rtgannon1

The Good

You get to see lots of scenic Greek islands, meet interesting locals and immigrants, and learn things about the history of Greek civilization. Never mind that the islands do all basically look the same because our host, Peter, eagerly explains the unique qualities of each place. I'm reminded of the Thai phrase "same same, but different."

The Bad

The yacht Mia Zoi looks great, and with her twin 2,800 horsepower engines that use thousands of liters of fuel each day, why worry about climate change and global warming as long as you can satisfy your urge to get to every known inhabited Greek island and host a nifty travel show?

The Ugly

Lose the man purse and the neck turban Peter. I understand that your wife Helen probably gave you those for your birthday and that puts you in an awkward situation, but do you really need those things? When you've freed yourself from the unnecessary adornments, why not splurge and get a nose job and some laser hair removal for your arms and back, please. And last but not least, if I see you shoveling food into your mouth one more time, I will swear off eating forever.

I must be a glutton for punishment though, because I am actually looking forward to the seventh (and final) series when that comes out.

The idea behind this series sounded good - having adventures on perilous roads around the world. The actual execution of this production, however, left a lot to be desired.

Production methods were used to exaggerate the "danger" of the terrain. As an example, I noticed many instances of close shots repeatedly inserted that showed the wheels of the vehicle rolling perilously close to the edge of a great precipice. And then the wider shots showed they were nowhere near the edge of the road.

The celebrity personalities chosen for these drives seemed to have little to no experience in off-road driving, and often seemed challenged to be able to handle relatively minor obstacles. Their banter was all too often childish and gave the impression of not being very intelligent. I found myself using the fast forward button to skip past most of the scenes where these people were jabbering inside the cars. I really had hoped that more of the scenery and history of the locales would have been covered, instead of being subjected to this banal tripe.

There were some instances where the drivers were clearly not worthy of these drives, and should have never been allowed behind the wheel. The worst example of this was when Sue Perkins lost her nerve in the middle of a total whiteout blizzard and stopped her vehicle diagonally across the road on a curve where heavy truck traffic would not be able to see it in time to avoid a very nasty collision. When Charley Boorman scrambled to take the wheel and get them out of the predicament, Sue further endangered things by chasing after her "lucky hat" when a gust of wind blew it away as she climbed back into the car.

It's too bad that all the effort in producing this series resulted in something that I would rather forget.

While there is some very interesting history presented in this series, the big downside was the incessant moving from one excavation location to another every few minutes. It would have been much better if they just stuck with one story for a longer period. I suppose this style was chosen in a weird attempt to hold the interest of those that have a short attention span, but I found it to be extremely annoying.

Most of the historical experts do a pretty good job of hosting their segments. There is one notable exception, that being Colleen Darnell. Her obsession with 1920s period clothing comes across as unprofessional while she parades along as though she's on a fashion show catwalk. Along with her mousy voice, it just makes her segments cringe-worthy.

All said, I feel the production method really downgraded the effort and left me disappointed with what could have been a much better series from National Geographic.