User Reviews

It looks like the History Channel got some new software they wanted to try out. Most of what they have to put out is remedial: metal rusts, plants grow in odd places, and cockroaches adapt. Some of what it has is dumb speculation designed to generate interest and ratings such was gliding cats. I didn't find it well researched. It gave you the impression that if people suddenly were rapture, nuclear power plants would quietly shut themselves down without incident. What happens to all that hot spent fuel in the crowded pools once those cooling water pumps are turned off? We know the answer to that.

The film speculates that all the metal and concrete cities would be destroyed by fire without firemen, but then show how they would crumble due to rust and then grow up to be highrises for cats. Clearly they were pulling stuff out of their butts, saying whatever sounded good at the time. The filming at Chernobyl was boring and lasted way too long and they didn't have a clue as what to do about zoo animals.

This looked more like a seventh grade science report then something serious. It is a fluff piece for the enjoyment of the mindless masses.

The extras on the DVD is "The Making of..."

Plot Spoiler: The world is better off without us.

The show certainly makes one think about how impermanent our impressions on the planet really are. The show is "applied archeology" or maybe archeology meets maintenance engineering. Overall the shows are worth watching because they are interesting and show many things in building, bridges, tunnels, factories, etc. that most of us will never see. Support for the scenarios they portray comes from interviews with experts; experts from engineering, from authors on "day after" books and from civil and maintenance engineers. However they don't give alternative views on what might happen, so that makes it a little less than scientific. On the down side, the shows are repetitive, often repeating the same clips within one show and across many shows. They dampen any surprises with repetition and with "pre-announcing" what's coming. Also there's little consideration of civilization in South America and Asia. And outside of a few examples (ex: pyramids) they tend to give little air time to existing, long term artifacts of mankind.

Warning, Semi Spoiler Alert. How could you create a show about Life after People, without saying what would happen to the earth with no one maintaining the offshore oil rigs or nuclear power plants? Without constant maintenance, the nuclear power plants would surely fail within days. The offshore oil rigs would decay and begin spewing oil into all of our oceans in months or a year or two. Posably/probably ending the earth's ability to repair itself for millions of years, if at all. In my opinion, this show is void of any real substance or reality. I assume you avoided these facts because, including them would pretty much make the rest of the show irrelevant.