Brace yourself for some life-changing advice. Ready?
“Water isn’t food … but it’s just as important.”
This startling revelation comes courtesy of the second episode of Down to Earth with Zac Efron, a Netflix documentary series released in July 2020.
If you’ve not heard of the programme then you possibly just experienced the same reaction I did when my girlfriend first told me it existed. The title instantly conjured images of Alan Partridge pitching ideas for television shows.
(If Down to Earth can exist, then one can only hope that Youth Hosteling with Chris Eubank stands a chance of one day being broadcast…).
Unexpected title aside, I was prepared to give the series a try. If there was a chance it might be honest about the challenges facing the planet, and if there was a chance it would showcase potential solutions in an engaging way, then I was all for it.
The Last Dance presented Michael Jordan and basketball in a compelling fashion; a documentary that might similarly capture an audience on the subject of sustainability and respect for the environment excited me.
Alas, Efron’s sparkling observations about the role of hydration in human health is as far as I’m going to get. The bonfire of my enthusiasm has been extinguished, had water poured on it, in little over an hour of programming.
Who watched the final versions of these episodes prior to broadcast and said, “Yep, that’s exactly what we’re aiming for”?
Looking for the positives
A perpetual feature of my to-do list is to blog more and/or create a newsletter, with the aim of sharing and showcasing the many resources that inspire my interest in sustainability, the built environment, and how we interact with the world around us.
It is with a certain amount of sheepishness, then, that I write a new blog post - for the first time in too long - describing a documentary that I can’t possibly recommend you watch. Life is too short for negativity or criticising things for the sake of it … but boy oh boy, the second episode is a struggle.
The first episode was already lightweight fare. Happily, the natural beauty of Iceland was stunning, and the warm humour of the Icelandic people who featured was genuine. The location outweighed the listless ‘banter’ between Efron and his travelling companion, Darin Olien.
The Blue Lagoon in Iceland (in 2008). Photo by Paul Forrester.
Most of the second episode is filmed in France. Apparently, however, the third largest country in Europe doesn’t hold the same travelogue-worthy riches as Iceland, so the episode starts in Los Angeles. Efron and Olien, accompanied by Anna Kendrick, meet a ‘water sommelier’.
Watered down
The water sommelier passionately demonstrates how the taste of water changes depending on its ‘total dissolved solids’, or TDS. The higher the TDS number, the more interesting and - according to the water sommelier - the better the water is for you. Characterising that high TDS water is full of only things that are good, however, just didn’t ring true.
Excessively filtered water with a low TDS number is generally considered to taste ‘flat’, but it’s also true that water with a very high TDS number is considered to be unpalatable. A little research shows that TDS isn’t a measure of whether water is fit to drink or not, and nor is it any indication of the water’s chemical components.
You wouldn’t know it from watching the programme, but it’s impossible to say whether water is ‘better’ for you simply because it has a higher TDS number. Olien, employed for the sole reason of being ‘the health guru’, sits to one side throughout and doesn’t say a word. The whole experience comes across as the worst sort of Hollywood health fad.
It doesn’t end there...
The lack of rigour continues for the rest of the half hour. You could write a book about all the unfounded and contradictory statements.
How best to sum it up? Well, twice in the France episode a health-related statement is followed by Efron’s narration asking, “Does it work?” and immediately answering himself with, “I don’t know.”
Or maybe the way episode one describes plate tectonics as “a theory”.
Ultimately, I’ve surprised myself with how much I wanted from this programme, and how much I wanted it to be good. I hoped it would be something to inspire people who wouldn’t normally engage with issues of sustainability and Earth’s resources.
If Efron is genuinely interested and wants to share that interest with his fans and a wider audience, then the series does him no favours. His presence does nothing to paper over a lack of curiosity and a lack of desire to establish facts.
Who thought this series was a good idea? Who thought the finished episodes were at the level they needed to be? I definitely don’t know … but it’s a massive missed opportunity.