Lost Cities of the Ancients

As far as documentaries go, this should have been a long movie rather than a series. It's the strrrrrrrrrrrretching out of each episode that makes this show kind of dull, rather as fascinating as it easily could (and should) be. While the topic is great, there just aren;t that many bits of information that can be held out without explaining everything there is to know about any one of these 'lost Cities" in more than about 5 minutes. And so most of the show is the narrator explaining that something mysterious and unexpected, which would change 'everything' was just about to be discovered. And we get boring fluff about the explorers and some decent re-enactments, a lot of slow panning across rocks, and fifteen minutes later we're reminded 'It was a tremendous mystery which nobody could have guessed, but which would soon be revealed...' at which point you might get annoyed, because it's clear that there's an extra twenty minutes to go, and you'll have to sit through it before the single interesting bit of information is delivered. At which point, you'll realize it was just a lot of hype. Whatever happened is inevitably interesting, but would have packed a hell of a lot more punch if the show hadn't spent so long teasing your attention span.

Having no expertise on the subject, I can't attest to the scholarship of the series. However, it seems that the parade of experts that such shows generally rely on are notably absent in this series. Which is actually kind of refreshing.

But altogether, while the subject matter is great, the show deliberately drags in annoying ways. And for this, it suffers greatly. Watch with extreme patience.