Giant Freshwater Stingray
By Jeff Pfeiffer
“The biggest fish we’ve seen! A real-life Loch Ness monster.”
That’s how biologist Zeb Hogan describes a creature encountered in one of the new summer episodes of National Geographic Channel’s popular Hooked series, which journeys across the globe with anglers and scientists to see the most extreme encounters in megafishing, and the research being done to protect these fish.
By Jeff Pfeiffer (aka RabbitEars)
First of all — yes, yes, it’s true. RabbitEars is really me. I’ve hidden long enough! But be honest with yourself. You’re not too surprised, are you? After all, have you ever seen RabbitEars and me at the same place, at the same time?
But now to the main business at hand. Discovery Channel has announced the return of its summer favorite, Shark Week, in August. Just as many sharks need to keep swimming to survive, so this ratings juggernaut has moved ever forward since its debut back in 1988. And as in previous years, the event again reflects our love/hate relationship with sharks. We find them fascinating, yet are scared to death of them. Likewise, Shark Week tends to present itself under the guise of educating and informing us about these misunderstood creatures, yet the shows often deal with shark attacks, and feature some lurid titles. But it works. This year follows the same formula, with new programs including:
By RabbitEars
Don’t forget this weekend to tune in to Discovery Channel’s great new miniseries Nature’s Most Amazing Events. Discovery co-produced the series with the BBC, their production partners on Planet Earth. That series set the bar for natural history programming so high that I wasn’t sure if this new series woul
d be quite as awe-inspiring. While Planet Earth remains on a level of its own, this series comes very close to it and is still the best nature show — or any show period — you’re likely to see this year. And it is unique in that each of its six episodes focuses on one particular event, in one location, in the natural world, where Planet Earth, as its title indicates, globe-trotted all across the world in each episode. The focus on individual events here lends a bit of intimacy to the epic landscapes as we get to meet particular creatures and how they respond to events ranging from floods and ice melts to huge salmon runs and migrations.
By RabbitEars
Arches National Park in Utah
I just had a chance to screen an hourlong preview of Ken Burns’ next project following his amazing film The War from a few years back.
Premiering Sept. 27 on PBS, The National Parks: America’s Best Idea continues Burns’ obvious fascination with American history, and both the everyday and well-known people who lived through it, but also adds splashes of a larger, colorful canvas to the intimate archival photos and film footage he has been so masterful at presenting in the past. It’s the story of the history of America’s national parks — which the film describes as an idea “as uniquely American as the Declaration of Independence, and just as radical.”
By RabbitEars
EWTN Global Catholic Network will be airing complete coverage of Pope Benedict XVI’s historic visit to Jordan and Israel May 8-15. The network will follow Benedict across the region as he visits such sites as Bethany Beyond the Jordan; the Grotto of the Annunciation; the presidential palace in Jerusalem, where he will meet with Israeli President Shimon Peres; the Caritas Baby Hospital, the only baby hospital in the West Bank and Gaza Strip that cares for poor children; the Aida Refugee Camp near Bethlehem, where he will deliver an address; and more.
Coverage also includes Pope Benedict’s meetings with other heads of state, including the king and queen of Jordan, and Israeli prime minister Benjamin Netanyahu, along with religious leaders including the Greek Orthodox, Latin and Armenian Catholic patriarchs; the grand mufti of Jerusalem; the chief rabbis of Israel and others.
The complete television itinerary:
Jeremy Wade with a river monster
By RabbitEars
You have to hand it to Animal Planet. They can do “cute and cuddly” better than anyone else, with shows like Puppy Bowl, Growing Up … and Cats 101. But they do realize that the animal kingdom is vast and varied, so they also don’t shy away from the types of creatures that you will never see featured in “365 (fill in the blank) a Year” calendars, like the ones in these current and upcoming series:
by Karl J. Paloucek
Tomorrow, one of television’s more bizarre series starts up again — Isabella Rossellini’s Green Porno on Sundance Channel enters Season 2. If you don’t recall, Season 1 had Rossellini presenting herself in various amusing costumes emulating the peculiar mating habits of various insects, arachnoids and annelids. This time, she’s taking things underwater, exploring reproduction of whales, starfish, anglerfish and others.
Each episode lasts only a couple of minutes at best, but in those precious seconds, Rossellini does her best to succeed where biology class might have failed you. She’s not afraid to look utterly silly, and as a result, you can’t help but watch and absorb what it is she’s trying to tell you. (Really — if your high-school biology teacher had the budget for costumes like this, wouldn’t YOU have made sure to be there and attentive every day?)
On Land, “Deadliest Catch” Fishermen John And Andy Hillstrand Are Every Bit The Characters You Think They Are.
By Karl J. Paloucek
You know things have gotten wild in the world of television when Alaskan crab fishermen become TV stars. But as unlikely as it may be, it’s also undeniable: The captains of Discovery Channel’s Deadliest Catch (Season 5 premieres April 14, part of Discovery Channel’s “Alaska Week”) have attained household-word status in many households across America. We recently caught up with Captains John and Andy Hillstrand while putting together a spread in our print edition of Channel Guide Magazine about the various manly personalities who have become the face of Discovery Channel. Many of the network’s hosts’ answers revealed pretty tough backgrounds, but the Hillstrand brothers’ took the cake … and crushed it to dust. But as tough as they are aboard the Time Bandit, they’re also pretty funny — when they’re not talking about the death that stalks them at sea.
Channel Guide Magazine: Deadliest Catch is heading into Season 5 now, but going back to the beginning, how did all of this begin for you guys?
John Hillstrand: They originally asked us and we said, “No, we’re too cool.” No one would let them on the boats. And then, the second year, we go, “We might as well, so we have a good documentary.” Because they have professional guys filming. We make little boat films all the time.
Andy Hillstrand: I’ve made boat films since the ’80s.
JH: But not a complete story of start, the whole trip, you know? So we go, “Well, we might as well do it, and then our grandkids will be able to see it, see what Gramps did.” And then the third year we come back —
AH: We saved that guy.
JH: And people start following us at the airport and stuff.
AH: The third year of the show took off big-time, because we saved a guy. And then, after that, it seemed like it exploded. After that, it just got even bigger.
JH: So I think this year’s going to be even more people talking about the show, because once you think you can’t get any more crazier, it gets crazier out there. [Read more →]
By RabbitEars
The fifth season premiere of SCI FI Channel’s Ghost Hunters on March 11 drew in great ratings for the network. The episode, which featured visits to the historic Betsy Ross home and Hannum House in Philadelphia, delivered a 1.9 Household rating, 2.7 million total viewers, 1.6 million adults 18-49 and 1.7 million adults 25-54. The show also outperformed the season premiere of South Park, and new episodes of The Real World, Dog the Bounty Hunter and MonsterQuest, making it the No. 1 cable telecast for the day among adults 25-54. Additionally, in the show’s 9pm ET hour, SCI FI was the No. 1 cable network, sweeping all major demographics, and particularly continuing its success with female viewers.
Can the TAPS team duplicate this success? It depends upon the quality of the locations that they investigate, and whether they are scary and interesting enough. Here’s a preview of the March 18 episode, which features a visit to New Hampshire’s Star Island. The island was first settled in the early 1600s temporarily by fishermen, with the first permanent settlement beginning in 1677. The island now features a number of hotels, most notably the Oceanic Hotel, which supposedly is haunted — along with the entire village, apparently.
Jason (left) and Grant on a Season 4 investigation
By Jeff Pfeiffer
At a press conference call last week, Jason Hawes and Grant Wilson, leaders of TAPS — The Atlantic Paranormal Society — discussed various topics relating to the upcoming Season 5 of Ghost Hunters, which premieres this Wednesday, March 11, on SCI FI Channel (see our preview). Here’s some of what they had to say.
