NatGeo special examines tumultuous 2000s
When it comes to analyzing the first decade of the 21st Century, one of the first issues is what to call it: The Aughts? The Zeros? The Double Ohs?
National Geographic Channel sticks with the basics in the title of its two-night special, The 2000s: A New Reality (July 12 and 13, 9 p.m. ET/PT), and that works fine for narrator Rob Lowe.
"The Aughts sound a little too European Union for my tastes. The Zeros sounds too pejorative. It's really hard, but when you look at the title, it really is The 2000s," says Lowe, who starred in two popular dramas during the decade, The West Wing and Brothers & Sisters.
Finding enough events to fill the four-hour special was hardly a problem with a decade that featured the Bush-Gore 2000 presidential election; the 9/11 attacks and wars that followed; the introduction of the iPod and iPhone; and the election of the nation's first African-American president, Barack Obama.
"Every single one of them continues to play out, particularly 9/11. We entered a life where it seems like we're sort of always on some version of a war footing, however you want to describe it," Lowe says.
The decade also saw the rise of reality TV, led by Survivor; blockbuster movie franchises, such as Harry Potter; and Janet Jackson's Super Bowl "wardrobe malfunction."
Lowe, who will star in the upcoming Fox comedy, The Grinder, sees an overall change in lifestyle as one of the most significant elements of the decade.
"I think it's the speed at which the world began to move, whether that's the embracing of the 24-hour news cycle or the way that people accepted the Internet in such large numbers or the rise of the smartphone and all of us being interconnected," he says.
The special features a wide selection of interview subjects, including former Vice President Dick Cheney; former New York Mayor Rudy Giuliani; American Idol's Randy Jackson; film director Michael Moore; Fox News Channel host Bill O'Reilly; reality star and TV host Sharon Osbourne; U.S. Rep. Nancy Pelosi; journalist Dan Rather; Paste BN TV critic Robert Bianco; heroic airline pilot Chesley "Sully" Sullenberger; and Donald Trump.
Lowe, who is an executive producer of The 2000s, marvels at the range of opinion represented. "Where else do you get Dick Cheney and Michael Moore to sit down for you?"
The actor, who narrated and produced similar specials focusing on the 1980s and 1990s, says it's not too early to examine a decade that ended just a half-decade ago.
"I had questioned it until I saw the stories we would be dealing with," he says. "What's more exciting, interesting and compelling, something that really is history, that happened and we've almost forgotten about, or something that happened fairly recently and we're still sort of dealing with it?"
Many of the historical details fascinate him, especially in relation to where we are now.
"I go back and look at the timeline and the players and the agendas for Elian Gonzalez," the Cuban boy whose presence in Florida became a huge issue at the start of the decade, he says. "And then I look at where we are now with our relationship with Cuba. That's one Democratic president and another Democratic president and two completely different world views."
He continues: "It's pretty amazing, (Osama) bin Laden and Tora Bora is an unbelievable near-miss. I love the little details of Steve Jobs when he revealed the iPhone" at its initial presentation.
Lowe, whose reading list is heavy with historical non-fiction, says the special strikes a good balance.
"Hopefully, it's got just the right dose of appropriate gravitas. We're dealing with Abu Ghraib and 9/11," he says. "And, then (it has) the right amount of fun and silliness and tongue-in-cheek. And, then there's the you-can-play-at-home version where you wonder what we're going to talk about next and if we're going to go there or who we're going to leave out. I think those things add (up) to some really fun television."