Directed, narrated by Angela Bassett, ‘Water Apocalypse’ closes out Nat Geo’s ‘Breakthrough’

National Geographic Channel and GE presented the new series Breakthrough produced by Imagine Entertainment (Ron Howard and Brian Grazer) and conclude with Water Apocalypse, an episode narrated and directed by Angela Bassett.

Focusing on the growing human population and the limited usable water, the challenge is balancing consumption with new technology to deliver quality, safe and accessible water to meet the world’s needs.

One interesting topic was wave energy, centering on the ocean energy company Carnegie Wave Energy and the use of wave energy generators integrated with three six-ton underwater buoys that sway with the motion of subsurface swells – the first wave energy project to be composed of multiple units connected in an array.

Breakthrough‘s Water Apocalypse is set to premiere on Dec. 13 at 9 p.m. ET/8 p.m. CT: “California is on the brink of an apocalypse. The state faces a future of drought that will cost billions in lost farm revenue and thousands of jobs. The challenges facing the state are not unique: All over the world, governments are struggling with bigger populations and a diminishing supply of freshwater. Bassett will focus on inspiring stories of people working to change the world, such as Sandra Postel, who is trying to bring water back to the Colorado River Delta, which became a dried-up husk after the Colorado River was diverted to feed the western United States; Aaron Mandell, whose solar-powered desalinization project offers a way to conserve and reuse this precious resource; and Italian architect Arturo Vittori, whose quest to build a water-collecting tower in a remote village in Ethiopia dramatizes all the triumphs and challenges of innovation.”

This is still Hollywood, so Nat Geo isn’t going to overtly praise capitalist ventures delivering new technology for producing clean water or pointing any fingers at environmentalist legislation in California as a contributing problem to their water shortage. Like the previous episodes, Breakthrough presents an entertaining and high quality show and asks some strong and challenging questions.

While the series is valuable for an uneducated audience, it can become tedious at times and reminds me of Disney’s EPCOT and the strained visions of the future.