I have this theory (that I recently formed whilst watching the [del]Hitler[/del] History Channel) that the Pay TV channels have realised people just flip through them to see what’s on, without stopping to see what the channel is.
So, it doesn’t matter whether “World’s ____iest ____” is on Fox 8 or Discovery or Arena; the idea is that someone flipping through the channels will see it and think “Ah, car chases/gunfire/boobs/explosions/animals with sharp teeth and claws!” and stop to watch.
Still doesn’t change the fact that there’s nothing “History”-related about Canadians driving trucks across frozen lakes, though…
The problem is that, at least in the UK, Cities of the Underworld has been on at least two other channels before it reaches the History Channel. If it was new programming, that never reappeared on another, then fine. But what we have is 5 or 6 disparate channels sharing the same limited pool of programmes. We don’t have 6 channels (all the discoveries, the various Learnings, history, etc.) We effectively have two. None of which should show moron fodder like Ice Road Tossers or Gay Guys With Big Choppers or whatever the hell it’s called.
What I find most annoying is how BAD the A&E/Biography Channel biographies are now. First of all they are 99% of the time about celebrities. Some celeb bios can be interesting. But Melanie Griffith? Really? But even when it is a celeb who is sort of interesting it’s never like the old A&E Biographies where the narrator tells us about the subject’s childhood and all that. Now they have some Entertainment Weekly reporter talking. I’m not making this as clear as I want, but suffice it to say the Biographies are shit now.
As for Ice Road Truckers…Anyone see the show on The History Channel that came out well before IRT about how that road got started? THAT was fascinating shit.
Well, maybe - there are actually two PBS channels out of Buffalo - 17 and 23. Here in Toronto, 17 is the only one available on cable - you need a pretty good antenna to get 23, which supposedly has the better concert/opera/ballet/theatre line-up. PBS seems to be good for a bunch of BritComs and Mystery shows (that, curiously, don’t show up on BBC Canada nor on the Mystery network.)
We just got Bell Express Vu, and I’ve been slowly sifting my way through the various packages and bundles, but I find myself humming Bruce Springsteen’s ‘57 channels and nothing’s on’ in alternation with Neil Young’s ‘Piece of Crap’. Probably just a coincidence…
In which one of your history classes in grade school or college did you cover dinosaurs? Nobody’s disputing that dinosaurs existed in the past but they didn’t exist in our past. So far as the social science of history is concerned dinosaurs don’t belong under the history umbrella. A paleontologist is not a historian.
To answer your question, I never covered dinos in a history class.
You made your point well…I was talking “history” in a very broad term. I can very much see what you mean in that it’s not “our” history, and how a paleontologist isn’t a historian.
HBO. They started out airing Porky’s twenty-seven times each week. They tested the waters of original programming with stuff like Arliss. Then they discovered a market for quality when they aired The Sopranos. From Porky’s to Rome and The Wire – seems like a pretty clear arc to me. (I’ll admit, Trueblood is something of an aberration, and not a harbinger of continued good things.)
Odesio: Your point is well taken - I was taught that History Begins at Sumer as well. That being said, I find fact based programming on subjects such as paleontology, archaeology and paleo-zoology infinitely more interesting and closer to the channel’s mandate than programming on crypto-zoology and fringe ‘science’.
I don’t know if I would call them examples of a reasonably high-profile cable network which tightened up its format and aimed for a more upscale, if limited, audience, by appealing to the highest common denominator (from John DiFool), but both the Golf Channel and HGTV seem to be remaining stable rather than decaying. I submit that it is hugely due to their sponsors’ desire to sell their stuff through infomercials disguised as programming rather than any sort of artistic integrity, but perhaps I am being too cynical.
I was watching The Universe episode last night that deals with faultline earthquake prediction and how particular rock compositions may exert specific influences upon it when I noticed it was on of all things the History Channel and, of course, immediately thought of this thread.
The first time I saw a Roswell documentary on the History Channel, I went, “Hmm, that was interesting.” It’s when every other show on there started resembling a bad episode of the X-Files that I tuned out.
And yes finding out about the folklore behind, say, Bigfoot, can be somewhat interesting. But watching the same grainy footage of someone walking around in a sasquatch costume, and hearing a narrator about “what lurks in the woods” can get pretty old pretty quick.
What happened to the History channel? I’d damn sure want to know. They used to have interesting programming. I could tune in one night and catch stuff about almost any historical figure, then the history of pickling, followed by famous duels throughout time.
Now they seem to continuously show “Modern Marvels” which is interesting , but not interesting enough to be on 2 to 4 hours an evening. trhe Universe? Interesting but geez, isn’t that more suited for the Discovery Channel? Even the monstor shows they’ve been playing seem out of place. What happened to history?
Sad, imho. At least when they were mining out WWII it was historical.
I think USA may be a contender. They used to be pretty bad, but with Monk, psyche, Burn Notice, and In Plain Sight, they seem to be pushing hard to get better.
Yesterday was the 200th birthday of both Lincoln and Darwin. What could scream “Lineup” louder? A two hour Plutarchian dual biography of them would even be in order, could be great, but if it’s out of your budget then at least pull your best Lincoln documentary out of the dry ice and your best Darwin documentary and show them consecutively. Instead it was the usual lineup of prison gangs and truckers and a CITIES OF THE UNDERWORLD episode on an Australian gold rush town.
Their executives are evidently all former widget manufacturers. (There is a documentary on the plot to kidnap Lincoln’s dead body this weekend, but something on his life might be interesting as well; apparently nobody ever tried to steal Darwin’s corpse or he might have been in there as well.)
It’s rumored that when Lincoln’s coffin was opened he was holding a brass plaque with the date on which Nostradamus’s coffin had been opened a century before, and that in skipping letters on the plaque, it predicted Kathy Griffin’s divorce. Perhaps this will be on there.
It’s ironic the TV Tropes used the Golf Channel and the History Channel as examples of networks that have stuck to their original concept. After all, the Golf Channel has devolved into nothing but reality shows like The Real Caddyshack and paranormal crap like Fairway Crop Circles.
I was just thinking about how USA improved over the past 20 years. When it first went on the air, it was pretty bad except for late night programming (anyone remember Night Flight?). They used to have lots of wrestling, erotic thrillers without the T&A, straight-to-video movies, and the like. Now there’s a lot of decent original programming. No Night Flight, unfortunately.
ESPN has improved quite a bit from its early days, where they broadcast more than their share of oddball sports like caber tossing, Aussie Rules chess and the like. Maybe it’s more mainstream sports, but the days when odds were pretty good that you’d tune in to a bodybuilder pulling boxcars with a rope clenched to his teeth are long gone.
I’d also say that Comedy Central has improved from what it was 10 years ago, although there’s still too many straight-to-video 1980s/1990s teen/college themed movies for my tastes.
Just to put the cat among the pigeons, has anyone considered writing to the History Channel and linking this thread? It may not help, but they ought to know that people are this dissatisfied.
