Post-Shark Week rant

And so, Shark Week has come and gone, and all I can say is – fake. It’s, really, like the Animal Planet shows, like “Man-Eating Super Wolves” or whatever – deliberately fake information, pretending to be real. The only question is why.

I admit that unlike the AP shows Discovery has tried to make its shark week specials both entertaining and educational, but what it did instead was irritate various scientists who were quote mined by the shows, or downright tricked, etc. True, there was a certain catch-22 (or something similar) factor as well: the shows (and Discovery?) needed rich sponsors, but these sponsors wanted to sponsor something, well, respectable, and so Shark Week shows had to be both educational and entertaining...only they hadn’t.

Seriously, they could have just made them educational; showing, for example, how hammerhead sharks get measured up in the wild, live, is already very exciting – but instead Discovery made this a part of a program that mainly talks about a giant and mythical hammerhead, called “Old Hitler” and “The Harbourmaster”. This is simply wrong.

Firstly, and mainly, hammerhead sharks are less dangerous to humans than great white, bull and tiger sharks. Their particular head shape makes them better hunters on the sea floor, but less so in the open ocean (unlike the tiger sharks, say), and thus makes them less likely to encounter humans, even scientists and fishermen, live. 

And also, “Old Hitler”? Seriously? The chancellor of the Third Reich was a piece of shit accountable for 6+ years of blood, smoke and tears – much more than any shark, regardless of size, ever did. To name any animal (even fish) after him is just wrong. Also – rather dumb. Yes, you can give various animals human names, but they are not really their names, but names that people give them for their own convenience. If animals do have names that they give to each other, they probably do not sound very human...

Getting back on track, if you discount their latest mocumentary about the megalodon, Shark Week at least has tried to be somewhat scientific; its’ AP counterparts, like the before-mentioned “Man-Eating Super Wolves” did not. It even admitted that in the disclaimer, making one wonder why did it was made and aired at all? In the decades past, AP was educational, if somewhat naive (just look at the old episodes of “Wild Kingdom”), now it’s either pure make-believe (like the “Lost Tapes” series), something reminiscent of “Urban Tarzan” from Spike, albeit less staged, or something like “The Pool Master”, which isn’t about animals at all – and since the channel is called, well, Animal Planet, it makes one wonder why is “The Pool Master” aired there at all. At least “Too Cute” or “Pit Bulls and Parolees” have some animals in them, for example... But “Man-Eating Super Wolves” is fake, just as much as of the transformations in the latest “Scooby-Doo” movie are. At least “Scooby-Doo”, the hound that just does not die, is just a cartoon and does not pretend to be anything else. “Super Wolves” pretend to be real...

 

And so, in conclusion, I am forced to admit: Discovery channel has deteriorated somewhat in quality of the shows, but it is still far ahead in the same quality ‘field’ as compared to Animal Planet.