Life After People (History): The Series Reviews

Boil It Down: An entertaining and quasi-educational series marred by mediocre tech specs and no extras.
THE FLICK
 Life After People: The Series postulates what happens after man has left planet Earth.  "Left," in this case, is defined as having died out or been exterminated, not settled on another planet.  From domesticated animals and those in captivity to national monuments, ancient wrecks and even the world's reserve of gold, the series mixes three different kinds of video to scientifically extrapolate not on what will kill off the humans, but the world we'll leave behind.  All with narrator James Lurie's hyperbolic narration, of course.

(First, a note about the series: a 94-minute documentary of the same name was aired by History in 2008 as a precursor to these episodes.  Hence, the extremely bulky title Life After People: The Series-The Complete Season One.)

Not strictly a documentary but not strictly entertainment, Life After People weaves both the educational and entertaining together into a quasi-scientific study of how vital humans are to the world they've created.  When Lurie mentions, for example, the mummified remains of ancient pharaohs in the first episode, all preserved in glass cases with computerized monitoring equipment, we begin to realize just how much the things we make need us.  It's not that humans need to adjust the temperature manually; rather,they need to create the electricity which runs the computer or maintain that same machine.  Without that one cog, everything breaks down.  A better example may be the Constitution of the United States.  Certainly, before it was put on display, engineers planned for most contingencies.  The case is moved to a vault every night and it's flooded with argon, an inert gas which prevents gas leakage.  What they didn't plan for, however, was the roof of the National Archives disintegrating, allowing ultraviolet light to hit the paper and, eventually, fade the writing.

The series slips fun factoids and education right past the audience in a cool, pleasant manner, much to its advantage.  See, any episode felt like a science lesson in why argon is the right gas to use or the chemical reasons gold would withstand many, many years without humans around, viewers would have tuned out.  There are no complex models of gold atoms or talk about electrons and protons and neutrons.  In their place are quick bursts of science knowledge mixed in with the history aspect.  Did you now that the Washington Monument has a set of lightning rods at the top to prevent the aluminum tip from further lightning-based degradation?  How about the United Kingdom has virtually eradicated rabies?

In the open, I mentioned three different kinds of video which make up each episode in the season.  The first is brand new interview footage.  It's relatively straight forward: filmmakers went on location to various places (like Hashima Island, a former coal mining colony devoid of human life for 25 years) to document the world to serve in contrast to the next kind of video.  That would be CGI recreations of the future world.  And this is where, interestingly, the show's calling card as well as its greatest disadvantage.  In a world where audiences are used to seeing cutting edge animation on a regular basis, Life After People employs rudimentary, simply technology to showcase the Gateway Arch crumbling, for example.  There is little substance to the pieces, providing an almost video game-looking picture instead of something to rival Pixar or DreamWorks animated fare.

Some of the animation is dreadful, to be sure.  Early on, sequences showcase beer distilleries exploding, with heated water busting out of massive valves.  From the outset, the metal never looks quite right and when the water finally does break through, it has no weight or substance.  On the positive side, it is exactly this footage History used to promote the series and audiences tuned in to see.  If you can look past the basic designs and heavily reused shots (how many times can the image of a bird flying across a swampified Astrodome really be flipped?), the CGI can paint a startling picture about the world post-humanity.  There is also archived video footage mixed into the series, for the record.

Any discussion of the series must include Lurie's somber narration.  Maybe somber is the wrong word.  Monotone might be better, at least monotone until a commercial break comes up, at which time he creates a haunting and foreboding feeling.  "We've seen what happens to the animals in captivity.  But what about the animals we keep as pets? Are they equipped to survive Life After People?"  Okay, so that may not be an exact quote, but you get the idea.  I have no problem with the writers trying to hook the audience into continuing to watch.  But there are other ways to do it without resorting to gloom and doom scenarios.  That's really my only quibble with Lurie's approach.  His is a strong voice, easy to listen to and in command of the material.  Even if he's just reading from a script, we believe he knows what he's talking about at every step of the way.

Life After People doesn't spend too much time examining any one location or concept.  Constantly moving, the series is smartly as kinetic as it can be, partly due to revisiting areas and partly because of the audience's attention span.  As an example, the first episode ("The Bodies Left Behind") mentions the Sistine Chapel, a historic landmark.  Each of the subsequent episodes takes on a different historical site: Washington, D.C., and the monuments there; the Liberty Bell; the Alamo; Pearl Harbor and more.  By keeping the series in motion, the filmmakers make sure to distill their information down to its base facts, getting in and out of each time period relatively quickly and managing to keep the entire audience interested.  After all, if the Sistine Chapel isn't your thing, the episode quickly move onto the Statue of Liberty or mummies. 

THE LOOK
Now this is a disappointment.  For a series aired in 2009 and including information from the last two years, you would think an anamorphic transfer would be a foregone conclusion.  It's not.  The menu's are presented in the 1.33:1 aspect ratio while the program itself is letterboxed.  (In other words, black bars on all four sides of the image.)  I can't imagine History commissioning this series and not airing it in high definition or why they wouldn't use those HD masters for the DVD release.   

I'm not sure how fair it is to judge the way Life After People actually looks, with its hodge podge of CGI, archival footage and new interviews.  Shots of Lenin in his Moscow tomb are grainy and blurry, seemingly straight off a VHS tape.  The CGI sections-generally involving mayhem and destruction-are much better, but less detailed than feature-grade animation.  And the new video presents no problems, outside of some moire effects.  All of that, though, is secondary to the main gripe with this set: why are the episodes not anamorphically enhanced?

THE SOUND
Here's another disappointment: the only audio track included on the three disc set is an English 2.0 mix.  While the content itself doesn't absolutely require an enhanced soundtrack, there are occasions when statues fall and bridges collapse which could use an extra oomph to fully immerse the audience.  What is provided isn't bad.  Dialogue is clean and clear, providing Lurie's overly dramatic tones to resonate without distraction.  Echoes are alive and well when appropriate; the soundtrack and effects never overpower the dialogue.  Just imagine, though, how cinematic a 5.1 mix would have made the series.  No subtitles are included.

THE STUFF
Life After People's ten episodes are split up onto three discs housed in their own separate clear slimline cases.  (For the record, the breakdown is 4-3-3.)  There are no inserts; the three cases fit into a slipcover.  Copy on the back of each case describes the episodes.  Outside of six chapter stops per episode, there are no extras.