America's National Parks

This could have been a great series but they absolutely ruined it with the background music and commentary. I couldn't get past the first episode and I'm a nature junkie and a national park fanatic.

I started watching this on a Saturday morning (on Disney+) hoping to see some lovely scenery and learn about ways to experience our national parks. Unfortunately what I got was a slaughter fest of "the circle of life". Episode 1 on Olympic National Park focused on orcas killing sea lions, orcas killing grey whale calves, bears eating salmon, river otters eating salmon and on and on. Decided to skip to episode 2, Yosemite and after just 30 seconds or so of beautiful scenery we back to bobcats and coyotes hunting and killing things. I understand that predators have to kill to eat and that's how life works. But in this case the film makers seemed to go out of their way to focus almost exclusively on death. Not the calm pleasant tour of our National Parks I was expecting or hoping for. Big disappointment.

Starting off watching Episode 1 of the series with hopes to learn more about the beauty & history of Olympic National Park. This turned out not to be the case with the majority of the video quickly going past information on the park and focused much more on animals killing each other. After this happened a few times, we noticed the trend go from beautiful views of the park, then straight into a narrative of another animal about to die. Really a shame the storyline focused on that aspect of nature, instead of actual information about the National Park as the images shown are still quite impressive.

The thing that ruins this series for me is the constant BS the narrator with an annoying voice tells you to try to amp the tension, but it obviously didn't happen otherwise they'd show it.

Example: "Against all odds, this little chick escaped harm and learned its first lesson in survival" intercut clips of a predator minding its own business and chick chillin on a rock, probably shot at a different time.

There are documentaries that capture amazing footage, and then there's this series, edited like lazy reality tv.

Some of the best animal filming I've ever seen, but really hard work to watch when you have to listen to the commentary and backing music - toggling between the ultra dramatic and ridiculously cliche and corny.

Such a shame, could have been an outstanding series, but really can't be taken seriously with this narrator.