Filmed over the course of more than six years at some of nature's most spectacular locales – from Acadia to Yosemite, Yellowstone to the Grand Canyon, the Everglades of Florida to the Gates of the Arctic in Alaska - “The National Parks: America's Best Idea” is nonetheless a story of people: people from every conceivable background – rich and poor; famous and unknown; soldiers and scientists; natives and newcomers; idealists, artists and entrepreneurs; people who were willing to devote themselves to saving some precious portion of the land they loved, and in doing so reminded their fellow citizens of the full meaning of democracy.
The peaks and the valleys. Find the essential episodes — and the ones to skip.
Americans begin to question the nation's rush across the continent that has devastated forests and ravaged animals. Conservation's greatest champion is Theodore Roosevelt, who sets aside 800,000 acres of the Grand Canyon.
A study of the first ideas which led to the establishment of America's national parks, with an emphasis on the work of John Muir and the exploration and preservation of Yosemite and Yellowstone.
Stephen Mather accepts the offer to oversee the national parks for one year. He launches a campaign to publicize the parks as a unified system and to persuade Congress to create a single agency to oversee it: the National Park Service.
Franklin D. Roosevelt enters battles to create national parks on the Olympic Peninsula, Florida's Everglades, and California's High Sierra. George Melendez Wright begins arguing that the parks are not doing enough to protect wildlife.
Each point is an episode, plotted in order. Colored bands mark season boundaries. Look for the rise, the plateau, or the decline.
High votes + high rating = beloved classic. High votes + low rating = notorious stinker. Low votes + high rating = hidden gem.
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