It does seem a little spoiled to be critical of a documentary as gorgeous as The Americas, a vast, grandiose Tom Hanks-narrated nature series which explores territory from New England to the tip of Patagonia. But we are living through an extraordinary glut of nature television, and the pool of previously unfilmed and unfilmable natural world scenes must surely be getting smaller. This 10-parter talks up its credentials as something new and different: five years in the making, gathered over 180 separate expeditions, capturing discoveries which have never been on camera before, the most expensive unscripted project ever made by NBC (via BBC Studios). Why, then, does it feel so familiar, and occasionally even tepid?
This is nature television that is best enjoyed with your brain closed off. Much like Apple TV+’s recent The Secret Lives of Animals, it favours cutesy anthropomorphism and spectacular visuals over any honest assessment of nature and the environment as a whole. There is little brutality, barely any peril – a red-tailed hawk hovers near some adorable racoon babies, but that’s about it – and an almost offensive unwillingness to even consider the impact humanity has had, and continues to have, on species and their habitats.
