DAVID BIANCULLI

Founder / Editor

ERIC GOULD

Associate Editor

LINDA DONOVAN

Assistant Editor

Contributors

ALEX STRACHAN

MIKE HUGHES

KIM AKASS

MONIQUE NAZARETH

ROGER CATLIN

GARY EDGERTON

TOM BRINKMOELLER

GERALD JORDAN

NOEL HOLSTON

 
 
 
 
 
YEARS OF LIVING DANGEROUSLY
April 13, 2014  | By David Bianculli

Showtime, 10:00 p.m. ET

 

SERIES PREMIERE: This is a well-meaning documentary series about global warming, and how it affects everything, from deforestation in faraway lands to the closure of cattle farms right here at home. It’s a celebrity-driven vehicle in which celebrities use their star wattage to play investigative reporters, accompanied by camera crews to see conditions for themselves and conduct interviews. Harrison Ford, seeing the devastation of Indonesia’s supposedly protected national forests by interlopers, growls, “I can’t wait to see the minister of forestry. I can’t wait!” Yet instead of mounting the man’s head on a wall, like a matinee-idol Mike Wallace, Ford is confronted with so much politeness and so many excuses, that all he can do, in next week’s follow-up, is express his disappointment and notch a Phyrric victory or two. It’s not the only story in tonight’s opener – Don Cheadle visits Texas to see if people are willing to link the extended drought there to global warming as well as God’s will… or, at least, a combination of the two.  Years of Living Dangerously deserves all sorts of points for trying, and for caring – but in terms of pure and powerful storytelling, Frontline it’s not.

 
 
 
 
 
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