David Blaine's New Series

David Blaine's new series, Do Not Attempt, released a first-look video previewing its stunts, which includes Blaine setting himself on fire before jumping off a river bridge.

We've known about the series for a while. Still, National Geographic kept details relatively secret until the recent Disney D23 event, where fans were given an early look at the documentary. The series follows David Blaine as he explores and pursues "real magic" around the world.

It's not an entirely new concept. In 2015, New York magician Dan White released White Magic on the Travel Channel. In it, White sought out shamans, healers, and mystics while performing illusions that blurred the line between magic and traditional beliefs.

Elsewhere, Derren Brown's Investigates series of specials saw him meet people who claimed to have supernatural abilities, like faith healers and ghost hunters.

Penn and Teller also aired a travel-based Magic and Mystery Tour, in which they traveled to China, Egypt, and India to explore magical traditions.

Blaine's format leans much more toward stunts and less toward magic.

Ron Howard produces the series, which has National Geographic's usual adventurous feel. From the first-look video, you'd be forgiven for thinking of this as a new series of Chris Hemsworth's Limitless series on Disney+, also from National Geographic, but with stunts instead of tests of endurance and resilience.

In David Blaine's 2016 special Beyond Magic, Blaine spends three years tracking down a man named Winston in Africa who teaches Blaine to waterspout, a skill Winston taught himself in order to store and access clean water. Eight years on, the magician seems to be doubling down on this type of adventure.

In Blaine's words, speaking to the camera in the first-look video: "I'm traveling around the world to find the most incredible people that have the most incredible talent that [has] been passed down for generations. Many of the things I'm seeing I didn't even know were possible."

He goes on to say: "And every episode culminates in me taking these skills that I've learned, and I'm trying something that I've never done and never could have imagined."

If it all feels a little like a very produced reality show to you, you're not alone in thinking so. The second most-liked comment under the video on YouTube reads, 'This is like a flashback to the peak of reality shows from 2007-2012.'

There's just no getting around how heavily formatted the series sounds, and two key elements may exacerbate it. Firstly, this isn't actually a trailer for the series; it's titled as a "first look." However, Nat Geo did post the video to YouTube with the tag #OfficialTrailer.

D23 is the official Disney fan club, which hosts an annual Disney fan convention. It aims to connect fans with exclusive experiences and previews of upcoming Disney projects across all its brands, including Pixar, Marvel, and, of course, National Geographic.

These first-look videos serve a very different purpose than a teaser or a full trailer. They're often closer to what we consider to be behind-the-scenes video content. They usually get pulled together while a show is in production, often with much less time and a focused budget.

This is likely why the first-look video is primarily one clip of Blaine talking to the camera, essentially pitching or explaining the show to us, intercut with shots from the stunts and sections of the show they have already filmed.

Blaine even says, "It's kind of the dream show."

However, magician viewers might also feel the show is unusually formulaic because of the precedent set by David Blaine.

Yes, a show that ends with a big stunt is not at all unusual for Blaine—Buried Alive, Frozen in Time, Vertigo, Above the Below, Drowned Alive, and Dive of Death were all specials that were built around or led up to an incredible stunt like a breath hold. But the keyword there is "specials."

Series are not something we've seen from Blaine before. Since Blaine first appeared on screens in "Street Magic" in 1997, an ABC special that redefined magic for a generation, Blaine has primarily focussed on television specials rather than episodic series.

It will be interesting to see whether the same level of emotion he was able to build internationally for his one-off stunt specials can be replicated or sustained for an entire series.

When magician DMC released his Netflix series Death by Magic, he ended each episode by attempting dangerous stunts in honor of magicians who died doing the same stunts. It was easy for viewers to expect DMC to survive the stunts when the next episode was easily seen lined up in Netflix's queue.

You cannot say the same for most of Blaine's previous stunt-based shows, which often aired live. In 2008, 13 million viewers tuned in to see Blaine hold his breath on The Oprah Winfrey Show. In 2020, when Blaine's death-defying Ascension special aired live on YouTube Originals, 770,000 viewers tuned in to see the magician reach an altitude of 25,000 feet while tethered to a cluster of 52 helium balloons. At this point, he untethered himself to put on a parachute and fall back to earth. Ascension's three-hour special has since amassed 26 million views.

With the Disney series slated to release in 2025, we'll need to wait and see how much magic gets included in the series. However, expect to see many close-up tricks throughout his journeys. The more fascinating thing to keep an eye on is how the series is received globally. While it won't be an "event" television – more of a middle ground between his close-up magic specials and live stunts – it does signal a shift in Blaine's TV career, away from one-off specials and into the world of global streaming series, airing on Disney+ and Hulu internationally.

One thing is for sure—Blaine appears to be embracing the format and running directly into a world we've consistently seen him adore. It looks like he's enjoying himself more than ever as he learns from people who can do the most incredible feats. Acts that appear to be magic but are, in fact, examples of scarce skill.

It really does seem like his "dream show," and perhaps everything about the show's format, platform, and feel was built to allow Blaine to pursue what he loves most.