National Geographic's first scripted drama gave every season a different genius
National Geographic had never made a scripted series before it ordered Genius straight to air in 2016. Each season follows one extraordinary life, from Einstein to Picasso to Aretha Franklin, and one planned season about Mary Shelley quietly became a story about the Queen of Soul instead.
The anthology was developed by Noah Pink and Kenneth Biller, with Ron Howard and Brian Grazer among the executive producers. Its opening run, shown between April and June 2017, adapted Walter Isaacson's 2007 biography of Albert Einstein, cutting between a young patent clerk scrambling for a doctorate and teaching post and the celebrated physicist behind relativity. Geoffrey Rush played the older Einstein and Johnny Flynn the younger, and filming took place in Prague in mid-2016.
The network renewed it in April 2017, but held back the next subject so as not to steal attention from the finale, naming Pablo Picasso the following day. Antonio Banderas shared the role with Alex Rich, and shooting began in Málaga in November 2017 before moving through cities including Barcelona, Paris and Budapest. The second season premiered on April 24, 2018 to mixed notices, though critics singled out Banderas.
Season three was meant to follow Mary Shelley before switching to Aretha Franklin, played by Cynthia Erivo, who recorded most of the music herself. Producers never got the rights to her two most famous songs, so Respect was missing from the soundtrack. COVID-19 halted production in March 2020; work resumed that October and the season aired in March 2021.
A fourth season, ordered in December 2020 for National Geographic and Disney+, paired Martin Luther King Jr. and Malcolm X, played by Kelvin Harrison Jr. and Aaron Pierre, and premiered on February 1, 2024. Along the way the series picked up two Primetime Emmy Awards and an NAACP Image Award. The New York Times science writer Dennis Overbye called the Einstein season a binge-worthy psychological thriller.
Source: Genius (American TV series)
