By Manila Ryce
Published Friday, July 7th, 2006, 4:56 am
Filed under: Science and Technology, Personal Posts, Entertainment
After talking with a friend of mine I decided that I finally needed to do a post on how much the Discovery Channel sucks. I remember the days when I could turn on the TV at any time and catch a narrative on human nature by Desmond Morris, a physics program with Stephen Hawking, or a documentary of animals eating each other in some random part of Africa. Now when I turn on the Discovery Channel all I ever see is a family of Reality-TV douchebags arguing with each other over motorcycle deadlines. First it was Monster Garage, then American Chopper, and now American Hot Rod. Why is the Discovery Channel trying to appeal to couch potatoes with compensation issues? That’s what Spike TV and NASCAR are for.
And it’s not just the Discovery Channel. TLC turned gay way before the Discovery Channel was even experimenting at summer camp. Now their lineup consists of shows like What Not to Wear, A Wedding Story, Trading Spaces, and Take Home Chef. Again, between Oxygen covering the housewife demographic, and Lifetime covering the battered housewife demographic, there was no need for TLC to change their programming. Both channels have slowly phased into two extremes. I’m either beating off to Jesse James (in a manly way) on the Discovery Channel, or castrating myself with instruction from the “do it yourself” show on TLC. And if Animal Planet didn’t get the guy from Blue’s Clues to narrate to me like I’m an idiot I’d probably watch that instead.
With every other show on the Discovery Channel using the word extreme, mega, or ultimate in its title I’m inclined to think that it was hijacked by the same geniuses running Mountain Dew’s marketing campaign. Well if that’s the case then let’s compromise. We could combine the nature documentaries with American Chopper so that any deadline not met results in one of those steroid monkeys being fed to lions. Or perhaps you could bring back Professor Hawking to narrate a physics show while his wheelchair is being made into an Extreme Mega Monster Chair that takes up two handicap spots and darts around a Mobius Strip race track. Then we could have our pi and eat it too, intellectuals and Coors Lite drinkers alike.
There’s nothing wrong with making science more palatable to the masses. For example, Bill Nye the Science Guy was a genius at providing an entertaining show which actually made you think. You can put some sugar on your Grape Nuts, but once you start eating 90% sugar and 10% grain it’s no longer nutritious. Now is the time when humanity needs cerebral stimulation more than ever, and the Discovery Channel has failed us in that regard. All I can hope for now is that their monthly magazine doesn’t follow suit and turn into Cosmo.
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Hah, I’d have to agree with you there. Discovery Channel has definitely gone to shit, I’m not even sure why they still call it by the same name. There’s nothing interesting or educational about it, although I do enjoy the “dirty jobs” show.
But you have to give Spike TV a break. At least they show UFC fights (although their props for that might be negated by showing WWF right afterwards…).
07/9/06 at 5:26 am
Haha, yes it’s true, it’s true! Since I don’t have TV, I don’t get to watch the channel enough to really notice, but when I think about the few times I do get to watch it, like in the gym or something, I have to put it on animal planet. Despite the commentary aimed at retarded crack babies, it’s better than sitting through how to make junk into bikes and bikes into super badass bikes, etc. You know, 9 years ago I decided that the $60/per month for cable could be put to better use elsewhere. Almost a decade later, I have seen nothing to change that assertion.
07/9/06 at 10:17 pm