Don't Believe the Hype

It is both painfully honest and laugh-out-loud funny at the same time.

Blistering performances.

One of the most extraordinary films you will see this year. Take that as you want.

This is one of the better travel/adventure shows I've seen, largely because not only is the journey truly epic, but it is recorded and presented in a sensibly paced way, with forty-minute episodes that cover each section of the journey with enough detail to draw the viewer in (unlike other similar shows which rush through each stage of the journey in 20-minute episodes).An interesting aspect of the show is that it gets more authentic as it goes along, and the host becomes more likeable.At the beginning, particularly the opening of the first episode, it was almost nauseatingly American, with all the manic whooping, high-fiving, and air-punching that Americans do so excessively, along with endless utterances of "awesome!" and other mindless expressions of exuberance.For the first part of the adventure this manic energy continues and, for me at least, began to grate. But by the time they left the Americas and arrived in South Africa, the fakeness and mania had mostly been replaced with genuine curiosity, respect, and humility.The adventure remained interesting and exotic as they continued around the world, helped, it must be said, by a very small group of extremely generous American "fans", without whose financial aid the project would certainly have failed.It was disappointing that they skipped travelling back across Asia and Europe, opting instead to fly straight to San Francisco from Vietnam, but I guess it was hard to turn down the offer of a donated flight.It was very interesting that when they arrived back in the States, they didn't immediately revert back to type, but instead remained mostly humble and sincere. This was nice to see. The scenes in the final episode where they visited the school could potentially have been both nauseating and irritating, but were instead uplifting and even slightly moving.Overall, this was a very worthwhile project, but with a basic concept that trod some pretty shaky moral ground on occasion (I didn't like seeing them evading train fares, for example. It's one thing to beg a ride; quite another to criminally avoid paying!) but by and large the message that wherever you go in the world the people will be kind and welcoming, is well presented and wholesome.It's not hugely exciting, but it's also never dull. A good way to travel vicariously, but mostly a reassuring confirmation about the fundamental goodness of (some) people.