Season 2 of The World According to Jeff Goldblum on Disney+ still isn’t your typical documentary series, but it manages to be informative and fun in its own way.
If you are looking for a straightforward documentary series that’s completely educational, then The World According to Jeff Goldblum likely won’t meet your needs. It’s not a show that one would call educational, per se. Instead, actor and musician Jeff Goldblum, star of hit films such as The Fly (1986) and Jurassic Park (1993), presents audiences with something that can be informative, but is mostly interested in having fun.
The first season followed Goldblum as he explored the globe and learned about various topics, such as sneakers, ice cream, and jewelry, with the help of influencers and individuals with knowledge on the subjects. As he learns about these things, Goldblum has his natural oddball charm on full display, and sometimes even gets to make rather unique items. Have you ever wanted to see the actor with a mouthful of gold? In the “Jewelry” episode of Season 1, he has a custom gold Grill made for himself. Things like that, and Goldblum’s fish out of water reactions, make the first season a fun little watch, even if you aren’t a fan of his.
Season 2 of The World According to Jeff Goldblum on Disney+ brings the actor back for more, and the fun and somewhat informative vibes are still there. It consists of 10 episodes, which were split into two batches and released on November 12, 2021 and January 19, 2022 respectively. After a little bit of a wait between Season 1 (which debuted in 2019) and Season 2 (released in 2021), Jeff Goldblum returns to learn more about various topics, and journeys across the world to do so.
As Goldblum told IGN in 2019, he doesn’t do much research on the topics before filming each episode. The World According to Jeff Goldblum isn’t a show that involves the actor telling the audience about certain things. He is learning about these subjects as we are, which is obviously part of what makes the series fun. This isn’t a documentary series that you’d cite in an essay or anything like that, but its informative in its own way. For example, in the 5th episode of Season 2, Goldblum looks at why we as audience members are so fascinated by monsters. This episode not only sees Jeff join a hunt for Bigfoot, but it also provides the viewer with an informative answer to its question, with the help of several different people from various walks of life. By the end of a watch of Episode 5, I wouldn’t consider myself an expert on why certain things elicit different emotions, but I was better informed as to why that is the case.
Not only was I more informed, but it was once again fun watching Goldblum’s antics during The World According to Jeff Goldblum Season 2. His charm naturally makes him a pretty good host, and it’s pretty obvious he doesn’t know much about whatever topic the episodes focus on. That helps him become the ideal presenter for this docuseries: Goldblum is never talking down to the audience because he is learning just like we are for the most part.
It would be easy for this show to be shot from a first-person perspective, with Goldblum playing the part of the viewer. There may be a time where you might know more about a given subject that he does, but Jeff Goldblum does a great job of letting the audience be in his shoes and also never leaving the viewer out. There’s also the fact that Goldblum is just so darn quirky, cracking jokes and laughing at himself, it’s hard not to have fun with the guy. Granted, things may get annoying depending on your tolerance for Jeff Goldblum, but that wasn’t a problem I had in Season 1 or Season 2. I say that, as someone that has never quite been a big fan of his outside of the Jurassic Park films.
He is constantly having fun throughout Season 2, whether he’s watching fireworks or making a (literal) tiny spaghetti dinner, and it rubs off on you. Not everyone can make me enjoy learning about things that I don’t care for as much, but Jeff Goldblum can, and that is mostly due to his charm and ability to make things entertaining.
My only true complaint with Season 2 of The World According to Jeff Goldblum is that there were times where the influencers/guests didn’t really keep my attention. It helps the show when they are as interesting as Goldblum, and that wasn’t always the case this season. Though I sung Jeff’s praises for his ability to make me enjoy things that I wouldn’t normally, whether I like the subject or not, I always like to be informed by the guests. Some of them were just so boring that I nearly feel asleep. This is a rare issue that really can’t be fixed as easily though, which is why I can’t hold it against the show too much.
With the exception of those rare instances where the guests bored me to sleep, Season 2 of The World According to Jeff Goldblum is quite entertaining. The show is informative and fun, thanks in part to Goldblum’s charm. The actor puts himself in some unusual situations on a quest to learn more about a given thing and more often than not it is hilarious. Then he gets real world perspective/information on said subject from interesting individuals, providing himself and the audience with knowledge. That combination of being informative and fun makes the show worth watching, whether you’re a Goldblum fan or not.
Season 2 of The World According to Jeff Goldblum is now available to watch on Disney+.
