s_sather

This production values of this series are unbelievably awful. Each episode consists of numerous historical segments narrated by a group of random talking heads, none of whom seem to have any expertise in the subject at hand, they just appear to be reading a script as the segment skips from one talker to the next. And, just as a segment appears to be getting interesting, that segment suddenly ends and a new segment starts. There is never a resolution to any of the segments.

Then we have Danny Trejo as host, tying the segments together, but half the time he's talking into the wrong camera. It's quite annoying to have someone speaking to you and not making eye contact. So offputting and unprofessional. Who is he supposed to be talking to? Did Johnny Carson deliver his monologue glancing to one side, or looking directly into the camera?

To improve the series, each segment needs to have a logical conclusion with the subject matter being resolved. And rather than five or six talking heads (always the same people) narrating each story, assign just one to research the segment subject and narrate the whole thing. Or hire an actual expert on each subject to narrate that segment, because there doesn't seem to be any connection between the talking heads and the segment topic. You may as well have Danny Trejo narrate the entire show... of course all the while looking into the wrong camera.

Though the content of this series is of interest, the production is clearly amateur hour. Each hour episode presents stories of about 5 different mysterious places, usually islands. Unfortunately, rather than being presented by a single subject matter expert, each story is presented by a crew of the same random people with vague titles like "historian" that are clearly just reading a script. I don't know if they have each of the approximately 5 presenters read the entire script then cut and edit them together into each story, of if each person just reads a few lines, but the resulting production looks very amaterish.

Many presenters have the annoying habit of talking with their hands, and none know how to make eye contact with the camera - they are all looking off to the side. Who exactly are they telling their story to? They aren't being interviewed by someone off camera, which would justify the side glances, they are just reading a script.

Since these presenters aren't subject matter experts in the stories they are reporting, they'll also frequently mispronounce words, usually locations, or technical terms. It's as if they just get sat down cold before a TelePrompTer to record their lines a single time, and even the crew doesn't know or care when they make a mistake. So a word mispronounced by one presenter is usually pronounced differently, and correctly, by the others.

The production would be greatly improved by presenting each segment using someone that has actually researched the subject and who knows how to make eye contact when telling the story.