalypse stock footage plays?
Earth and Space contains 20 hours of video, and about 10 hours of that is informative. How the Earth Was Made is better programming than The Universe, but they have similar weaknesses. Enjoyable documentaries? Definitely. Will you learn something? Probably. Will you watch these more than once? I doubt it. But then, I’ve never really been the type to buy TV documentaries. You could do a lot worse than Earth and Space.
Blu-ray Bonus Features
A full-length documentary Beyond the Big Bang, which is more of the same. It’s a special feature to the extent that it’s not part of the original series, but its not dramatically different in style or quality. That’s it for special features, but trust me, having worked on a documentary series for Discovery Channel, you do not want to watch a “making-of” featurette.
"Earth & Space" is on sale October 26, 2010 and is not rated. Documentary, Education. Directed by Laura Verklan, Robert Strange. Written by Laura Verklan, . Starring Corey Johnson, Erik Thompson.
