Smithsonian Channel: Aerial America - Pacific Rim Collection Blu-ray Review
Go West! Take a Helicopter
Reviewed by Michael Reuben, May 17, 2012
The Smithsonian Channel describes its
Aerial America series as follows:
Take off on a thrilling flight across America. This epic
series offers rare glimpses of our nation's most treasured
landmarks, all seen from breathtaking heights. From busy cityscapes to quiet landscapes, we capture the
history and the pageantry of our amazing country, which is as diverse as the people who occupy
it.
In other words,
Aerial America is another entry in the armchair travelogue genre that includes
the popular
Visions series on PBS. To date, the series has covered just over half the fifty
states. The goal, of course, is to cover them all.
This Blu-ray from Inception Media assembles four episodes of
Aerial America covering four
western states that the disc's producers have dubbed "the Pacific rim". The title is something of a
misnomer, since the term is most commonly used to refer to Asian countries such as Korea,
Singapore and Thailand. Here, though, it refers to Oregon, Washington, California and Hawaii.
(Alaska might well have been included, but its episode hasn't yet been completed.) These four
states share more than just the geographical quirk of being west of most of the country. They're
also notable for dramatic coastlines, striking mountain ranges and continuous geological activity
that may, at any time, escalate into something of which the world will be forced to take notice.
No state can be covered in depth within the running time of an
Aerial America episode (either
46 or 51 minutes), but
California is especially challenging, given its size,
population and diversity. The California episode addresses this issue by focusing on the picturesque
thoroughfare known as the Pacific Coast Highway or "PCH" for short, which twists and curves along the
often vertiginous heights hugging the edge of the state's land mass. PCH actually begins in Orange
County, but the episode picks it up farther north near the famous Hearst estate known as San
Simeon (the model for Xanadu in
Citizen Kane). From there, the tour moves inland to the Santa
Ynez Valley, home to the vineyards and wineries that provided the setting for the the film
Sideways. To its credit, and the listener's entertainment, the narration cites these
connections and uses them effectively.
Proceeding northward, the tour flies over Big Sur, which was a destination of almost mythic
proportions in the Sixties, and looks at the resort town of Carmel, of which Clint Eastwood was
once briefly mayor—and they're still bragging about it. The Monterey Peninsula is as famous for
its Pebble Beach golf course as for being a home to Nobel Prize-winning author John Steinbeck.
Turning inland, the flight surveys the Salinas Valley, sometimes called "the Salad Bowl of
America" because of its extensive agricultural fields. (From personal experience, I can assure you
that the aerial vista vastly improves on a driving trip, where mile after mile of fields tilled by
agribusiness provides a view of numbing uniformity.)
The tour spends substantial time over San Francisco, the Golden Gate, the harbor (including
Alcatraz), the Bay Bridge and the Port of Oakland, before turning north again for a look at Point
Reyes and a consideration of the tectonic stress point best known as the San Andreas Fault. The
narration discusses the 1906 San Francisco earthquake but, surprisingly, fails to mention the
1989 Loma Prieta quake (also known as the "World Series" quake, because it hit during a warm-up
practice for the series).
The disc's lack of subtitles makes the
Hawaii episode difficult to summarize, unless
one is fluent in Hawaiian names, which I am not. The narrator reels off places, people and historical
references with the practiced confidence of someone holding a script and assured that another
take is always an option. In brief: The tour covers the main island of Hawaii, as well as the
islands of Maui, Lanai, Molokai and Oahu. Highlights of the tour include the many varieties of
volcanic landscapes, both historic and current (the volcano known as Kilauea—thanks,
Wikipedia!—on the island of Hawaii is one of the most active in the world); the extraordinary
surfing conditions off Oahu; Pearl Harbor; and the private club on Lanai where Bill and Melinda
Gates were married. The island of Molokai has resisted becoming a tourist destination, but it was
formerly the site of a leper colony, where a Catholic priest, Father Damien de Veuster, and nun,
Mother Marianne Cope, cared for the inhabitants and, after their death, were both canonized as
saints.
One of the most sobering historical facts noted in the narration is that most of the indigenous
population of the island now known as Hawaii died within a few years after its "discovery" in
1778 by British Captain James Cook. The population had no natural resistance to the various
diseases to which contact with Europeans exposed them.
Oregon, we're told at the outset, is home to optimism and innovation. The tour begins
in Portland, described as a city of non-conformists. Among other things, it's supposed to have more
tattoo shops per capita than any other city. To underscore the city's and state's eccentricity, the
episode follows Crooked River to Smith Rock, where sport climbers compete to find new and
ever more difficult ways to ascend the steep peak known as "Monkey Face".
As a tribute to the winds and rough seas off the Oregon coast, the remains of the Peter Iredale, a
British ship lost in 1906, still remain on the coast. (All aboard were rescued.) Haystock Rock, a
huge lava rock where seabirds nest year-round, provided a navigational aid to sailors in the days
before GPS, because the bird cries could be heard for miles. The entrance to the Columbia River
is known as "the Graveyard of the Pacific", because strong currents and ocean swells below the
deceptively calm surface cause unpredictable shifts in the ocean sandbars. For this reason, the
area is home to the largest Coast Guard division in the nation.
The Painted Hills of central Oregon offer a geological history of the state. The Big Obsidian
Flow near Lava Butte was used by NASA to train astronauts for moon missions. The Google
Server Farm is located on the Columbia River, where it's powered by hydroelectric power. In the
Willamette Valley, Oregon has developed its own vineyards and distinctive wines. This is only
one of the state's unexpected imports (llamas are another). Oregon is also the home of Nike,
although most of the manufacturing is done abroad.
The exploration of
Washington State begins with an overview of Mt. Rainier, its most
challenging peak and, potentially, greatest threat, should it ever erupt. From there we move to the
Columbia River, retracing the last portion of the route followed by Lewis and Clark. A detailed
overview of the lumber trade leads into a history of Seattle, which started as a lumber town and
today, of course, is a capital of high-tech. The state's political capital, Olympia, is the next stop,
but the narrator quickly moves on to the more camera-friendly subject of the Boeing Corporation,
which has long been one of the state's economic engines.
Shifting to the eastern portion of the state, the aerial view takes in the growing fields and apple
orchards of the Yakima Valley. Eastern Washington also contains the former plutonium factory
at Hanford, which represents an ongoing clean-up challenge.
The most remote portion of the state is the northeastern Olympic Peninsula, with its mountains,
glaciers and forests. It's also home to the town of Forks, setting of the
Twilight series.
Following the waterways brings the tour to Puget Sound and back to Seattle. The episode provides an
account of the 1980 eruption of Mt. St. Helens and its aftermath, followed by the rise of
Microsoft and the hi-tech "gold rush". It concludes with a review of the state's sports and leisure
industries.
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