Climate change! What is it good for? Absolutely nothing!
Extrapolations
The first three episodes of the eight-episode series debut today (March 17), globally on Apple TV+. Subsequent episodes will debut every Friday. I've seen all eight episodes.
Seeking to dramatize the effects of climate change may be a fool's errand, but creator Scott Z. Burns (The Report, Contagion) does his level best to dramatize the perils that await the planet in a handsome narrative series.
Filled with a slew of notable stars, starting with Meryl Streep, Burns endeavors to show the effects of climate change over a period of years. Often focusing on the supposed movers and shakers of the world -- politicians and tech leaders -- the series dips closer to real life as we recognize it today when it features protestors, scientists, and, dare I say, ordinary people who have been forced to adjust to increasing temperatures.
The planet is getting hotter, but how can that be dramatized to sustain interest? Burns and his creative collaborators do their very best to bring life to an apocalyptic theme, but it often feels like they are preaching to the choir. They are very talented singers, and the songs are very much worth singing.
Still, the didactic delivery of the message feels, for the most part, like haranguing: 'You must listen! You must pay attention!' No arguments here, yet I wish the series as a whole could rise to the level of individual episodes, such as the third episode, 2047, which imagines what would happen if South Florida began to flood, threatening the survival of a synagogue where an earnest rabbi (Daveed Diggs) must deal with his mother and congregants who are seeking answers to what is happening to them.
It's honest and occasionally almost light-hearted, which is really needed after the first two episodes loudly ring alarm bells, with little hope for the future. Awash in earnestness, the series is overloaded with doom and gloom. Maybe that's the only way to tell the story, though.
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