Shark Week, The Good, The Bad, And The Ugly

[coryn h. fishowl]

Shark week, the week of discovery channels most views has now ended. In the past, for me at least, he end of SW was a time heralding a boundlessly distraught mood. This is the forum for those who must cope, who must criticise, and who must praise shark week, what have you to say about this years exibition.

The lack of tears for myself, is due to, in my opinion, the shameful decline of discovery channel from the crocodille hunter, curiosity, wild russia, and extreme engineering to swamp loggers, deadliest catch, finding bigfoot, and Amish mafia. Where once the channel stood as a Titan of entertaining education, it now hemmorages loyal viewers in favor of short term ratings. I reached my peak of rage inducing frustration after watching numerous hours of shark attack shows, and finally, in anticipation had the chance to see a scientifically relevant documentary, and instead watched with gritted teeth a misnomer filled mockumentary called megalodon the monster lives. It features a paid actor who is called a marine biologist, but with little research needed was found to simply be an actor, along with all the other scientists he worked with. It starts with a clip of a boat sinking that has been found by no one else on the internet. This is presumed to be caused by the 60 foot megalodon. The movie then shows photographed evidence, all of which has been examined before and found to be fake, citing it as credible evidence. They cite a carbon dated tooth from 10000 years ago, megaladon is believed to have gone extinct 1.5 million years ago. The only problem with this is that it was never carbon dated, but rather dating using manganese deposits, a method heralded as being highly inaccurate by scientists. All through the movie it is stated hat megalodon could be alive in the depths if the ocean, despite it having been found that megalodon fed on ancient whales, animals which live/travel near the surface, though occasionally diving for squid, as sperm whales do. Once again there is an inherent flaw in this logic, in that we would find dead/massively wounded whales, when conveniently there is only one picture of such a whale that has been examined to be fake. This is entirely disregarding the fact that megalodon would be horribly adapted to the deep, with teeth made to saw through massive chunks of meat, not grip squids andsmsmall fish that are found in deep. Again this is without mentioning that megalodon's massive size would prevent it from living in an area with such little food. Simply look at any expedition to the deep sea or ask any anger, where is the majority of biomass available, the weedy, coral filled, sun, algae, and plankton fueled shallows, or thousands of feet in the deep where there is precious little food and no light save for bioluminescent organisms. Finally at the end of this atrocity which I could never bring myself to call a documentary, a whales was shown breaching, shooting a plume of air and water many feet into the air, to which everyone on board of the ship points toward the animal with no dorsal fin and shouts shark. In the last 30 seconds, while everyone watching this crap is calling every person they have ever met, screaming at them to never to swim in the ocean, there flashes for 3 seconds a warning that some of his may have been dramatised but there are still sighting of a 30 foot shark known as submarine known as submarine off of he Baja peninsula, which has precious little to do with the rest of this movie. Though there were many good shows this shark week, they had to fight ferociously to climb from looming shadow of the crap filled hole that was megalodon, the monster lives. On he upside there were more documentaries of gw sharks leap in 20 feet in the air with seals in heir mouth. So what have you to say about shark week.

[coryn h. fishowl]

I apologize for the terrible grammer I wrote this on a phone

[Cgrinder]

I think it was 2011 or so when they had Craig Ferguson on Shark Week. That was hilarious. On Demand it if you have the chance.

[RyneB]

im glad you brought it up. I have always been a fan of shark week. I feel the past years have been OK at best. It seemed (not including this year) the past 3 years have all be "air jaws." About the great whites coming out of the water to hit a seal. That's all fine and dandy the first year, but after seeing it over and over, you just get tired of it, I like to see hammer heads, tigers, blue sharks,reef sharks etc. I was so excited to watch it this year, then the Megalodon travesty came on. I chalked it up as a sci fi movie mistake. Then Voodoo Shark came on, that got me really upset. I did like the shark attack one though, like when I saw that guy get nailed by 2 Great whites. Iv seen the video before, but never heard from the guy. I also liked the Alien sharks one. Overall though, I would give it a 3 out of 10. I found myself watching the shark specials on NatGeo. That was informative and wasn't hyped up to be something it wasn't. I feel that shark week got too big for its pants. That after dark live show was also terrible. I feel like they fed into the reality tv monster, its just sad that this is what America has become. The powers that be feel no one wants to learn or be educated, just fed a bunch of crap. Same reason why that Kardashian show is still on TV, people don't care about reality.

[Bluebasser86]

I thought the end to Megaldon was pretty comical when the female diver fired her spear gun/tracking device and they picked up a signal a couple minutes later that was "diving" at a high rate of speed and lost signal several thousand feet down. Seems to me it was "diving" about the same rate her spear would have been sinking if she'd missed her target 

[0119]

Just like all the new rods and reels are more bling, chrome and ball bearings for the sake of ball bearings........so are broadcast channels more dribble.  Todays angler has to have color matching rods/reels to go with their bright yellow sneakers.........Todays t.v. viewer has to have mindless bloodlust and avoid thought provoking information.   Nature channels have turned into like you said...the Amish mafia and 'I was kidnapped by bigfoot'.  The History channel is perhaps the worst. It has turned from History, its namesake, to a nearly 24hr. a day Alien documentary complete with college professors explaining natural disaster as a tool for little green men.  Then of course there's Food TV no longer having instructional shows that help you cook, only cupcake wars and cookie wars. 

[coryn h. fishowl]

im glad you brought it up. I have always been a fan of shark week. I feel the past years have been OK at best. It seemed (not including this year) the past 3 years have all be "air jaws." About the great whites coming out of the water to hit a seal. That's all fine and dandy the first year, but after seeing it over and over, you just get tired of it, I like to see hammer heads, tigers, blue sharks,reef sharks etc. I was so excited to watch it this year, then the Megalodon travesty came on. I chalked it up as a sci fi movie mistake. Then Voodoo Shark came on, that got me really upset. I did like the shark attack one though, like when I saw that guy get nailed by 2 Great whites. Iv seen the video before, but never heard from the guy. I also liked the Alien sharks one. Overall though, I would give it a 3 out of 10. I found myself watching the shark specials on NatGeo. That was informative and wasn't hyped up to be something it wasn't. I feel that shark week got too big for its pants. That after dark live show was also terrible. I feel like they fed into the reality tv monster, its just sad that this is what America has become. The powers that be feel no one wants to learn or be educated, just fed a bunch of crap. Same reason why that Kardashian show is still on TV, people don't care about reality.

I must admit alien sharks was neat, I had never heard of a frilled shark. I am surprised at the lack of mako, bull, and tiger shark shows, though I actually found shark after dark humorous. At the very least, it did not claim to be a documentary like megalodon did, for which Discovery owes a megalopology.

[coryn h. fishowl]

Just like all the new rods and reels are more bling, chrome and ball bearings for the sake of ball bearings........so are broadcast channels more dribble.  Todays angler has to have color matching rods/reels to go with their bright yellow sneakers.........Todays t.v. viewer has to have mindless bloodlust and avoid thought provoking information.   Nature channels have turned into like you said...the Amish mafia and 'I was kidnapped by bigfoot'.  The History channel is perhaps the worst. It has turned from History, its namesake, to a nearly 24hr. a day Alien documentary complete with college professors explaining natural disaster as a tool for little green men.  Then of course there's Food TV no longer having instructional shows that help you cook, only cupcake wars and cookie wars.

Oh my goodness, holy crap, I have not noticed, even the food network has gone to hell!

[Brian6428]

Megalodon was the biggest load of crap I have ever seen. I love discovery channel and I love shark week, but that was just unacceptable. I agree with Bluebasser, "megalodon" was diving at the same rate the tracker would be falling, if (when) the female diver missed. Also, how am I expected to believe that this supposed 60 ft long shark destroyed the fake whale and the shark cage, but both divers escaped uninjured? Discovery really let me down with this one.

 

Brian

[AK-Jax86]

Shark week in the past was epic they fell off a lot past few years. Seems like it's te same shows just different people and stories... How many times are we going to see air jaws lol we get it great whites jump out the water to catch seals we get it after Air Jaws 32

[Smallmouth Hunter]

I think air jaws is pretty cool. It does get repetitive though... I liked the Alien sharks show. Did anyone else see the goblin shark? That thing is crazy!

 

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=GjRSlnJ1rA4  (<-- not my video)

 

skip to 0:18

[Fish Chris]

I think air jaws is pretty cool. It does get repetitive though... I liked the Alien sharks show. Did anyone else see the goblin shark? That thing is crazy!

 

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=GjRSlnJ1rA4  (<-- not my video)

 

skip to 0:18

Yea', those Goblin Sharks are crazy. I never saw this vid before though. Thanks The mouth looked, and worked, so much like a Sturgeon mouth.... except with teeth LOL Trip, huh ?

 

Peace,

Fish

[Sam]

I got tired of watching the same thing over and over again on shark week so I went to the James Bond movies on Epic.

 

The Bond movies are still being shown without commercials.

[sarcazmo]

The fact that they aired megalodon at all makes me want to NEVER watch shark week again.

 

There was a program a couple years ago called 'sharkman' or something like that.  I remember the title wasnt that great but the show was FASCINATING.  It was all about this guys quest to put a great white shark into tonic immobility.  They had some great footage of him putting smaller sharks, and even a tiger into it but he couldnt find a white that was 'game enough' to try it on.

 

They need more programs like that.