Year Million

Not counting daytime television this maybe the dumbest show ever put on television

"Sci-fi writers make their money thinking about the future and hypothesizing about how future existence might look if technologies and trends were carried to their logical conclusions."

If that estimation is even half- accurate than the show itself must be way worse than I thought.

Even the most rudimentary understanding of the nature of the social and political animal the human being is, and even the most basic social and/or political sciences literacy stipulate that this rather imbecilic habit of extrapolating today's tendencies, or at least those among them deemed as the most evident and most viral, into the distant future is undoubtedly amongst the most dull and irresponsible prognosis methods.

Such an interesting topic for a show for tech lovers

I thought the film Year Million was absolutely one of the best documentaries I've seen in awhile. The Dyson Sphere theory is great. Scientists have already identified a G-type star far from our reach that fluctuates in and out of light at different rates of speed. For me, that's proof enough that there is life out there. Once we harness the power of our nearest star, we will move onto distant ones because ultimately power is what it takes to keep things in motion.... if I lived in the future my main focus would be space exploration I would travel to the furthest reaches of the galaxy searching for life. It would be the greatest adventure mankind has ever taken...

The show had great potential but it is lacking in several areas to be great.

I think the biggest problem -maybe my expectations were too high- is the lack of actual science, you get interviews and interventions from a lot of people who are completely unfamiliar with robotics, engineering, economics, etc. It's like asking your neighbor's opinion and frankly it's quite tiring. I believe the show would gain from explaining the different technologies they present in greater details.

Because of that, the show doesn't know where to go, is it science- fiction, is it actual science? Based on facts or assumptions? Trying to tangle the lives of fictional characters with a documentary is tricky and it sometimes feel like a cheap feeling grab to get the viewers involved. If I wanted drama, I'd watch a drama, I don't understand the need for the character's story arc, it feels forced. Because you simply jump from their story that serves the purpose of introducing the technologies to the audience, it doesn't feel (pardon the pun) organic and ruins the story-telling.

Finally, the show suffers from what could be called "americanisms" : everything is tremendous, crazy, on the verge of a massive discovery, etc. The use of constant superlatives actually weakens the viewers' understanding of what is important and what might be less important. "This is science and not science-fiction", "It's a question of when an not if". I could go on but you get the gist of it. What am I watching, a sales pitch? In the end this is probably the biggest disservice to the series.

So, I'm not strongly against it, the message is interesting and I believe it comes from good intentions. But this is not a science show, there is a lot of prediction and telling you how something will happen but very little factual explanations. A lot of people who give their opinions instead of sticking to facts or fact-based insights.

I just hope we'll have something better in the future.

P.S : Lose the comedian(s), they're supposed to be the "relatable" audience member, they just seem out of place and their interventions are strangely paced as well.