Official Synopsis:
Seven Wonders of the Industrial World is a ground-breaking docudrama series that tells the story of how our modern world was forged - in rivets, grease and steam; in blood, sweat and human imagination. The great achievements celebrated in this series reveal as much about the human spirit as they do about technological endeavor. The slowly evolving Industrial Revolution was the fertile ground that gave life to dreams in iron, cement, stone and steel. The pioneers of the age were practical visionaries, seeing beyond the immediate horizon, the safe and the known, as they cut a path to the future.

The Seven Wonders are:
- The SS Great Eastern
- The Brooklyn Bridge
- The Bell Rock Lighthouse
- The US Transcontinental Railway
- The London Sewer System
- The Panama Canal
- The Hoover Dam
  
Our Take:
The Seven Wonders Of The Industrial World scared me before I even took the plastic wrap off the DVD case. The front cover is awful. Books are judged by their covers (the same is said for DVD’s) and no one is going to take a chance on this. The text is hideous and it completely blocks out any of the enticing image behind it. Then, once you flip it over it gets even worse. On the back we see a troupe of men standing around pompously in what looks like cheaply made 1920’s era outfits. It’s scary.

What follows is not. I’m not that familiar with docu-dramas (which this is) but really, it’s more drama than anything else. The only thing this production has in common with a documentary is that it has a narrator. The rest of the show is what you see on Unsolved Mysteries when they have all those Emmy winning re-enactments. That, of course, is sarcasm and luckily, the production value is much, much higher here than I ever could have guessed by looking at the goofy looking men on the back of the DVD.

There are no special features on Seven Wonders Of The Industrial World but the double-sided single disc is stocked pretty heavily with a run-time of 343 minutes.

Even on the episodes where I had never heard of the said wonder (The SS Great Eastern for example) I found a level of enjoyment. Each episode is structured in a strong narrative manner that also has a tiny bit of that “show we have to watch in school” vibe, just to ensure that you’re actually learning about what’s going on. Don’t let the cover scare you off of this enjoyable program.

Overall Picture:
Movie: B+
DVD: C

- Landen Chase Pelish
Staff Writer