If you saw
I Am Legend, then you may have been fascinated with the film's
scenes of a deserted Manhattan. But how accurate was this vision of a
post-apocalyptic New York? What would happen to our cities if we were no
longer there? Would any legacy of our time on Earth remain after 100
years? 1,000 years? 10,000 years? These are the questions the Life
After People attempts to answer.
Life After People is a History Channel special that debuts on Monday, January
21st at 9:00 PM. It takes a close look at what we've built, our
skyscrapers, our monuments, and even our homes and shows what would happen to
them and how long it would take without people around to care for them.
The show does not get bogged down in imagining various scenarios that would
cause the end of man, it simply begins the day after whatever happened happened.
The show begins with the day after man is gone and progressively takes snapshots
of what the world would look like at various intervals afterwards. At
first everything would remain pretty recognizable, but as time marches on nature
and the environment slowly but surely take back the world. There's more to
Life After People than just show a look at how long it will take buildings to
crumble. The show gives you a real sense of the work it takes to maintain
our cities and way of life and how quickly things would begin to break down
without our constant care and attention. It also gives you a real sense of
how much of an impact we have on the world by looking at the effects our
disappearance would have on the other animal species in the world.
The show's look into the future is accompanied by expert narration from
Gordon Masterson, a civil engineer, and David Brin, a scientific author, who do
an excellent job of conveying not just the "what" of what would happen, but the
"how" and "why" as well. Computer animated sequences do a good job of
bringing the show's predictions to life, but the most poignant sequences are
taken from the real world as the show takes us to a city that has actually been
abandoned by humans for over twenty years because of the Chernobyl disaster.
Life After People is more than a look at empty cities. There are many
facets to the show that include themes as diverse as engineering, biology, and
conservation, and it does an excellent job of showing how they all are
interconnected and how fragile those connections really are. It is highly
recommended viewing.
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