The National Parks Tour on The People

The National Parks Tour on The People

Ken Burns's "The National Parks: America's Best Idea" was six years in the making and it is 12 hours long, camped out every night this week on PBS, beginning Sunday. It is beautiful and erudite and contains all the underlined importance and swelling emotion that a major Ken Burns moment requires of its viewers, but at least four cumulative hours of it are goshawfully boring. Just like camping with people who love it more than you do.
It's as if Uncle Ken has gotten out his slide projector and is going to show us everything from his trips to Yellowstone, Yosemite and the Grand Canyon, stopping frequently to make the same poetic points over and over and over, which are:
I was living in Las Vegas a few years ago when my mother, who had been fighting cancer, asked to visit. Picking her up at McCarran International, I tried not to notice how gaunt and frail she looked. On the last day of her stay, I suggested we visit Zion National Park.
Acclaimed filmmaker Ken Burns turns his documentarian eye to the national park system in the 12-hour story "The National Parks: America's Best Idea," debuting at 8 p.m. Sunday on PBS.
The six-part nightly series, directed by Burns and co-produced with longtime colleague Dayton Duncan, who also wrote the script, is the story of how the park system came together, told in chronological order. The idea behind such a system was to have the special places in the nation preserved for the enjoyment of the public.
Sunday: "The Scripture of Nature" (1851-90). It all starts in California's Yosemite Valley, where John Muir becomes an advocate for preserving it.
Waiting for Ken Burns’ new documentary to air has been a bit like waiting for a baby to be born. It even seems as if the Public Broadcasting System and its Maine affiliate have been promoting “The National Parks: America’s Best Idea” for nine months.
Like that first grandchild, this baby is lovely. The flaws don’t really show up until puberty hits, which, in this case, happens in Episode 5. Still, the 12-hour series is a loving and visually stunning ode to the lands preserved by some for all.