National Geographic
Disney+
With the prominent X in the middle of its title, OceanXplorers sounds like something from the 1990s trend of making “extreme” versions of familiar things to draw in younger people.
Host and executive producer James Cameron adds to that feel as he opens each episode of the documentary series by touting the “kick-ass team of insanely talented specialists” who work on “the most technologically advanced research vessel ever built” – like they are the stars of a Mission: Impossible movie. Of the four regulars, only two are marine scientists, while one is ex-military, having been a Royal Marine, and another is an “ocean technology innovator”.
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Beyond its try-hard, high-tech trappings, OceanXplorers is a pretty straightforward nature series, and that is no bad thing. It is co-produced by the BBC Studios Natural History Unit and private ocean research company OceanX (which owns the ship), and it lives up to the BBC’s high standards of cinematography. The main draw isn’t Cameron’s celebrity or the “insanely talented” research team, but the animals and stunning footage on show.
Each episode sends the OceanXplorer ship on a different mission, mainly focused on studying sharks and whales, with guest experts to augment the core cast members. Those missions almost always involve attaching sensors or cameras to various animals, which can make the tech marvels seem repetitive and mundane. The low point is any time the team gathers in the Holo Lab, an augmented-reality facility requiring cumbersome headsets that just show the same kind of graphics that could be shown on a regular screen.
The most charismatic team member is shark biologist Melissa Cristina Márquez, whose enthusiasm for knowledge is infectious. While the series promotes the discoveries that the team is making to the point of sounding overblown, when Márquez exclaims “This is probably a first for science!” it is easy to believe that her excitement is real.
Whether or not the OceanXplorer team is actually making more progress than other scientists isn’t that relevant for the show’s entertainment and information value. Viewers are more likely to be awed by a hammerhead shark hunting a stingray or a swarm of boarfish around the OceanXplorer submersible than they are by incremental achievements in gathering data. Each episode features at least one such striking image, and even seasoned nature documentary fans should find something new to appreciate.
Cameron fans may be slightly disappointed, since his association is perfunctory. He may be a National Geographic Explorer at Large, but he never interacts with the team or goes on any of the expeditions, and it wouldn’t be surprising if his host segments were shot in a single day. In an episode featuring the team studying bluntnose sixgill sharks, Cameron mentions his own encounters with the long-lived creatures, but anyone looking to see the legendary filmmaker go on explorations of his own will have to watch one of the documentaries he directed himself.
As a narrator, however, Cameron is perfectly serviceable, and he adds extra urgency to the pleas for environmental preservation that increase as the series progresses. Like many recent nature films, OceanXplorers puts climate change to the fore, and the finale, when the team studies polar bears on the shrinking ice of Svalbard in Norway, offers a stark illustration of its effects on animal behaviour and survival. This leaves a more lasting impression than flashy tech or “kick-ass” adventuring.
Josh Bell is a writer and critic based in Las Vegas, Nevada
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