Stream It Or Skip It?

Four years ago, Will Smith hosted a Nat Geo/Disney+ series called Welcome To Earth, where he explored parts of the planet most A-list celebrities — or anyone, for that matter — have never seen before. Now, he’s back with another nature travel series, where he traverses all seven continents from the South Pole to the North Pole. But this version of Smith is different than the one who hosted the first series.

Opening Shot: “DAY 100. 89° NORTH.” A big ship breaks through the ice on the Antarctic coastline.

The Gist:  Will Smith is about to disembark from this ship, on his first visit to Antarctica. It’s part of his journey to all seven continents in Pole To Pole With Will Smith. The series starts at the South Pole and ends at the North Pole, but there will be episodes that take place on the continents inbetween.

Smith’s goal is to do what his mentor, the late Dr. S. Allen Counter, has advises, which is that “the answers to everything important are out there at the edges of our world.” In other words, explore those edges, and you might get answers to man’s most pressing questions.

To that end, he flies to a remote location to meet Richard Parks, a polar athlete. The former pro rugby player has skiied more solo, unassisted miles in Antarctica than anyone in history, and he’s there to see what Will is made of before journeying to the geographic South Pole.

One of the tests is to have will climb a 300-foot ice wall, which they have to do to rendezvous with a second plane, which will take them to a small research station where three Brazilian researchers find atmospheric information about the last million years of human history in trapped gas bubbles in the ice. Then Smith and Parks ski fifteen very tough miles, in windy and dry terrain, to the geographical South Pole.

What Shows Will It Remind You Of? Pole To Pole With Will Smith is similar to a series Smith hosted for NatGeo in 2021, Welcome To Earth.

Our Take: The difference between the Will Smith of Welcome To Earth and the Will Smith of Pole To Pole isn’t just four or so years; it’s the difference between pre-slap and post-slap Will Smith. Post-slap, watching Smith joke his way through some harrowing situations, ones that look pretty dangerous, hits different than it did four years ago.

The slap definitely revealed that there was more going on underneath Smith’s usually-upbeat persona, and when he mentions his friend Dr. Counter, who invited Smith on his adventures, there’s definitely a pang of regret in Smith’s voice when he recalls that he never took Counter up on those invites.

Perhaps whatever turmoil that incident led to made Smith more determined to make another exploration series with Darren Aronofsky and Jane Root, two of the show’s executive producers. But as we watched Smith traverse miles-thick ice, we knew that his marveling at what he’s seeing is definitely a case of someone who is looking to put the past in the past.

When Smith and Parks have a candid moment as they sip tea in their base camp, Parks talks about how tough it was for him to give up rugby after an injury. Smith chimes in, likening those times in a person’s life to “being in the center of the storm.” In one of the few references to his recent past, he then goes, “I’ve had some really big storms these last, you know, couple of years, and people feel like they will be destroyed by the storm.”

At first, Smith comparing his post-slap life with the depression Parks went through after his career ended induced a bit of an eye roll from us. But he doesn’t dwell on it, and what he seems to be communicating is that he’s come out the other side of it.

But it also means that he may be a bit humbled by the last four years. He has no problem showing himself tripping on his skis or being truly scared as he climbs the ice wall as the wind picks up. Perhaps what we’re seeing is just our perception, but given how much we liked Smith as a nature docuseries host pre-slap, the post-slap version is even more personable and down-to-earth.

Performance Worth Watching: We’ll give this to the camera operators and cinematographers, making the stark Antarctic desert (yes, it’s a desert, as Will learns) look as daunting to traverse as it likely was.

Sex And Skin: None.

Parting Shot: A preview of the second episode, where Smith explores the Amazon in South America.

Sleeper Star: We’ll give this to Heitor Evangelista, the Brazilian scientist who has been working in Antarctica for 35 years. Wow; 35 years of spending months at a time in a tiny research facility in the middle of Antarctica, and the enthusiasm he still has for his work is fascinating.

Most Pilot-y Line: We get why Smith had to expose his face while the camera was on him, but given how cold and windy it was, we wondered why the producers couldn’t find a way to have him talk while his face was covered. Though he did have a funny line where he asks Parks if he has a frozen “explorer beard” after climbing the ice wall.

Our Call: STREAM IT. Between Will Smith’s joking but reverent hosting and the sweeping visuals, Pole To Pole With Will Smith is a show that’s worth watching, even if you stopped being a fan of his post-slap.

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How To Watch Pole To Pole With Will Smith

Disney+ offers a number of subscription options, so you can find the one that works for you. With ads, a subscription costs $10.99/month; without ads, it’s $18.99/month or $189.99/year.

There are also Disney+ bundles with Hulu, Max, and ESPN+, so you can subscribe to up to three services at once and save over 40% every month. The bundles are available in a few different configurations, starting at $12.99/month for Disney+ and Hulu with ads, and going up to $32.99/month for Disney+, Hulu, and Max ad-free.

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Joel Keller (@joelkeller) writes about food, entertainment, parenting and tech, but he doesn’t kid himself: he’s a TV junkie. His writing has appeared in the New York Times, Slate, Salon, RollingStone.com, VanityFair.com, Fast Company and elsewhere.