2 l December
5 - 11, 2021
Northeast Oregon TV Weekly
BY GEORGE DICKIE
Will Smith hosts “Welcome
to Earth,” premiering
Wednesday on Disney+.
‘Welcome to Earth’ spotlights
the subtle awesomeness of nature
on Disney+
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It may have the title “Welcome to
Earth,” but the new Disney+ documentary
series might well be subtitled,
“Phenomena in Nature You Never
Considered.” Because it’s that eye-opening.
Premiering Wednesday, Dec. 8, on the
streaming service, the series from National
Geographic follows host Will Smith as he
embarks on an awe-inspiring journey to
reveal the secrets behind some of the most
extraordinary and unexplained events in
nature.
So in the six episodes, viewers will
learn how swarms of hundreds of
thousands of birds or honeybees can move
as a single unit without any apparent
communication; how smell, the most
powerful of the senses, leads sea turtles
back to an island in the South Pacific to
lay eggs; and how deserts move slowly
beyond human perception.
Smith, who had previously worked on
the NatGeo series “One Strange Rock,”
acts as the eyes and the ears of the viewer
here, taking in the action as it unfolds
before him and speaking wide-eyed in
narration and to the camera.
“He doesn’t pretend to be a scientist or
a volcanologist or an expert in anything,”
explains Jane Root, an executive producer
of the series for her production company
Nutopia. “(His attitude is,) ‘I’m the
person who’s there seeing what you can see
about the planet.’ And the thing he also
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talks about (is) what you can see about the
planet on the other side of fear. He says
his grandmother always said to him that
the best things in life are (discovered) once
you get through being scared of them.”
Fear certainly played a role in the
opening episode “The Silent Roar,” in
which Smith, explorer Erik Weihenmayer
and the crew went to Tanna Island in
the South Pacific near Vanuatu to film
and listen to the active volcano of Mount
Yasur rumble. But the group actually got
more than they expected when it erupted,
spewing forth lava and boulders.
Needless to say, it was one of those life
experiences that all who witnessed it will
never forget.
“Some of the boulders were the size of,
you know, small cars and they’re kind of
just exploding out of the ground,” Root
says. “And you see Will joking about it,
like ‘I’m wearing this helmet but that’s not
really going to help, is it?’
“We had probably at the top of that
volcano like 12 different safety people
and every safety precaution we could take
but this is still really challenging stuff to
film,” she continues. “You know, there’s
still a sense of, ‘Wow! Am I actually here
while this is going on? That’s incredible.’
And the noise and the intensity of it, I
think that’s why we put that episode first
because it’s one of those moments where
we just appreciate the awesomeness of it.”
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