Netflix is no stranger to big-budget shows with huge names attached, but one trailer it debuted this week ploughed a bit of a different furrow. This Is a Gardening Show seems, on the evidence of its first trailer, to be one of the most charming projects the massive streaming platform has ever thrown its weight behind.
The show's fronted by famed comedian Zach Galifianakis, who clearly has become a huge fan of gardening in his free time over the years. That's not something I could have told you before the trailer, but it's really evident that he's not just feigning interest here – he seems devoted in his belief that we should all be learning how to grow plants.
From the looks of things, the show will follow Galifianakis as he goes to meet a variety of farmers, gardeners, biologists and more, learning more about how we grow the food that supplies our population, and confirming his suspicion that regular people are too far divorced from the reality of that agrarian system.
He's also clearly really concerned with the state of the planet, and the ongoing ecological crisis that we're leaving for future generations. So, it would seem that his answer to that problem, in so far as he can give one, is to centre kids in the show, too, going to schools and interviewing young kids who could stand to know more about the gardening they could be doing.
I said it at the open of this article, but I really do think this looks utterly charming. Generations of British TV viewers will tell you how therapeutic it can be to watch expert gardeners tell you how and when to do things. Gardener's World is a TV institution over here for that exact reason, after all.
This Is a Gardening Show seems to be more of a limited series and less of a rolling background fixture, but I'm hoping it can scratch that same itch. Plus, if it persuades a few people to pay attention to whatever patches of soil they can lay claim to, that's a real-world result that Galifianakis can be deeply proud of.
