RM - Legend of Loch Ness

When I learned that JW was going to be investigating the legend of the Loch Ness Monster as the (apparent) RM S5 finale, I was worried. Another of my favorite shows, "Deadliest Warrior", finished its third season on a seemingly similar note - "Vampires vs. Zombies" and it was a failure of the DW's genre. But...

Whereas DW treated Vampires and Zombies as vampires and zombies (albeit very peculiar ones), JW's take on Nessie was a very different story. Firstly, he assumed that Nessie isn't a marine reptile (like a plesiosaur) or a mammal (a sea, dolphin, etc), but a fish. By itself that is nothing new, there are enough cryptozoologists who believe that Nessie, the other lake monsters (like the ones in the US) and their cousins the sea serpents are giant fish (usually eels). But... JW went one step further, and I'm not sure that it was in the right direction.

What is a trademark of a RM episode, beyond the actual catching of the fish? The geography. As a rule, in an episode, JW designates a particular fishing area to himself in which to catch the monster. The area may be small (Chernobyl in "Atomic Assassin"), it may be large (Mongolia in "Mongolian Mauler from the previous season comes to mind), but it is fixed. Here the particular fishing area was supposed to be Loch Ness, but JW went beyond it - to Iceland and Norway. Why? Supposedly because of the Viking connection, and here the problems begin.

There is no particular indication that the Vikings ever been to Loch Ness, and the St. Columba story that JW uses as a springing board for the Vikings has its own problems - in most version I came across the good saint saved the man from the pagan Nessie unharmed. I cannot feel but wonder if JW has bent the truth a bit here to make his actions to move from Loch Ness to Iceland and Norway more justified.

Why would JW need justification? Because his show is called River Monsters, no Sea. Unlike the bull shark, the Greenland shark doesn't appear to be particularly adapted to surviving in fresh water for a particularly long amount of time, and Loch Ness is a freshwater loch, not even brackish. This certainly makes the Greenland shark a highly unlikely candidate for Nessie.

On its own, of course, JW catching a Greenland shark had been a very exciting part of the episode, but RM has made itself into a more than just a fishing show - there is also plenty of research involved, and that research is usually honest and straightforward. In this episode JW's research (and logic) were stretched, and he himself abandoned his freshwater field of operation. This is why I give the "Legend of Loch Ness" episode only 3.5 stars out of five. Pity.