Critics at Large | The New Yorker11 Juli 2024

The Changing World of Nature Documentaries

In 1954, a young David Attenborough made his début as the star of a new nature show called “Zoo Quest.” The docuseries, which ran for nearly a decade on the BBC, was a sensation that set Attenborough down the path of his life’s work: exposing viewers to our planet’s most miraculous creatures and landscapes from the comfort of their living rooms. On this episode of Critics at Large, Vinson Cunningham, Naomi Fry, and Alexandra Schwartz trace Attenborough’s filmography from “Zoo Quest” to his newest program, “Mammals,” a six-part series on BBC America narrated by the now- ninety-eight-year-old presenter. In the seventy years since “Zoo Quest” first aired, the genre it helped create has had to reckon with the effects of the climate crisis—and to figure out how to address such hot-button issues onscreen. By highlighting conservation efforts that have been successful, the best of these programs affirm our continued agency in the planet’s future. “One thing I got from ‘Mammals’ was not pure doom,” Schwartz says. “There are some options here. We have choices to make.” Read, watch, and listen with the critics: “Mammals” (2024)“Zoo Quest” (1954-63)“Are We Changing Planet Earth?” (2006)“The Snow Leopard,” by Peter Matthiessen“My Octopus Teacher” (2020)“Life on Our Planet” (2023)“I Like to Get High at Night and Think About Whales,” by Samantha IrbyNew episodes drop every Thursday. Follow Critics at Large wherever you get your podcasts. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices

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Critics’ Cult Classics: Hannah Goldfield on the Food World’s Secret Tastemakers

In the second in a series of Critics at Large interview episodes devoted to the topic of cult classics, Naomi Fry talks with the New Yorker staff writer Hannah Goldfield about how that designation app...

13 Aug 39min

Critics’ Cult Classics: Hanif Abdurraqib on Camp Lo’s “Uptown Saturday Night”

When it dropped in January of 1997, Camp Lo’s “Uptown Saturday Night” thrilled some listeners and confounded others. On the first in a series of Critics at Large interview episodes devoted to resurfac...

6 Aug 46min

The Irony and the Ecstasy of Colson Whitehead

Colson Whitehead’s ascent in the literary world has seemed, like much of what he does, impressively effortless. Though he’s best known for “The Underground Railroad” and “The Nickel Boys”—both of whic...

30 Juli 50min

The Golden Age of the American Idiot

The new game show “Nation’s Dumbest,” flips the classic “Jeopardy!” script on its head. The format: twelve famous-ish contestants are peppered with basic logic and trivia questions. The twist is that ...

23 Juli 52min

Who Owns the Odyssey?

In its nearly three-thousand-year history, the Odyssey has undergone as many twists and turns as its protagonist does on his journey home to Ithaca. Its origins as oral poetry suggest countless revisi...

16 Juli 50min

An American Playlist

This week, to commemorate two hundred and fifty years of the American experiment, Vinson Cunningham, Naomi Fry, and Alexandra Schwartz present an American playlist. On this special episode, the hosts ...

2 Juli 59min

From The Political Scene: The Politics of the Big Game

Critics at Large will be back next week. In the meantime, you can hear Vinson Cunningham and Naomi Fry on a recent episode of The New Yorker’s Political Scene, hosted by Tyler Foggatt, where they cons...

25 Juni 37min

Steven Spielberg’s Blockbusters

When “Jaws” hit theatres in 1975, no one—neither the studio executives involved nor the film’s twenty-six-year-old director, Steven Spielberg—was betting on its success. But it dominated at the box of...

18 Juni 55min