Stream It Or Skip It: ‘The World According To Jeff Goldblum’ On Disney+, Where Everyday Things Are Seen From The Quirky Star’s Perspective

We all know that Jeff Goldblum does life a little differently than the rest of us. In recent years, he’s leaned on his quirkiness as part of his public persona, and has also become a taste and fashion icon in the process. In this docuseries, part of National Geographic’s representation on Disney+, Goldblum explores the world of seemingly mundane, everyday things in his own way. Read on for more…

THE WORLD ACCORDING TO JEFF GOLDBLUM: STREAM IT OR SKIP IT?

Opening Shot: The nattily-dressed Jeff Goldblum walks down an alley, and we hear in voice over. “Jeff Goldblum here. I’m an actor. I play a little jazz music. A curious cat, that’s true [purrrrr]. And I guess I’m always on the lookout for the unexpected. You know, when I think when you explore the ordinary, you might just find the extraordinary.”

The Gist: The first episode of The World According To Jeff Goldblum is about… sneakers. But what Jeff is fascinated with is just how big “sneakerhead” society has gotten in the 35 years since Nike put out the first Air Jordans. He goes to a shoe trading convention and follows around a top seller who carries around wads of cash and buys up tables full of rare and custom pairs for tens of thousands of dollars.

He also goes to Adidas’s US research lab (he playfully mispronounces “Adidas” in a very Jeff Goldblum-y way) to see the research that goes into creating sneaker lines for top athletes. The researcher says that Jeff is a “bopper” while he measures the actor’s stride, and then shows him a pair of glasses that can feed back emotional responses to a computer; they use that to get their athletes’ perception of the shoe they’ve designed, to make sure its something they’ll feel good wearing.

Finally, Jeff gets a lesson in unboxing videos from one of YouTube’s leading sneaker unboxing video stars, and gets a custom pair of basketball shoes made, with a photo of his father in his school days as one of the inspirations.

Our Take: We admit that our description of The World According To Jeff Goldblum makes the show sound boring. But with Goldblum at the show’s center, it’s anything but. Goldblum’s presence makes a show that seems mundane into one that’s weird, spontaneous, and fun to watch.

At a certain point in the past decade, Goldblum’s endearing awkwardness turned into debonair and hip smoothness, and that persona serves this show well. It doesn’t at all feel scripted, even when we hear Jeff’s pithy voice overs, like when he called the Adidas designer “my new enemy” after the designer called him a “bopper.’ And it shows just the breadth of what the man’s interests are that maybe you don’t see on his Instagram feed.

For instance, did you know that basketball has been in Jeff’s family for generations? In a scene where he talks to some street ball stars and a few WNBAers about what a good pair of sneakers does for their game, he holds his own in a pickup game with the group. And, he takes to unboxing videos like he’s done them for years, likely because his running commentary is so weird and funny.

Sex and Skin: Nothing.

Parting Shot: Jeff unboxes the custom basketball shoes made for him and sees the satin and the “W” that was on the jacket his father was wearing in the picture that he gave Dominic Ciambrone, “The Shoe Surgeon.” “Jeez. I think I love these shoes,” he says, then he sighs.

Sleeper Star: Jacques Slade has millions of YouTube viewers because he makes unboxing new sneaker models an event. And if we were spending hundreds on new limited-edition sneaker models, we’d watch him too.

Most Pilot-y Line: If there’s a drawback, it’s that Goldblum’s personality dominates over everyone he talks to, including some that would be considered to have outsized personalities themselves. But Jeff’s inner life is so fascinating to us that his dominating episodes becomes just a nitpick.

Our Call: STREAM IT. In other episodes, Goldblum takes his view of denim, ice cream, and tattoos. And after you watch the first episode of The World According To Jeff Goldblum, you’ll want to know his thoughts on all of those topics.

Joel Keller (@joelkeller) writes about food, entertainment, parenting and tech, but he doesn’t kid himself: he’s a TV junkie. His writing has appeared in the New York Times, Slate, Salon, VanityFair.com, Playboy.com, Fast Company.com, RollingStone.com, Billboard and elsewhere.

Stream The World According To Jeff Goldblum On Disney+