Summary
A charming family-friendly travel show that brings together Disney’s brands for a series of personable global adventures.
In Disney+’s new family-friendly father-son travel series Rogue Trip, ABC News correspondent Bob Woodruff and his 28-year-old son Mack go on an adventure – or several, to be more accurate – in exotic and far-flung places. In some of them, Mack recalls seeing his father on TV. In all of them, they’re embracing the local culture, climate and wildlife, learning about not just each other but the people they meet – many of whom have had their lives upended by industry and capitalism.
In that sense, Rogue Trip feels a bit hypocritical, being a co-project of Disney’s brands and so enthusiastically espousing its family-first values. It’s an ABC personality on a National Geographic adventure streaming on Disney+, a corporate chimera if ever there was one, but its smartly-chosen host puts Bob and Mack on the side of the locals, since they, too, have had their lives upended. In 2006, an IED accident left Bob with a long road to recovery that had to be aided by his children, who helped him learn to walk and speak again. As Bob bonds with Mack, this role-reversal looms over their interactions, which are much different now, whatever part of the world they’re in.
Rogue Trip is a NatGeo series, though, so many parts of the world are explored, from remote Colombia still shadowed by the spectre of war to Papua New Guinea, Ethiopia, Lebanon, Pakistan, and Ukraine. With most of the world still locked down, this might be the furthest away from home you’re likely to get. I can think of much worse company for a staycation that the Woodruffs.
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