Wednesday, July 23, 2025

'Asia' and 'The Americas' lead nature documentaries at the Creative Arts Emmy Awards


Slight change of plans — I am resuming my Emmy Awards coverage but I'm not blogging about the nominees for Outstanding Documentary or Nonfiction Special at the Creative Arts Emmy Awards. That's for tomorrow, I promise. Instead, I'm blogging about the nominated nature documentaries, which compose most of the nominees for Outstanding Narrator.
Sir David Attenborough – Planet Earth: Asia: "The Frozen North" (BBC America)
Idris Elba – Erased: WW2's Heroes Of Color: "D-Day" (National Geographic)
Tom Hanks – The Americas: "Andes" (NBC)
Barack Obama – Our Oceans: "Indian Ocean" (Netflix)
Phoebe Waller Bridge – Octopus!: "Part 1" (Prime Video)
The two most nominated series are Planet Earth: Asia and The Americas with two nominations each, one in this category and another for Outstanding Music Composition for a Documentary Series or Special (Original Dramatic Score). Erased: WW2's Heroes Of Color, Octopus!, and Our Oceans have just this nomination for their narrators. If this were a program category, those numbers might mean something. Instead, this is a performer category, so I defer to Gold Derby, where every expert, 60% of the editors, and 68.4% of the users have picked Sir David Attenborough to win this award again. Former President Barack Obama is the choice of 40% of the editors and 21.4% of the users. Only 5.1% of the users think Tom Hanks has a chance, followed by 2.7% of the users for Idris Elba and 2.4% of the users for Phoebe Waller Bridge. That's certainly an all-star field of nominated narrators!

Besides blogging about science and the environment, one of my other justifications for my awards show coverage is examining the diversity of the performers nominated. Theblkscript on Instagram made that easy for me by creating the following image to celebrate just that. Thank you!


Now enjoy the trailers and their narrators, beginning with Asia | Official Trailer | BBC Studios.

If you think you have seen the best the natural world has to offer, think again! Join Sir David Attenborough as he takes you across our planet’s largest continent.
I could have waited until International Tiger Day to share this, but it works better for me today.

Next, Tom Hanks Narrates an Extraordinary Journey | The Americas | NBC.

Narrated by Academy Award winner Tom Hanks comes the extraordinary journey of Earth's great supercontinent.

Watch The Americas in February 2025 on NBC and streaming on Peacock.
I've been seeing this ad on Twitch. It's more impressive on YouTube. Also, Hans Zimmer? No wonder it earned its second nomination for music.

Now for Gold Derby's second choice to win Outstanding Narrator, Our Oceans | Barack Obama | Official Trailer | Netflix.

The world will never be the same once you've seen it from below.

Dive into Our Oceans, a thrilling five-episode series, narrated by Barack Obama, that invites you to join Emmy winning wildlife filmmaker James Honeyborne on an awe-inspiring adventure. This groundbreaking show will whisk you away on a global journey, uncovering the mesmerizing stories of our planet's five majestic oceans. Each episode delves into the unique characters of the creatures within these ecosystems, from playful and cunning to resilient and mysterious. Ride along the world's great current as we reveal nature's most spectacular aquatic personalities and breathtaking wonders.
Netflix certainly knows how to put together a trailer!

The one historical documentary with a nominated narrator is Erased: WW2’s Heroes of Color | Official Trailer | National Geographic.

From Idris Elba, whose grandfather fought in WW2, this landmark series reveals the untold stories of soldiers of color in the war. By mixing war sequences with character portraits, this series restores the role of these soldiers and their units to their rightful place in the narrative of WW2 and reveals how these heroes inspired Civil Rights Movements in America and across the world.
I may not be able to recommend this to my students for extra credit, but that doesn't mean that it isn't a worthwhile subject.

I close the trailer portion of today's post with Octopus! - Official Trailer | Prime Video.


This trailer lacks a video description I find worth sharing (it's all advertising for Prime Video), but it has 12,499,221 views. Wow! I think I will see this and maybe The Americas at another awards show, whether it's the EMA Awards, the Critics Choice Documentary Awards, or even next year's News & Doc Emmy Awards. Either way, this and the other nature documentary nominees look like good recommendations for my environmental science and biology students. Welcome to blogging as professional development.

Follow over the jump for the other nomination Planet Earth: Asia and The Americas earned plus the winner of Outstanding Nature Documentary at the News & Doc Emmy Awards.


The Americas has the same team of composers as Prehistoric Planet 2, which earned an Emmy nomination. That's enough for me to pick it as the favorite, although I expect to cover this category twice more, once for documentary specials and again for documentary or nonfiction series.


I close with the winners among the nominees for Outstanding Nature Documentary at the News & Doc Emmy Awards. The "Paul Nicklen & Cristina Mittermeier: Win or Die" episode of Photographer on National Geographic won the category itself. I didn't pick it to win — surprise! — but I did acknowledge its impact: "That's moving, although in a different way than the trailer for Billy & Molly: An Otter Love Story. It also explains why their work is important." Looks like that, and the striking photography itself, were enough for it to win.


I should have used the above image to illustrate the press release for Billy & Molly: An Otter Love Story I quoted in No PSAs among nominees for Outstanding Commercial plus winners for Outstanding Promotional Announcement at the Emmy Awards. Better late than never!

That's a wrap for nature documentaries at this year's Creative Arts Emmy Awards. Stay tuned for the nominees for Outstanding Documentary or Nonfiction Special.

Previous posts about the 77th Primetime Emmy Awards Previous posts about the 46th News & Doc Emmy Awards
Posted by at
Labels: , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , ,

No comments:

Post a Comment

Subscribe to: Post Comments (Atom)