Spotting Parks: a review of Our Great National Parks
Presented by Barack Obama
No. of episodes 5
Running time 50–54 min
Distributor Netflix
The title of this five part series is a bit misleading. It’s an American-made production, narrated by a former American president, Barack Obama, and so it’s natural to assume that our great national parks would be American—Yellowstone, Yosemite, all those places.
So it’s refreshing to discover that the parks in question are from all around the world, and the only one that is explicitly American is the Monterey Bay Sanctuary, which protects much of the central California Coast. Here’s a list of the episodes, which demonstrates what I mean.
1 “A World Of Wonder” From Africa’s beaches to Japan’s islands to Australia’s Great Barrier Reef-the natural world’s untamed beauty comes into focus.
2 “Chilean Patagonia” Encompassing twenty-four unique national parks, the magnificent Chilean Patagonia is rapidly becoming one of the most protected places on the planet.
3 “Tsavo, Kenya” In Kenya’s Tsavo National Park, thousands of elephants roam the breathtaking, vast landscape, along with hippos, rhinos , hornbills & more.
4 “Monterey Bay National Marine Sanctuary” California’s vibrant coastline gets its close-up, with an emphasis on the delicate balance struck between wildlife & humanity.
5 “Gunung Leuser, Indonesia” Next stop: Gunung Leuser National Park in Indonesia-home to some of the most endangered species on earth, including the rare Sumatran Tiger.
When I learned of the series, I realized that, given good production values and writing, Obama would be a good fit as presenter. He’s got a kind of a Morgan Freeman thing going on, a gentle, kind sense of authority. He also combined elements of Sir David Attenborough’s style, not enough to be a bad imitation, but as a sort of pastiche. It’s a winsome and pleasant mix.
It seems likely that unlike Attenborough, Obama wasn’t involved in any of the locale shooting and instead narrated the voiceover from a studio, he had at least visited the places at one point or another, and his sense of wonder and enjoyment is evident.
The camerawork and general production are the levels one might expect of a prestige nature documentary like this but it does break one of the unspoken rules of such things. The mother animal is protecting her young against predators and other threats, and in regular documentaries, always succeeds—this time, the narrator intones in hushed tones. In this documentary, that isn’t a given, and cute young critters actually die. While a bit grim, it’s a refreshing burst of realism and honesty. Nature is truly “red of fang and claw.”
The locales are splendid, and offer elements of hope in a world that is rapidly disintegrating in the face of the ravages of the Anthropocene extinction. The message is clear—if we figure out how to stop screwing up the world right now, good parts of it might survive. Perhaps even us, whether we deserve it or not.
Meanwhile, Barack Obama is a wonderful nature presenter, and I hope to see him utilized in future productions.