The late 1970's were the golden age of documentaries: Connections, Cosmos, Civilization, The Ascent of Man and Attenborough's Life on Earth.

Perhaps it's just me, but modern documentaries are rather dumbed down?

As a side note: Quite ironic that he ends up pointing to a rocket propelled mostly by solid fuels.

To that list I'd like to add Music of Man hosted by Yehudi Menuhin. His interview with Glenn Gould by itself is worth the price of admission!

>Perhaps it's just me, but modern documentaries are rather dumbed down?

A pet peeve of mine is the sound effects added to nature documentaries. I had to explain, once, that the ants do not actually sound like robots no matter how far you zoom in, despite the whirring of servos that the editors decided to add in.

Yes, but the YouTube ed channels are such a treasure in and of itself. We had the “tech” to produce content like this for almost a century, but it took the Internet and democratization of content creation to come up with gems like smarter every day, veritasium, extra history, etc

My fear is that this is also being reshaped with ai, mostly for good now but I feel like the personal touch and passion of these creators is being diluted with the advent of generated content.

Maybe we are in a valley of the uncanny valley and the ai tools will become so good that they can successfully translate someone’s passionate vision faithfully, then it could be another renaissance.

Modern audiences are expected to be glued to twelve different things at once. Producers are being told to adjust to this reality. Watch any movie now and they are all compensating for the distracted audience.

Movies used to be watched in a place for that purpose. Now its the toilet. Now the phone itself is ringing. A message comes in. Time to upgrade. Ding! All while some key scene in the movie is taking place.

Even Golden Age TV documentaries can seem dumbed down compared to actual books. Even at the time, in the 1960s and 1970s, thinkers expressed concern that the medium of television was inherently likely to delight audiences with spectacle more than truly educate them.

Also The Shock of the New with Robert Hughes.

I also feel most of the documentaries are awful these days. There are a feww that are pretty good but I miss the older stuff.

> Perhaps it's just me, but modern documentaries are rather dumbed down?

It's not just you. Most modern TV documentaries, especially series, are dumbed down and sped up. Fast cuts, lots of woo, not too much to challenge your brain, don't want it to get strained.

Gone are the days where someone conveyed the information calmly while not driving a car somewhere irrelevant. No more lingering shots allowing you to process what you just saw and heard.

It was the golden age of the US at least also. Times that belittle, defund, or destroy science or art are dark ages.