I wrote an essay on what I thought - see A critique of national parks as "America's best idea" at http://www.yellowstone-online.com/2009/09/critique-of-national-parks-as-...

The opening paragraphs:

Anyone who has been watching the epic Ken Burns six-part documentary on PBS entitled The National Parks: America's Best Idea cannot help but be swept up by the places captured by his camera. When I see Yosemite or the Grand Canyon, I want to drop everything and plan my next adventure, discovering new places I have never seen. When I see familiar video and old pictures from my beloved Yellowstone, a flood of pleasant memories overwhelms me. For evoking such responses in a well-traveled man like me, for doing so to a large number of people for whom the national parks is but a sketchy mystery, Ken Burns should be applauded for that alone.

Ken Burns does many things well both at the sweeping level as well as in minute points (for instance, one I quickly noticed was in not sharing the discredited story that the national park idea was dreamed up at Madison Junction in Yellowstone back in 1870). What I'm writing from hereafter shall be critical, but I don't want to take more away than I will in the following paragraphs. By all means, if you've never visited a national park, if you want a basic primer on the history, if you want to see beautiful things and be inspired, please take the time to watch this documentary. I can't imagine watching it and not wanting to visit some of these places, not wanting to know them more, and not having a greater sense of many of the complicated issues that surround the parks. It is worth at least some of your time.

My biggest problem with The National Parks: America's Best Idea, filmed by Burns but written by Dayton Duncan, is that we are left with a generally positive view of American history. Whether we are talking about the "national park" idea itself, the process by which national parks were "saved," or many of the characters involved - coming to mind right now are Teddy Roosevelt and John D. Rockefeller Jr. - I am afraid to say that I believe that the story is far bleaker. That we can be inspired still by these lands is less a testament to the so called "national park idea" so much as the accidental force of American history that allows them to be temporarily saved while everything else is ripped to shreds.

More at http://www.yellowstone-online.com/2009/09/critique-of-national-parks-as-...

Jim Macdonald
The Magic of Yellowstone
Yellowstone Newspaper
Jim's Eclectic World

So far so good. I have enjoyed it, especially finding more out about some fo the people behind the scenes, for which so many spots in parks are named. I only wish they would talk more about other parks, like Glacier (even though they mentioned it tonight), verses spending so much time on Yellowstone and Yosemite.

I am loving it!

As history, it works; I'm learning a lot I didn't know. But as story-telling, it falters a lot. Conflicts are built up -- Cameron vs. Mather! Stay tuned! -- but then done away with by a few sentences on the following evening. At the same time, troubling issues like the forced removal of people in the creation of Smoky Mountains National Park are barely touched on.

This approach is a problem largely because the filmmaker has decided to make his documentary a narrative -- and then stops and starts the story over and over. It's largely a script problem, and makes me wonder if a less chronological approach might have been more interesting.

Beautiful images, of course, but often no indication of where the shot was taken -- unless of course it was Yosemite or Yellowstone, which we see over and over. I agree there are too many writers interviewed and too few rangers. Who are these writers? What did they write?

I'll keep watching because, as I said, I'm learning things. But there are history lessons that are necessary and history lessons that are compelling; this one seems more necessary.

First off, as for the continuity, I wonder how the DVD will be since the program is divided into what I'd more or less call episodes. I can't help thinking that if you want to later watch it on DVD it will seem odd to have it this way with each "episode" sort of recapping the previous one.

But I'm surprised no one has mentioned, or complained about, the bias. For me personally, the bias matches up pretty closely with my own views but you can't deny he's pushing a particular perspective and view about what the parks should be, their value, history, etc... There are clear good guys and bad guys, and some figures who he wants to avoid labeling bad guys (i.e., people who got kicked out of their homes) are kind of glossed over. Is this slant a good thing or should the film have been more apolitical? I think "rooting for the parks" is a nice perspective personally, but obviously in pushing this view, a lot is left out of the story.

Also, given how much time was put into this, I am surprised how little footage of the parks we see. Burns is really interested in the story of how these places became parks, but has next to nothing on the natural and human history of the places that made them worthy of that designation. I expected this to be a grand showcase of what the parks have to offer and show Americans why they should visit them, as well as tell their story, but it's much more the latter than the former. I understand this is his style and that much of that has been and probably will be done in other films, but I can't help thinking that the story might be told a little better by showing what makes these places so unique and special, and not as many old photoraphs of the buildings and people, photos which, as has been mentioned, get shown over and over.

But overall I'm enjoying the program a lot. I'm looking forward to the Franklin Delano Roosevelt area and to the stories of some of the later-established parks.

I'm enjoying it, but agree that it would have been nice to hear more from the Rangers. Shelton is doing a nice job, but there is a lot of passion (and great storytellers) out in the field and I would have like to have heard other voices.

On a side note, I've found it really interesting to see the "after market" on NPS memorabilia explode on ebay. I guess that people really want to learn more about Muir, Roosevelt, etc. after watching the documentary.

I am enjoying it. It may seem to jump from issue to issue, park to park but it is following the timeline.

A comment regarding Garvins' comment, remember "someone" lived in a lot of the national parks. Remember the native americans !

MikeD, the essay I wrote that I linked to also has the criticism of the overall point of view of the work, focused somewhat on criticizing what I take to be Burns' view that history is made by dynamic, even if complicated characters, and that the national parks in part arose because some of these peculiarly inspired and energetic people went against the grain and made it so. I think that view is ultimately wrong - and not simply because it's a tad melodramatic - but because I think that the national parks arose out of the same strand and forces that were at the same time destroying everything else. That may seem subtle, but I think it's an important distinction because ultimately in the Burns view, we don't know what to make of all these complicated and unsettling anecdotes of atrocities and conflicts and paradoxes (they seem to be for the next generation of inspired and creative Americans to discover). So, his view chugs along mostly happily without much analysis of the many complexities he (to his credit) throws in there. My view is far darker about American history but hopefully more coherent, thus ultimately suggesting ways through this forest. If we understand the causes of the national parks as something within the flow of our history, I think we have a better sense of why these injustices have happened through the history of the parks.

(As for all the talk about more rangers, I find that they are over represented, but that's me - as a critic of the Park Service, you would expect that. I'd rather see much more about those not thought of at all in the national parks experience - the bell hop at the hotel, the waitress, the child, and much more than the token treatment of native peoples.).

Jim Macdonald
The Magic of Yellowstone
Yellowstone Newspaper
Jim's Eclectic World