Everything you need to know to see Down to Earth with Zac Efron

One of Netflix's hottest releases this month has been Zac Efron's travel show, Down to Earth with Zac Efron . It is a food program (and much more, we'll get to that) from around the world. During the first season, which has eight episodes, we will see the adolescent High School Musical star, no longer so adolescent, traveling through various cities of the world and eating local food while looking for ways to be sustainable and improve civilization . Here our first impressions.

What's Down to Earth with Zac Efron about?

The official Neflix synopsis reads: "Actor Zac Efron travels the world with wellness expert Darin Olien to explore healthy and sustainable ways of living." This is what we will see on screen: the actor we have seen singing as a child but already matured undertakes different trips with the hand of the guru Darin Olien in a show of the same genre as Anthony Bourdain's travel show that explores local food. However, Down to Earth promises a little extra. 

"It is time for a change" says Zac Efron on repeated occasions in the program, and he is right. In this program, its two protagonists not only explore the local food of the places they visit but they are also looking for new ways to be sustainable and healthier. Thus, the tone of the show is to learn from the communities they visit and that Efron, with the help of his partner Olien, can interpret these learnings in new ways of living that are healthier, more environmentally friendly and economically sustainable.

Thus, in their first season, Efron and Olien travel to Iceland, France, Costa Rica, Sardinia, Lima, Puerto Rico, London and Iquitos.

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Our first impressions

The question of sustainability has always been very broad and ambiguous, and this program is not concerned with resolving this ambiguity. Although it is born out of a curiosity and genuine concern to search around the world for a new model of life that goes out of the way in which we all currently live, it doesn't really define what type of sustainability it looks for. Is it perhaps economic sustainability ?, Environmental? Although the program is attended by Darin Olien, who is a wellness expert and who could solve some of these questions, he does not fulfill a role as a guru for Efron, but rather that of a traveling companion, a right hand man, a side-kick.

As one might suspect from the title, this is a show that relies entirely on Zac Efron and revolves around him. Part of its attractiveness is, precisely, the attractiveness of its protagonist, and the program knows it. Thus, most of the time on screen we will see Efron react to the different ways of life of the communities he visits: "wow!", "Bro!", "Dude!" The spectator will not be able to expect much reflection about sustainability, nor will he see Efron's learning interpreted in new models of life, but at least he will entertain himself with seeing his reactions to the curiosities with which he comes across and he will be able to think beyond that.