One Strange Rock: Season 1

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Generally favorable reviews based on 4 Critic Reviews

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Mixed or average reviews based on 7 Ratings

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5.3

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5.3	User Score Mixed or average reviews based on 7 Ratings

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One Strange Rock

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Season Details & Credits

National Geographic | NGC | Season Premiere Date: March 26, 2018

Summary: The 10-part documentary series hosted by Will Smith from Darren Aronofsky and Nutopia features former astronauts talking about what makes Earth so unique to the universe.

Genre(s): Movie/Mini-Series, News/Documentary, Documentary, Science, Educational

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Season 1 Episodes

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Critic Reviews

Daniel Fienberg

Mar 26, 2018

Will Smith added little to my enjoyment and became a high energy annoyance. I lead this review with my frustration with Will Smith--David Attenborough for the Mountain Dew Generation--because otherwise One Strange Rock is frequently spectacular, delivering the same sort of bringing-science-to-life thrills for Earth as Cosmos did with the universe and Blue Planet and Planet Earth have done with myriad lifeforms. Read full review

Ellen Gray

May 23, 2018

You might come to One Strange Rock for its host, Philadelphia’s Will Smith, but you’ll stay for the astronauts. ... The visuals in One Strange Rock, are beautiful, occasionally strange, sometimes even otherworldly. Rock’s true stars, though, are people like Chris Hadfield, the first Canadian to command the International Space Station. Read full review

Darren Franich

Mar 26, 2018

One Strange Rock has its heart in the right place. Does it have a head? This is a nonstop parade of vibrant images, a “visual learning” attention-deficit assault. Read full review

Collider Allison Keene

Mar 26, 2018

One Strange Rock ultimately has an identity crisis in what it wants to cover and how, and it ends up as a mishmash of stories, scripted vignettes, aerial footage, and conjecture. Read full review

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User Reviews

Bertaut1

Apr 23, 2019

Does what it aims to do

Executive produced by Darren Aronofsky, and made by Will Smith's production company (Smith is also the presenter), One Strange Rock is essentially about the experiences of eight astronauts, and how their time in space led them to see Earth with new eyes. That, inDoes what it aims to do

Executive produced by Darren Aronofsky, and made by Will Smith's production company (Smith is also the presenter), One Strange Rock is essentially about the experiences of eight astronauts, and how their time in space led them to see Earth with new eyes. That, in turn, is used as a jumping off point to examine several different branches of Earth Science, with each episode focusing on a specific astronaut and dealing with a specific topic; the planet's respiratory system, the Theia Impact theory, how the planet protects us from the sun, the origin of life, the Permian-Triassic Extinction, the possibility of colonising another planet, how life has both transformed the Earth and been transformed by it, the evolution from single celled microbes to complex organisms, the development of the human brain, and the concept of Earth as home.

Along the way, the show throws up a litany of hard to believe facts. To give just a sampling; the Amazon produces twenty times more oxygen than all of humanity could use, but none of it leaves the Amazon Basin, as it is used by the animals living there; the magnetic field generated by the planet's core stretches for 400,000 miles into space in every direction; every strand of DNA in the world contains billions of carbon atoms to bind it together; the human body has 37 trillion cells (more than the stars in the galaxy); tropical islands are composed of up to 70% parrot fish excrement; photosynthesis generates 100 terawatts of energy per year, six times more than humanity could use; the human brain is the most complex object in the known universe; 95% of all animals that have ever existed are extinct. Easily my favourite take from the show, however, is that it's 250,000 miles to the moon, 700 million miles to Saturn, 9 trillion miles to the edge of the solar system, 24 trillion miles to the nearest star (with our current technology, it would take 17,000 years to get there), and 25,000 light years (150,000 trillion miles) to the edge of the galaxy. That's a whole lotta miles!

Very enjoyable stuff. My one complaint would be that most of the episodes feel a little padded, with each one containing two or three diversionary stories only tangentially related to the core theme. But it's still well worth watching; terrific visuals, great sound, experts who know what they're talking about, and mind blowing information, if the goal was to make the viewer look at Earth in a new manner, they certainly succeeded with me.… Expand

0 of 0 users found this helpful00

CCHBBH

Feb 11, 2019

I love nature and science shows so much. However, I was extremely disappointed in how slanted the show is towards the theory of evolution. I don't understand how anyone can look at the perfect home we live on and think that it was just luck that it happened. I mean was it just luck thatI love nature and science shows so much. However, I was extremely disappointed in how slanted the show is towards the theory of evolution. I don't understand how anyone can look at the perfect home we live on and think that it was just luck that it happened. I mean was it just luck that you have some trees made perfectly squared off and metal shaped perfectly to a point so that you could then by chance have those things mix together and then by luck have a perfectly shaped house. Ummmm...No. Someone designed it to be that way. I know without a doubt that the earth also has a designer. Nothing is the way it is by chance! That is truly offensive and narrow-minded to think that way. I cannot give this a higher score because of such a slanted scope.… Expand

0 of 4 users found this helpful04

IcyBlue

Feb 8, 2019

ADHD style documentary film making. Right when you might be about to learn something they change the subject. Every couple of minutes the locale changes and it's a great tragedy because you are never allowed to take in the atmosphere. There is a profound lack of respect for the viewer. WillADHD style documentary film making. Right when you might be about to learn something they change the subject. Every couple of minutes the locale changes and it's a great tragedy because you are never allowed to take in the atmosphere. There is a profound lack of respect for the viewer. Will Smith should stick to trashy action flicks. He and his production company butcher what could have been an interesting series.… Expand

1 of 1 users found this helpful10

Seasons & Episodes

71

Series Overview
Season 1

71
- Season 1 Overview
  Air Date: March 26, 2018
- No episode information is currently available for this season