3 out of 5

Presented by: David Eagleman

Undeniably interesting, but Eagleman as a host must inevitably be compared to the new high standard in science documentary hostings – Neil Degrasse Tyson – and he falls a bit short, plus the show struggles to shape its concepts episodically, which leaves the series feeling like it doesn’t actually teach us that much, and maybe also is a bit voyeuristic, given that its most grabbing sections are those which feature real-world examples of brain damage…

The Brain hopes to give us an appreciation for how complex and amazing our grey matter is.  Neuroscientist Eagleman structures this by looking at the different fundamental concepts of how we interact with: the world, ourselves, others – and then also attempts to look beyond to make us consider what might be next for our brains.  And he succeeds, I believe, but in order to do so he has to play a couple of trump cards right up in the first episodes: that everything we see is illusion (images and concepts processed for us) and that our brain is, essentially, a machine.  This puts quite a perspective on all that is to follow, and thus requires continual “but don’t worry, you’re amazing for being you” sentiments that feel like they undercut the concepts.  It’s not that this isn’t a valid point of view, but the way a scientist says that is still clinical, versus the pedestrian clinging onto the hope of a soul and free will.

And then there’s our host, who explains all of this in over-articulated, simple terms, with wide eyes and life-affirming mentions of the world and his family and his life.  The decision to get down and dirty with the information and experiments – Eagleman is often the focus of any given shot – removes an important barrier which existed in Cosmos of which I wasn’t aware: I suppose part of the desire might have been to purposefully humanize the information (and also the reason for Eagle’s overly affable presentation), but it keeps couching it as being from our presenter’s point of view, instead of… facts, and science.  It makes it easier to ignore.

Which is unfortunate, because there’s a wealth of fascinating stuff here, if rather simplified and, stretched to six episodes, rife with repetition and similar concepts.  ‘The Brain’ can be a nice way to shake up viewer’s views on the importance of their own existence, but it lacks the fortitude to follow through with that, as well as a generic visual sensibility that teeters the special more toward a reality-tv “mysteries of humans” show than a documentary hosted by a learned scientist.