Following in the steps of David Attenborough and Lucy Worsley, BBC and Netflix’s Cunk on Earth series marks the global debut of Philomena Cunk, a character created by Charlie Brooker and performed by actress Diane Morgan. In many ways, this 5-episode series will look, sound, and feel familiar to the fans of BBC’s narrated documentary shows. Cunk on Earth blends the beautifully-shot documentary cinematography with Philomena Cunk’s personal interviews with experts talking about dramatic turning points in human history. Upon its release in September of 2022, many reviewers called the series a mockumentary, but I would refrain from defining Cunk on Earth as a mockumentary. The main reason for this is the fact that the topics Philomena Cunk discusses are accurately researched and earnestly presented. It is the humour of Cunk’s inquisitive and opinionated character that transforms the expected conversation on mundane topics like religion, philosophy, and politics into an outrageous interrogation of the past. So, if you are someone who enjoys comedy about academic pomposity disguised as a beautifully shot documentary, then Cunk on Earth is exactly for you.

The first episode of Cunk on Earth, ominously titled “In the Beginning” recalls the opening verses of Genesis and documents Cunk’s look back at the evolution of humankind and the development of cave art. Throughout the episode, Cunk visits caves and ruins where many of these ancient paintings are preserved. Unconvinced by the historical importance of these sites, Cunk remains skeptical about the talent and skill of early cave artists. Rather, Cunk’s interest in this episode seems to be focused on the animosity between cavemen and cows, which, as Cunk reports, to the misfortune of cows, ended with the man’s domestication of their ancestors. 

With her tweed jacket-pantsuit, Cunk confronts history dressed as an expert, but instead of years of pedantic learning, Cunk’s deductions rely on human knowledge. As a historian of human culture, Cunk is not interested in ideas, but rather in the people thinking those ideas. She is inspired by her personal and subjective interest in specific historical moments. Cunk’s passionate monologue about Classical philosophy might have ended in upset when she discovered that it was not Aristotle who said “dance like no one’s watching”, but throughout the episode she remains undeterred in her belief that philosophy should be personally affecting. 

The mixing of the documentary format with the comedy is the brilliance of the series. The juxtaposition of Cunk’s absurd narrations about the invention of numbers, writing, and the shape of Egyptian pyramids and shots of Cunk strolling in museums and locations looking at glass-encased exhibits with boredom contributes to the ongoing joke about history being an assumed construction of the past rather than the perfect record.

The humour of Philomena Cunk is not the knee-slapping type. It is in small details of Cunk’s persistent mispronunciations of important names, her relatable confusion about art, and her long monologues that lead nowhere and altogether baffle the experts she “interviews.” In one of the most sobering moments in the show - in an episode about the wars of the twentieth century, Cunk’s shock after discovering that nuclear warheads stocked by the global superpowers are not non-operational blanks plays out with a pathos while still being perfectly entertaining. We might forget that the threat of nuclear war is just as present today as it was during the Cold War, but like Cunk, this is a prospect too terrifying for us to dwell on. The conversation soon turns to Cunk asking her military expert, Ashley Jackson, about his favourite ABBA song (it is “Dancing Queen,” duh) and this helps to re-calibrate the seriousness of the tone and break the tension. The make-believe normal is back, with a pinch of leftover discomfort from the sudden burst of reality.

Cunk ends each episode with an important question, such as which one of the holy books is best. The satirical nature of these questions reminds us again of the last reflection of hope Attenborough often inserts in his closings. Unlike Attenborough, the character of Cunk is inherently anti-optimist, she has no grand answers for us, nor any consolation to give. What Cunk offers is her genuine confusion, which can be very endearing when combined with her rare moments of spot-on introspection. She demystifies history and art in the funniest way possible while telling us about very uncomfortable realities of life. If none of this was convincing enough for you to give Philomena Cunk a chance, I can vouch that she’s got the best Mother Theresa joke you’ve ever heard.