Aerial Cities

Taking wing over the City of Angels reveals much more than the secrets of Hollywood’s famous back lots. Three days a week, stardom seekers line up early in a nondescript Burbank warehouse district – home to Central Casting, which helps aspiring actors land background roles. L.A. might be best known as a TV and film capital, but it’s also home to the birth of surfing and skateboarding, which started in a Santa Monica neighborhood known as Dogtown. By air, viewers also can discover the hiding-in-plain-sight history of the city’s first big industry: oil. One working oil derrick is tucked into Cardiff Tower, and another is covered under a colorful wooden structure right next door to Beverly Hills High School.

With its famous hills, bridges and Bay, people could spend a day in San Francisco just admiring the views, but this aerial adventure explores the bustling heart of one of America’s busiest cities. Gridlocked morning commutes have inspired innovative solutions, from a rebirth of the ferry business to a network of wifi-enabled buses that transports armies of tech workers to Silicon Valley every day allowing them work while they ride. The tech boom is also reshaping the city’s famous skyline, which now boasts the second tallest building west of the Mississippi. As night falls, lighting engineers climbing the Bay Bridge show how technology meets art in the 25,000-LED-bulb spectacle Bay Lights, which started out as a temporary work and is now yet another iconic feature of San Francisco.

From the bustling port that drives Florida’s economy and the neon-lit clubs of Miami Beach to the fascinating story of how Miami was founded, this episode reveals a city that’s about much more than sun and surf. From the air, viewers can trace the growth of Little Havana, built by Cuban exiles who still gather in Domino Park to meet old friends, and explore lesser-known corners of town like Liberty Square, which inspired the Academy Award-winning film “Moonlight.” Miami offers a rich mix of manmade and natural wonders, from the celebrity hideaways of Star Island to the pink flamingo haven of Hialeah Park, whose flamingo residents today are descendants of a single flock brought from Cuba in 1934.

Filmed over Chief Seattle Days, which honor the Native American chief that gave the city its name, this episode connects past and present in one of the country’s most dynamic metropolitan areas. A tugboat towing timber to a lumberyard at the Port of Everett is a reminder of the industry that built Seattle, but there’s no missing the $4 billion urban campus of Amazon, which now occupies 19% of all prime office space in the city. From the air, viewers can also trace the journey of coffee giant Starbucks from its first store in Pike Place Market to its massive world headquarters at the Port of Seattle.