Patagonia

I liked the interviews with native scientists and community members. I thought they gave context to the gorgeous footage of the wildlife. Very well done imho.

As for the commercials, you can just DVR it and fast forward thru them. YouTubeTV has seemingly unlimited cloud DVR.

CNN and others have produced this nature show. Patagonia is a mostly dry area east of the Andes Mountains on the southern tip of South America. It has much of the same epic natural scenery with all the creatures as other nature shows. On top of that, it has human participants doing important research into issues threatening the natural world. In that way, it's different than the usual pretty nature documentary series. It is news adjacent which makes sense for CNN. There is some investigative journalism with these stories. It's informative and pretty looking. Pedro Pascal is the narrator. There are six episodes.

... about a region on the planet that interests me yet I know so little about.

CNN should go around the world and use this format for other regions ... Australia, Appalachia, Cascadia, Tibet,the Aleutian Islands, etc. They could run it from 9 to 11 pm weeknights and drop CNN Tonight.

Honestly, I did not enjoy this so-called documentary. It is full of humans. I expected to see the amazing nature of patagonia but instead saw so many people.

After watching the first minutes of the first episode I fast forwarded almost all the episodes.

Yes, it is largely about humans, but this is what makes this documentary wonderful. Our species makes a bigger part of the population of the planet and we affect the environment in the most significant and devastating ways. The role of humans in this type of documentary usually centers on how we fail at being a responsible species. While it is definitely true, it was refreshing seeing people who try to reduce the negative effects other individuals had had on the ecosystem of Patagonia. Many stories were quite inspirational, especially from people who "switched sides", like the guy who went from being a hunter to being a protector. Seeing that there are people who try very hard to help the wild nature of Patagonia stay wild gave me hope. This series was just as educational, only in a different way.