"Ancient Apocalypse" Isn't Just Bad History--It's Bad TV

The "hit" series from Netflix is as boring as it is bananas.

If you’ve been a reader of this newsletter for any length of time, you know that I’m an intellectually curious person. I like learning new things, and I am not afraid to expand my intellectual horizons. You’ll also know that I’m passionately interested in all things having to do with history, and that I am also a bit of a glutton for punishment. There’s nothing I like more than watching (or reading) something that I know is going to be so foolishly argued and wrongheaded that it’s going to make me feel outraged and put out.

Given all of that, it won’t surprise you to learn that, despite my better judgment, I decided to watch Ancient Apocalypse, the new “historical” documentary currently airing on Netflix. Hosted by Graham Hancock, it purports to offer evidence of an advanced Ice Age civilization, one which was brought to an end by some terrible cataclysm but which managed to share its wisdom with the hunter-gatherer societies scattered around the globe. Even though there is no specific evidence for such a civilization, this doesn’t stop Hancock, who insists that the nefarious forces of big archaeology and mainstream academia reject his ideas because…well, just because…and that we are all suffering a mass form of societal amnesia.  

If this all sounds rather batshit to you, you’re not alone. The series has, deservedly, earned vociferous criticism from many in the archaeological community that Hancock spends all eight episodes sneeringly dismissing, and many experts have pointed out the gaping flaws in his logic and the series as a whole. Unfortunately, this is all grist for Hancock’s personal mill, as he has made his reputation on being a gadfly to established archaeology. In fact, every episode of this series begins with his repeated assertion that the authorities hate him because he dares to ask the questions that would disturb their view of the world.

So far, so unsurprising. We live in a world, after all, where a startling number of people take the equally batshit series Ancient Aliens seriously, so I’m not surprised to find many of the conspiracy-minded–most notably Joe Rogan–falling over themselves to offer this series praise it most definitely does not deserve. What is surprising, however, is just how boring it is. Even with the rather low standards one has to apply to TV documentaries of this type, Ancient Apocalypse is a bit of a drag. Episode after episode repeats the same tired claims–there’s an ancient civilization no one is talking about, Hancock is the prophet, those with expertise don’t know what they’re talking about, etc., etc., etc. It’s as if Hancock hopes that merely repeating the same thing over and again will somehow, magically, make it true.  

This tedium is even more extraordinary when one considers the amount of money that was clearly poured into this production. It’s filled with lots of lovely and quite stunning photography, and if you mute it, you can actually appreciate its formal beauty. Alas, no amount of physical beauty is enough to make up for the blandness of the host himself. For all that he insists on painting himself as some sort of visionary crying out his truth in the wilderness, in presentation Hancock is your typical mild-mannered British man-of-a-certain-age. Soft-spoken and quite ordinary-looking, he just doesn’t have the kind of dynamic personality to really come across as anything other than a crank. 

The show desperately tries to compensate for this by indulging in all sorts of sound and fury effects, from vertiginous camera work to sinister scoring, all of which is clearly designed to signal to the viewer that something is afoot, some nefarious plot on the part of the powers that be to keep the truth from the unsuspecting masses. After all, if the archaeologists and other eggheads have nothing to fear from Hancock’s intrepid question-asking, then why won’t they appear to debate him? The producers of the show clearly know that sound can do a lot of emotional work, and what struck me as I was watching it was just how much even the most banal statements were emphasized by sinister scoring. At times, I began to feel like I was watching a horror movie. 

Unfortunately, it’s all just a lot of puffery. When it comes right down to it, there’s just not a lot of there, there. Hancock’s rhetorical strategy–to continue insisting that the archaeological consensus about the age of human civilization is wrong–papers over the fact that what he has is a lot of coincidences that he has conveniently strung together into a narrative that seems to tie them altogether, buttressed by his own absolute (and, if I’m being quite frank, undeserved) certainty. In essence, his argument basically boils down to this: I believe this is true, so you should, too. 

While this might convince some, I hold out hope that the majority of the series’ viewers will see it for the sleight-of-hand that it really is. What is particularly frustrating about this is that Hancock deliberately ignores the mountains of very good, well-researched scholarship that has been done on the periods that he examines. When he flippantly dismisses these as the authorities he has decided to take down, he reveals himself as the charlatan that he really is, and a lazy one at that. 

If Ancient Apocalypse were at least an interesting show to watch on its own terms, I might find my outrage a little dimmed. As it is, I find myself more than a little puzzled as to why it remains at the top of the Netflix charts. While it is undoubtedly true that we live in an age of rampant and lazy skepticism about all sorts of established truths–Flat Earthers, anyone?--at least the lunatic fringe tends to at least be compelling to watch, in the same way as a trainwreck is compelling to watch. Instead, what we get is a highly-polished snooze fest masquerading as free inquiry. Surely, the subscribers of Netflix, to say nothing of the rest of us, deserve better.