after a few false starts, i got through this last night, and i don't have much of a comment regarding it, except to point out that even a three hour documentary is not enough to even begin a narrative on the sumerians, even given the nature of the sources. each of these city-states, themselves, requires a lengthy narrative. so, when you only touch the surface like this, you're not leaving open a lot of space for criticisms. some of these videos work well as narratives, regardless; i found that this one was
too cursory, and i'd encourage the creator of these films to replace this single narrative on the sumerians with a series of narratives on each of the city-states, leading up to the collapse of the neo-sumerian empire, and it's replacement with the beginnings of semitic civilization.
i do have a bit of a comment on sumerian origins, though.
i've previously suggested that the sumerians were probably caucasian speakers that ultimately descended from somewhere around the black sea. the reason i've done this is that there are language isolates in the region to this day, and it's a sort of an easiest answer type theory. but, because they only really left us hieroglyph-type writing. it's essentially impossible to be really certain about it.
the video presents an interesting theory about sumerians ultimately resettling in the region due to a flood along the area that created the persian gulf. while the flood myth seems to be traced to rising ocean levels in the period, which may have also been partly due to climate change as a result of early agricultural adoption, there isn't any good reason to trace the movement out of the gulf, itself. the earliest agricultural adoption was actually to the north, in modern-day turkey (unless evidence of earlier agricultural adoption exists in the persian gulf). there would have been similar flood-type events in multiple areas, including in the black sea. indeed, the universality of the flood myth across multiple civilizations in disparate regions is a part of the logic in suggesting that it is based on an event that actually happened.
that said, these ideas aren't mutually exclusive. it's entirely plausible that populations moved into the region from both directions, and entirely plausible that there were caucasian speakers in the area that become flooded to produce the persian gulf. so, this is in some ways a minor detail. but, i think it's important to point it out - because i would argue that the evidence suggests that the sumerians came from the north, rather than the south.
besides that, this is what it is - a very cursory narrative, that is useful as a basic introduction, i suppose, but not much else.