General · EdgepediaOctober 3, 20265 min read

The World According to Jeff Goldblum

The World According to Jeff Goldblum is an American documentary series hosted by Jeff Goldblum, in which each episode examines a familiar everyday object or pastime, such as sneakers, ice cream, or coffee, and traces the science, history, and people behind it. Produced by National Geographic and Nutopia, it premiered on November 12, 2019 as a launch title for the Disney+ streaming service and ran for two seasons and 22 episodes before ending in January 2022.¹^•²

Key fact	Detail
Format	Docuseries in which Goldblum pulls on the thread of a deceptively familiar object to reveal connections, science, and history; episodes run about 25 to 27 minutes¹^•²
Premiere	November 12, 2019, streaming only on Disney+, as one of the service's launch originals¹
Season 1	12 episodes: Sneakers, Ice Cream, Tattoos, Denim, BBQ, Gaming, Bikes, RVs, Coffee, Pools, Cosmetics, and Jewelry¹
Season 2	10 episodes, first five released November 12, 2021 on Disney+ Day; topics included magic, fireworks, monsters, dogs, and dance³
Production	National Geographic and Nutopia; executive producers Jeff Goldblum, Matt Renner, Jane Root, Peter Lovering, Arif Nurmohamed, and Keith Addis¹
Recognition	Nominated for the Primetime Emmy for Outstanding Hosted Nonfiction Series or Special in 2020 and 2022⁴
Reception	83% average Tomatometer and 76% Popcornmeter on Rotten Tomatoes⁵

Spoilers

Seasons and broadcast history

Season 1 premiered at the launch of Disney+ on November 12, 2019, with new episodes streaming each Friday, and concluded on January 24, 2020.¹^•¹¹ It was Disney+'s first original series from National Geographic, and Disney+ renewed it for a second season in January 2020, before the first season had finished airing.¹¹

Season 2 debuted its first five episodes on November 12, 2021, timed to the Disney+ Day global celebration, which fell on Goldblum's birthday. The season's subjects included magic, fireworks, monsters, dogs, and dance, with guests such as the magicians Penn & Teller, viral video creator Zach King, and two-time Oscar-winning animator Phil Tippett, along with a search for Bigfoot in the woods of Northern California.³ Later episodes in the season covered puzzles and tiny things, birthdays, backyards, and biker culture.¹² The season ran through January 2022, bringing the series to 22 episodes in total, after which it was not renewed.²^•¹³

Origin and development

Disney announced the series on April 11, 2019 at its Investor Day presentation in Burbank, California, as one of the originals planned for the Disney+ streaming service, which launched that November at $6.99 per month.⁶ The show came from Disney-owned National Geographic, which Disney had acquired with 20th Century Fox's film and television assets.⁶

Goldblum's path to the host role ran through earlier nonfiction work. He hosted three episodes of the National Geographic science series Explorer in 2017, and network executives approached him about his own show soon after. He described the format as evolving organically out of those conversations, and early in production Nutopia asked him to record musings about his interests, some of which became material for the series.⁷^•⁸ Goldblum, whose film career includes Jurassic Park, The Fly, and Independence Day, called the series a passion project and served as host and executive producer.⁷^•⁹

Format

Each episode is built around a single subject that viewers already know, and follows a three-part structure the production described as the How, the story behind the item and how it is made; the Now, the ways the item has become part of daily life; and the Why, the secrets behind its success and its future.¹ Goldblum meets three broad categories of people: innovators and makers who transformed the object into a cultural force, passionate obsessives who have taken their enthusiasm to an extreme, and subcultures whose connection to the subject is not obvious at first glance.¹

The first season's subjects ranged from sneakers and ice cream to tattoos, denim, barbecue, gaming, bikes, RVs, coffee, pools, cosmetics, and jewelry.¹ Reporting on the show noted the range of settings Goldblum visited, including a water park for the pools episode, his first visit to one, and conversations with NASA astronauts.⁹ An AwardsWatch profile described the 12-part series as canvassing the globe for different cultures and ideas, with stops in Detroit for bikes, New Orleans for the Southern Decadence festival, Connecticut for barbecue pit masters, and a gay line dancing bar in Texas.¹⁰

Reception

On Rotten Tomatoes the series holds an average Tomatometer of 83 percent across seasons and a Popcornmeter audience score of 76 percent.⁵ The site's critics consensus for season 1 called it a quirky and upbeat docuseries that fans of Goldblum would enjoy, while suggesting viewers not already attuned to his style might not appreciate it.¹⁴ A TIME review of the initial Disney+ lineup was more critical, finding that episodes dragged despite running about 30 minutes and that the show offered a general-interest treatment of its subjects.¹⁵

The series received Primetime Emmy nominations for Outstanding Hosted Nonfiction Series or Special in 2020 and 2022.⁴ A series producer's credit also lists a Critics Choice Award win and an Emmy nomination for the show.¹⁶

Availability

After its run, the series was removed from Disney+ in the United States during the service's 2023 content reductions, and as of late 2026 it was not streaming on any major platform in the United States, though it remained available in Australia, including on SBS On Demand.¹³^•¹⁷

References

Initially written Oct 3, 2026 · Reviewed: Oct 25, 2026 · Edited: Oct 15, 2026; Oct 25, 2026; Nov 1, 2026