Boom-di-ya-dah!

I like the Discovery Channel. I like it even more since I discovered it had shows other than World War 2 documentaries, imagine that. But I'm annoyed at the Discovery Channel's bad habit. "What bad habit?" you might ask. Allow me to explain.

One of my favorite shows is Mythbusters. It stars a hyperactive guy named Adam, an intelligent talking walrus and three nerds who I couldn't care less about if one of them wasn't a girl. What they do on the show is test myths and urban legends using science and engineering. "Can you make a propane tank explode just by shooting it with a gun? Let's find out!" says the easily excitable Adam to the chagrin of his stoic walrus companion. The best part of the show is the incredible destruction and havoc their devices can wreak on the studio for our pleasure.

I can just imagine a room full of executives discussing ideas for a new show. "Hey!" says one. "People seem to love explosions and stuff from Mythbusters. Why not make a show about just that!" he exclaims. So we got Smash Labs, a new show which features the kind of explosions and crashes you see in Mythbusters minus the fun. Honestly it's just pointless destruction. The Mythbusters smashed things FOR SCIENCE! In Smash Labs, it's obvious they smash things FOR THE LULZ LOLOLOL! Morons. I think it got cancelled. Good.

Then there's Man vs. Wild, a show where a man who is called "Bear" (think about that) is sent to the far off boonies of some country to show us how to survive the wilderness. Jungles, deserts, tundra, he's been there and ate that. Every episode he's placed in increasingly hostile environments to show nature who's boss. With his trusty knife, he carves a path of blood and destruction, eating the flesh of lesser creatures and chopping vegetation to make shelter and wood for burning. One time he pissed into an empty snakeskin he made and then drank from it later when he felt he needed a light beverage. I think he might be insane but it's an awesome show. It's Man vs. Wild and man always wins.

Since this show became so popular, the Discovery Channel came up with a new show called Survivorman. While Smash Labs took the most exciting part of Mythbusters and made it boring, Survivorman takes the most boring part of Man vs. Wild and somehow makes it boring-er. I know it's not fair to compare both shows since Survivorman isn't as blatant a ripoff as Smash Labs but why watch Survivorman gather non-threatening coconuts when you can watch Bear Grylls tackle a gator? Survivorman is basically just one lone guy who's given a bunch of cameras and shipped off somewhere to film himself surviving. It must be a cheap show to make. Most of the time in Survivorman, we see the host lying down, conserving his energy or talking to himself. In Man vs. Wild, Bear Grylls spends his leisure time climbing sheer rock faces and jumping down waterfalls. Surviving the outdoors isn't really pleasant. Survivorman drives this point home, Man vs. Wild makes it look tasty.

The Deadliest Catch is another show worth watching. It's a documentary about the rough and tough fishermen who catch crab for a living. It's no joke, people have died doing this. They do heavy work pulling the "pots" out from the bottom of the sea all the while braving the rough seas and the biting cold wind. It's a manly show about manly men doing manly things and making manly money. (Crab fishing can be quite profitable)

The Discovery Channel came up with a new show (see a pattern yet?) called Swords: Life on the Line about people who catch swordfish. It's not half bad actually but do we really need another show about people who sail around catching dumb marine lifeforms? It's dangerous true, but I think Deadliest Catch is a lot grittier. Instead of taking something from a previous show and tinkering around with it, Discovery Channel just gave us more of the same which is better. I like Swords: Life on the Line but couldn't they come up with a better name? The Deadliest Catch is an awesome name. You immediately think of danger, the struggle to acquire something and the bravery of the fishermen. How would it sound if The Deadliest Catch was called Crabs: Against the Tide or Crabs: Between a Rock and a Hard Place? Not so great, huh?

That's about it for my random thoughts about the Discovery Channel. Maybe next time I'll write about that piece-of-crap pointless show called Time Warp.

The world is just average.