Heard on the radio this afternoon about the History Channel’s new Nostrodomos special. :rolleyes: It discusses how he supposedly predicted 9/11 through references of a “great wall of flame” and how he also predicted when the world comes to an end. :rolleyes: :rolleyes: . (Never mind that you could twist those prophecies to also predict numerous eruptions and fires, but you already knew that.) For a “history” network to peddle this crap is both irresponsible and assumes we’re all idiots. I was already angry that we had to watch stuff about ice truckers and martial arts artists, but at least that’s based in reality. We all used to make fun of the network in the “Hitler Channel” days, but that did teach a lot of people about an important time in history. What’s really frustrating is that History Channel International shows more sober programs about fascinating subjects (Great Wall of China, Rasputin, biblical archaeology, etc.). Why is they think americans need to be fed cheesy pseudo-history?
At least it’s not a Moon Landing Hoax show.
It’s all about “broadening the brand.” Like MTV, A&E, and AMC (to name but a few), the suits have decided that they want more eyeballs on their station, and rather than doing that by being, well, “edgey” and doing something challenging and interesting (In the case of the Hitler Channel, this would be hiring James Randi to do a program on Nostradamus, or broadcasting college lectures, or giving David McCullough his own show.), they take the easy way out and aim for the bottom of the barrel. This is completely stupid and short-sighted, of course, but as one person put it, “Television is the giant butter knife which spreads the poisonous peanut butter of a smooth, homogenius culture across America.”
I thought it died years ago. Sadly History International isn’t doing so well lately.
Nostradamus IS a historical figure, whether you believe in his prophecies or not. It’s not like they’re doing a biography of Albus Dumbledore or something.
I thought it died when they started showing movies like “Planet of the Apes”. I can’t seem to make the connection between that movie and “history”.
They’re not doing biographical shows about a historical figure. The shows are about prophecies that “came true.”
I’m just waiting for them to do a show about Wing Dings conspiracy predictions.
The History Channel has turned into The Bible Channel over the last several years.
My husband watched part of that last night and said there was a lot of debunking. Nostradamus has always skeeved him out and he found the show somewhat comforting.
I stopped watching a few years ago when they showed a program called “The Gray’s Agenda”. A show about the agenda of aliens, who are gray. Talk about your bread and circus. Thousands of years of history to plumb and they go with National Enquirer League crap like this? I’m all done with the History Channel.
I think stuff like this is more prevalent during the Halloween season.
Hi,
I just get bored with the same documentaries over and over. I was really happy to watch a brand new one on Cults (can’t remember which History channel) and although it was not earth-shattering- there was some very interesting footage of Jonestone and the Manson family.
It did. We’re just waiting for the corpse to stop twitching.
Lucky him. I watched part of it too and I must have missed all the debunking. All I saw was the usual band of goons trumpeting Nostradamus’ “accuracy” in predicting everything of any importance, even though they only figure out what he was referring to after the fact. They pulled out the tired old “Hister/Hitler” comparison and the “New City/New York” prediction.
I didn’t see any debunking, even the usual twenty seconds of charity they normally like to drop in.
The Edgar Cayce show was even worse.
Have they finally stopped playing the utterly schizophrenic ravings that is The Men Who Killed Kennedy every November?
That annoys me almost as much. If it’s not UFO or psychic documentaries, it’s brain dead pablum about “OMG THE BIBLE IS TRUE SEE THIS RUIN SAYS SO LOLZ”. At least the Science Channel is still pretty decent.
Kind of like how I can’t seem to make the connection between science-fiction and professional wrestling…
Okay, stay with me, here. All the basic cable channels like to run the pro wrestling, right? Right. Makes money. Gets eyeballs to watch the promos for the upcoming shows. Expands the audience. Cool. So History Channel doesn’t do that 'cause they can’t tie it in to history in any way, right? Right. So what if they could, huh? History’s Cage Matches! Caesar v. Pompey! Grant v. Lee! Lincoln v. Booth! Hitler v. Nostradamus! Oh, man this can’t lose.
I’m just thankful they haven’t started showing Poker, like the Travel Channel.
Jesus, Moses, Nostradamus, what’s the difference?