Hey, I'm Flora Lichtenen, and you're listening to Science Friday.

Today on the show, a new science doc on early human life leans into the Lord of the Ringsiness of it all.

Like it was a magical, magical kind of, like it almost sounds like I'm a child and kind of making this stuff up.

But I promise this is real science.

Do TV science documentaries need a refresh?

What if the goal wasn't just teaching you something, but making you feel something?

A new series on PBS called Human tries to do just

that. It tells the complicated, dramatic tale of our ancient family tree. Who were the different

species of humans that lived on this planet before us, and how did we become the only ones left

standing? The show is hosted by paleoanthropologist

Ella al-Shimahi, who had a vision for how to tell the story so that today's humans lean in.

Ella, welcome to Science Friday. Thank you for having me.

Okay, what did you want to do differently with this series? Were there stylistic tropes you were,

you know, working to avoid?

So I have to say, I basically turned around kind of very early on and had certain ideas about

what I wanted to do, should we say? And I think it's really funny because obviously, you know,

I'm sitting there talking to incredibly seasoned filmmakers who made some of the, you know, I'm sitting there talking to incredibly seasoned filmmakers

who made some of the, you know, the biggest science shows out there.

And there's this like, you know, in my mind, I'm still a little girl with pigtails being like,

I have ideas.

Well, what were the ideas?

What did you want to do?

...