America's National Parks

This docuseries plays like "When Animals Attack." The narrator's voice is beyond irritating and rather than seeing the beauty and majesty of the national parks and their inhabitants, we see animals killing each other as the narrator ensures with his tone that it's all very dramatic. Very disappointing.

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.

The Grand Canyon episode was pretty good.

The one on the Smokies was dumb. Not enough about the beauty of the scenery and things to do & see... too much about one family of bears. Told us about how they relocated Manitoban elk to the park, then used this transplanted elk as an example that "you can come home again." Odd. The worst part was describing fish laying eggs as "an orgy" ... weird and ridiculous.

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.

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.