Patagonia: Life on the Edge of the World

... about a region on the planet that interests me yet I know so little about.

CNN should go around the world and use this format for other regions ... Australia, Appalachia, Cascadia, Tibet,the Aleutian Islands, etc. They could run it from 9 to 11 pm weeknights and drop CNN Tonight.

Honestly, I did not enjoy this so-called documentary. It is full of humans. I expected to see the amazing nature of patagonia but instead saw so many people.

After watching the first minutes of the first episode I fast forwarded almost all the episodes.

CNN and others have produced this nature show. Patagonia is a mostly dry area east of the Andes Mountains on the southern tip of South America. It has much of the same epic natural scenery with all the creatures as other nature shows. On top of that, it has human participants doing important research into issues threatening the natural world. In that way, it's different than the usual pretty nature documentary series. It is news adjacent which makes sense for CNN. There is some investigative journalism with these stories. It's informative and pretty looking. Pedro Pascal is the narrator. There are six episodes.

This is becoming a pattern with CNN films. I wrote a review of the Abraham Lincoln piece that they did last year: volume level for the soundtrack was so loud you could barely hear the narration. On Patagonia one minute the volume is too loud and the next too soft. And it's not Pedro Pascal's voice. Through an hour-long episode, I must be adjusting the volume 20 times. And I'm not counting the ones when they go to commercial - it blasts the speakers! Of course after the ad, I have to turn it up again. CNN: fire your audio engineers responsible for this incompetence! Do they even listen to the final version that's to be broadcast?

I've seen a lot of people complaining that there are too many humans featured in this natural documentary. You guys are not watching the show properly. Yes, you have it right. There are humans involved. Lots. Maybe even the main focus. This is because these are stories about how humans interact with raw nature in a completely wild setting. How they live, and die, side by side. Look closer. If you want pretty shots of animals for an hour each episode there is every other Nat Doc that came before this. Fill your boots. This is bold, original storytelling.

Also, it's really damn beautiful to watch. Top job to the people that spent all those painstaking hours to create it.