The trailer has dropped for the second season of Zac Efron’s eco show Down to Earth with Zac Efron, and this time the actor is going to Australia.
“Get ready, we’re back,” says Efron as the trailer begins, someone jumps off a cliff, and uplifting drum sounds start to beat.
“We’re covering as much territory as we can,” says Efron in the trailer. “From mountain tops to barrier reefs.”
The camera shows shots of the actor swimming, jumping, snorkelling, eating, feeding animals, and talking to specialists – interspersed with incredible vistas of Australia.
“We’ll be visiting some of the top innovators, all seeking to find cleaner, better, and more sustainable ways of living. And using the lessons learnt on this continent to serve as the microcosm for the entire planet,” explains Efron.
The eight-episode series stars Efron and American podcast host and producer Darin Olien. Season one premiered in July 2020 and saw the duo travelling the world, stopping off in France, Iceland, Costa Rica, Peru, Puerto Rico, London, and Sardinia.
The central theme of the documentary series is sustainability, so Efron and Olien looked at green energy and possible sustainable living practices while having their adventures: in Iceland, they looked at the country’s renewable energy efforts, in Sardinia they talked about nutrition, in Paris they learned about tap water and in London, they looked at the ways the city is trying to tackle pollution, for example.
Despite the arguably admirable premise, the critics weren’t so keen on the first season: Ed Cumming at The Independent said, “the eco-series is hopelessly simplistic” while Radio Times called it “entertaining but far from focused”.
Then, Jonathan Jarry M.sc., a writer for McGill Office for Science and Society (an organisation which is part of Montreal‘s McGill University) wrote an article called, “Beware the insidious nonsense of Netflix’s Zac Efron travelogue show” which went on to criticise Olien’s perspective on alternative medicine.
Olien published a book in 2017 called SuperLife: The 5 Simple Fixes That Will Make You Healthy, Fit and Eternally Awesome.
Nevertheless, in 2021 Efron won a Daytime Emmy Award for hosting the documentary series.
The 35-year-old actor has been working nonstop since he became an international teenage heartthrob in 2006 for playing Troy in High School Musical. This year he starred in the films The Greatest Beer Run Ever, Firestarter and Gold.
