The National Parks: America's Best Idea is a 2009 television documentary miniseries by director/producer Ken Burns and producer/writer Dayton Duncan which features the United States National Park system and traces the system's history.PBS To Air Ken Burns’s The National Parks: America's Best Idea... a July 2008 press release from the PBS website The series won two 2010 Emmy Awards; one for Outstanding Nonfiction Series and one for Outstanding Writing for Nonfiction Programming in Episode 2 "The Last Refuge". A companion book () was released alongside.
Cast Peter Coyote is the narrator of all episodes, with first-person voices supplied by Adam Arkin, Philip Bosco, Kevin Conway, Andy García, Tom Hanks, Derek Jacobi, Clay Jenkinson, John Lithgow, Josh Lucas, Carolyn McCormick, Campbell Scott, Gene Jones, George Takei, Eli Wallach and Sam Waterston. Shelton Johnson, a National Park ranger, was also featured.
Episodes
Some foreign releases of the series – notably Australia – have separated it into 12 one-hour-long episodes.
Release
The series was previewed in a seven-minute segment at the end of the fourth episode of Burns's 2007 PBS documentary, The War. The first two-hour episode premiered at the Hopkins Center for the Arts at Dartmouth College on April 17, 2009. Episodes debuted daily, airing from Sunday, September 27 to Friday, October 2, with full episodes online the following day.
Critical reception The National Parks: America's Best Idea has received generally positive reviews from television critics. Mark Rahner of The Seattle Times wrote, "Stirring and sublime."
References
External links Official website from Public Broadcasting Service Documentary trailer, Q&A with Ken Burns and Dayton Duncan from the National Park Foundation Learn more about America's Best Idea from National Park Service Archeology Program