Mankind: The Story of All of Us

The "History Channel" has come a long way over the past couple decades, from its days as the 24 hour "Hitler Channel" to its recent onslaught of reality show nonsense and every World War in between. Yet, much like how "MTV" has nearly all but done away with their music videos, History Channel has also lost it's predetermined vision of historical programming. Between "Ice Road Truckers", "Gangland", "Ax Men", "American Pickers", and "Mountain Men" the channel rarely gets around to airing historical content of any kind anymore.

"Mankind: The Story of All of Us" is a 12-part miniseries hellbent on putting the "history" back in "History Channel". Narrated by Josh Brolin, the series traces the evolution of mankind from our days as hunter-gatherers to the industrial revolution and beyond. Unfortunately, the series is ripe with the same cliches that weigh down a lot of "HC" original programs including: stock sound effects that have been recycled a dozen too many times, hackneyed dramatizations, and a laundry list of guest experts that seem out of place in such a grandiose project such as this.

For instance, I could have completely done without the addition of Dr. Oz and although I'm a big fan of "No Reservations", Anthony Bourdain is hardly an expert historian. Despite all these bothersome miss-steps, the series itself is actually most hindered by its rudimentary display of knowledge. The breadth of historical content covered in here mimics that of a 6th grade history class. While I understand the attempt to make the miniseries a family event, it's still no excuse to dumb down the material in order to suit all ages.

"HC" has the difficult job of having to satisfy both nerds and novices alike. Unfortunately, the sheer epic nature of a project such as this is hard to execute perfectly enough to satiate everyone. "Mankind" simply doesn't deliver on it's promise of an in depth documentary series. Instead, the final product merely touches upon broad concepts rather than exploring the various intricacies of human evolution. While aesthetically impressive throughout, overall it's a hollow journey. It's hard to cover the history of mankind without mentioning the rise and fall of Rome, the Battle of Thermopylae, Columbus' voyages, The Plague, etc...yet, instead of merely highlighting these milestones, "Mankind" defines itself by these historical events. It all adds up to a very one-dimensional effort.

Moreover, the blu ray release is about as bare bones as it gets. There are additional interviews and segments that didn't air but very little in the way of bulking up what stands to be a 9-hour feature. Despite the length of the documentary itself, I found myself thirsting for more and unfortunately there were barely any extras to speak of included with the blu ray.

Mini-Series: 2 Yaps Extras: 1 Yap

[youtube http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=tgeczs-lM0Y]