Origins: The Journey of Humankind

Look, I don't disagree with all the negative points that others have raised: flagrant inaccuracies; glaring omissions; irritating narration; poor acting; too America- / Euro-centric; and a dumbed-down patronising style. Nevertheless, I watched Origins primarily in order to learn interesting new facts, and it did teach me quite a few: Kublai Khan's pioneering use of paper money (although the show is inaccurate - the Song Dynasty were the first to issue paper money, before the Mongols); the work of Nostradamus as a plague healer (although the show inaccurately portrays him as a proper doctor, which he wasn't); Tollense (Germany) as the world's oldest large-scale battlefield; Robert Koch's role as the founder.of microbiology; and El Castillo (Spain) as the home of the world's oldest known cave painting. Therefore, in my opinion, it's not a bad show.

The era of Murdoch has arrived at National Geographic. The sneaky indoctrination, the half-truths, the thinly disguised falsehoods and the pandering for the lowest common denominator. Origins, their new "documentary mini-series", is a disgusting product of the Fox "imagination". I'd be very, very surprised if there are scientists that appear here and there that are comfortable with the editing. From homo sapiens "swinging in the trees" to fire being a game changer a stupidifing mere 12,000 years ago, in an age with "no society, no protections, no guarantees", to cooking at such a time mandating a society were "women cook and men hunt." A totally idiotic, scientifically-illiterate, mischievous narrative of nonsense. Fire predates homo-sapiens. The protections of society are a major hominization driver from millions of years ago, and there are no evidence whatsoever that points to a women-cook, men-hunt, sexual division of labor at such times. This is what you get when scientific literacy takes a nose dive. this is what you get when you pander to the prejudices and illusions of knowledge from the dregs of your costumer base. This is where National Geographic goes to die in everything but a hollow brand name. Yes, I am furious. You should be too.

◦ An overacted and melodramatic series of speculations, conjectures, dramatizations, & fictional speculations woven into a 'story' of key elements of mankind's progress: i.e., fire, cooking, gunpowder.

◦ The narrator, Jason Silva, presents dialogue with overacted caffeinated gusto, using a repetitious series of stiff, wooden gestures reminiscent of President George Bush. The format and style of the show is so amateurish that it made me wonder if the target audience was elementary or junior high. LCD in High-Def.

For all you detractors of this series, I think your missing the point. There are probably thousands of us who had no idea of what our actual history is. So you don't like the presenter and there were probably some inventions that weren't included, but there was plenty of information for those of us who didn't know. I'm a senior with just a high school education and this series, including Jason Silva, kept me watching and even his repeated things made me listen more closely. It seems to me that even a simple person would learn from this series. Very educational.

Hyper, electronic/industrial melodramatic soundtrack, lots of flashy CGI with rotating/panning camera work, cinematically contrived, fast-paced cut scenes. It's a documentary with ADD.

The host/narrator, Jason Silva, is absolutely the worst I have ever seen/heard. Is he high on coke? it's jarring--I can't stand his overly emphatic speech mannerisms. The tone has a quality of being very condescending/patronizing, as if he needs to make you understand just how important everything he says is. He needs to see how to convey the sense of wonder in presenting knowledge--maybe watch Carl Sagan, James Burke, David Attenborough, Neil deGrasse Tyson, and many other successful narrators. It's also hard to "connect" with the narrator when the stupid camera constantly breaks eye contact with the narrator with off-angle camera work.

Material itself is fine, in my opinion. Yes, it over-dramatizes too many minor points with lots of hyperbole, but I get that it's an interpretive work. It has educational value. Just hit the mute button when Silva appears and lower the volume a bit for the rest of the show. I tried watching that way and found that I missed nothing, confirming that he adds nothing to the presentation of the material. My blood pressure and stress levels came down, and was able to enjoy the show.