The History Channel: Ice-Road Trucking their credibility to the Pawn Shop

[nbohr1more]

I used to be a regular fan of The History Channel's programming.

Their simplified historical illustrations were fun to watch and drove my curiosity for more factual insights about history.

 

Much like MTV, it appears that someone "up top" decided that "The History Channel" was too important a brand to waste on low-rated "History" programming and

now it's;

 

Pawn Shops

Conspiracies

Prophecies

Ice Road Truckin'

Antique collecting

Aliens

Nostradamus

Bayou reality shows

Outrageous Hypothetical Apocalypse Scenario shown in CGI

 

 

Is the decline of The History Channel part of a self-fulfilling prophecy of western decline imagined by some poorly paid CGI animator?

 

Only you can decide.

[ungoliant]

The problem is not necessarily that someone was dumb enough to start all this ridiculous non-historical programming on the history channel. The infuriating part is that someone was smart enough to block the move to rename them to "The Channel".

 

"The History Channel" was too important a brand to waste

 

You've found the answer to the problem on your own

Edited November 8, 2011 by ungoliant

[nbohr1more]

Maybe all TV channels become meta-channels that reflect the conjectured audience they've captured.

 

So History nuts are really crotchety old guys who yearn for the days when "men were men" and oogle antiques from their prized past...

...but also believe weird conspiracies about Nostradamus and Aliens and are sure that the world will end soon

 

I just wish they would spin-off these things to a new channel rather than leave the name in-place like some ghost of programming past.

 

If this keeps happening every channel will devolve into a reality show channel.

 

AMC: Shows movies

 

"Hey, what about a reality show where guys roam the USA collecting movie memorabilia?"

 

AMC: Shows reality shows about movie fanatics and actor's ... movies are gone

 

All the channel names are now false advertisements... Why do I pay for cable again? (Oh yeah... the wife loooves reality shows... )

[PranQster]

Yeah, History Channel went to shit. History International was much better, but now it seems to have been renamed H2... it's still better than the regular H.

[Fidcal]

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The basic problem is that the 'system' (the way TV is organized, regulated, profit-driven) is wrong so it's inevitable TV generally has gone downhill.

 

Ironically if that Ice-trucking is the series I saw a couple of years ago I quite enjoyed that. But you can keep the other stuff unless Nostradamus can tell us when we get good TV back.

 

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[Serpentine]

Sometimes I make the mistake of downloading American docs, missing the natgeo/discovery/history US tags.

 

I regret those mistakes more than most accidental day to day things, off milk in my cereal? no problem! Some terrible documentary full of cheap stock footage and sensationalist crap? feels bad man.

 

However there is one thing that makes me feel worse, if the doc in question has more than about 3 seconds of that Dr. Michio Kaku or whatever his name is :/ Wrrryyyyyyyyy

[stumpy]

whats worse, a music channel that actually only show out of date comedy shows and teleshopping selling fitness gear.

[demagogue]

They might have holed themselves in somewhat by the fact that after 15 years or so now there's a History Channel feature on every big event and period in history. There are only so many ways you can dramatize the Prohibition Era and Hitler's Last Days without just repeating yourself.

 

But the real reason, of course, is the same reason *all* television is moving towards reality TV. You don't have to pay for writers, sets and locations, actors, props... You just have some camera guys follow everyone around, have them figure something clever out, then have a decent editor.

 

BTW, I like History International too.

[nbohr1more]

Michio Kaku is the pinnacle of academic credibility compared to Giogio Tsaukalos:

 

[nbohr1more]

If I were in charge, I would fund real historians and archaeologists and have them resolve mysteries like the Greek dark ages and settle (as best as possible) disputed time-lines for historical events.

 

All the shows would revolve around events from 6000 to 1000 BC.

[Tels]

Speaking of bad televion, in 2004 I watched some canadian televion[0]. And then I catched a rare glimpse of the true reason why Americans (and probably some Canadians) are so devoid of knowledge of the rest of the world and their worldview seems to centered only around North America...

 

You know, until I visited there, I didn't believe it - but some of these people are really really not knowing much about the rest of the world. Now, don't get me wrong, a lot of them are (esp. the people with roots in Europe it seems to me in hindisght) - but a lot of them aren't. And then I suddenly realized why:

 

There was this programme about "big machines of the world" - I forgot the exact name and if it was a canadian or us channel). They showed quite interesting things: a machine that can dig out entire trees with their roos in one go, then plant them somewhere else, big lorries, km-long trains etc.

 

Quite fasinating. However, there was this segment about surface mining of coal via bucket-wheel excavators ( https://en.wikipedia...wheel_excavator ). Since I just visited an area where tthey are used (and I know them from my childhood) and Germany is very famous for them, I watched eagerly.

 

However, it seemed that this were American ones, but the details were a bit unclear. Until they "interviewed" an expert who was from the firm operating them. He had someone who dubbed his voice, but in the background you could hear him faintly talking German. And then it suddenly clicked. They showed the exact machines I saw a month ago! And in the entire half-hour programme there was NEVER ever a word where the machines are located, who invents and produces them, where and why they operate etc. (Which is quite a feat, because these machines have a sign on them with the name of the operating firm, that sign is so big that it uses a couple of hundred kgs of paint alone!)

 

You could get the idea that this was all the "american way" to victory...

 

Oh well, who knows what they didn't tell in the other segments ... and if a lot of people get their "education" from TV, this is what you end up with.

 

 

 

0) in Canada, of course. You don't get it over here. But then, that is probably a good thing.. But make no mistake, TV in Europe is on the downhill slope, too. The "Eurosports channel" seems to bring more "call this expensive number to not win a thing" and advertising and games and so on, than actual sport...

[demagogue]

Americans could care less about the rest of the world, with the possible exceptions of royal weddings & scandals in the UK.

 

I'm still pissed NBC canceled the tv show Outsourced (about an American working in Mumbai India). Not only was it a legitimately funny show, but Americans needed to be watching a show about life in another country. It was more important than just the ratings. and NBC was spineless in dropping it so fast.

 

Edit: The few ways you're going to watch things from another culture's perspectives is PBS runs BBC News and some Britcoms, the aforementioned History International, NatGeo to some extent, a few other individual shows. It's not easy.

[PranQster]

LOL, speaking of us not knowing much of the world... that's showing true with several of our presidential candidates... Herman (Herb, according to S. Palin, lol) Cain was the funniest though, with his "Ubeki-beki-beki-beki-stan-stan" quote.

 

Right now, I'm glad that HBO direct has started offering Game of Thrones again. I'd rather re-watch that again than surf through the crap on most other channels.

BBC America has pretty good programming... Top Gear, Dr. Who, Battlestar G., etc. The Science channel is sometimes good with Through the Wormhole, and Wonders of the Universe with the always totally-f'ing-baked looking Brian Cox... that dude cracks me up.

[nbohr1more]

Many corporations both from the US and outside it would prefer not to remind US citizens that their products are made elsewhere. It wouldn't be so wide-spread of a practice if the out-sourcing craze hadn't gutted large sectors of our employable populace. The History Channel has had this amusingly blatant pro-industrial slant to it's "Modern Marvels" episodes about big agriculture or food processing topics. It's like watching a 1930's educational film about the health benefits of smoking.

[stumpy]

The problem with dark ages in history is that they're called dark ages because they left very little evidence of their existance, its like they never threw anything away and recycled everything.

 

And you're always going to have problems with egyptian history as its based on when god made the earth, about 4000bc, so to allow for adam and eve being kicked out of eden and poputating the earth egyptian history can't go back further than 3500bc. Even though carbon dating from soot in the great pyramid at giza says the soot was deposited in 8450bc its been dismissed as a false positive as the earth didn't exist then.

[Fidcal]

always totally-f'ing-baked looking Brian Cox... that dude cracks me up.

 

LOL For a long time I seriously thought he had a facial disfigurement that contorted his smile muscles permanently. But I did see one brief shot in about the second episode where he was not talking to the camera but on-scene, off-guard, fixing some equipment. He looked quite normal then.

 

He oughta marry Fiona Bruce then they can have death grin matches and stuff.

 

 

 

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[7upMan]

Is it this Brian Cox?

 

[nbohr1more]

The problem with dark ages in history is that they're called dark ages because they left very little evidence of their existance, its like they never threw anything away and recycled everything.

 

And you're always going to have problems with egyptian history as its based on when god made the earth, about 4000bc, so to allow for adam and eve being kicked out of eden and poputating the earth egyptian history can't go back further than 3500bc. Even though carbon dating from soot in the great pyramid at giza says the soot was deposited in 8450bc its been dismissed as a false positive as the earth didn't exist then.

 

Yes, those archaeologists who need to prove that the Earth is 6000 yrs old are troublesome. OTOH there are some archaeologists so hell-bent on the esteem of finding an the oldest artifact that they will use the oldest estimate for their discovery. The former are the biggest problem but the latter may be obstructing a clear picture of the historical time-lines.

 

There's so much interesting material from that span I mentioned though.

 

The Nuraghi of Sardinia.

 

The Cycladic civilization.

 

The Hittites.

 

The Bell Beaker culture

 

The spread of chariot culture from the Black Sea.

 

Iberian culture.

 

That's enough material to keep going for years with folks dressing-up in Bronze Age garb and battling (etc.).

 

What could be better than that?

[PranQster]

Is it this Brian Cox?

 

Yeah that dude, lol... always smiling with eyes half-closed and glossy. And very, very enthusiastic about his work. A good host for his show, and always seems stoned and happy.

Edited November 9, 2011 by PranQster

[Fidcal]

Is it this Brian Cox?

 

Yes. Nothing wrong with a massive grin now and again but its there hour after hour and never leaves his face. That is unnatural. That is not contentment and happiness - that is the result of brain-washing on a six-week TV presenter course and injections of botox.

 

To quote GTA4: "Smile for the camera, hotshot!"

 

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[PranQster]

I still think he's totally baked most of the time.

[PranQster]

I just remembered. I still need to see the new South Park episode about the History Channel. Looks like it is entirely on-topic with this thread.

[Springheel]

I just flipped past the History channel last night and saw they were talking about King Arthur. "Oh, that might be interesting," I thought. I watched for a few moments and the narrative went something like this: "Historians debate whether King Arthur was a historical figure. But discoveries of an engraved stone with his name on it in Tintagel suggest he might have been a real person. If he was, is it possible that the myths about him are true? And if so, could that be evidence of extra-terrestrial technology on earth in the dark ages?

 

As I burst out laughing, they went on to talk about how we now have guns that won't fire unless they detect the fingerprint of the owner. "Could the sword in the stone have been similar technology...? I think so!" said the "expert" being interviewed.

 

Man, and I thought the Nostradamus shows were scraping the bottom of the barrel....

[PranQster]

I just flipped past the History channel last night and saw they were talking about King Arthur. "Oh, that might be interesting," I thought. I watched for a few moments and the narrative went something like this: "Historians debate whether King Arthur was a historical figure. But discoveries of an engraved stone with his name on it in Tintagel suggest he might have been a real person. If he was, is it possible that the myths about him are true? And if so, could that be evidence of extra-terrestrial technology on earth in the dark ages?

 

As I burst out laughing, they went on to talk about how we now have guns that won't fire unless they detect the fingerprint of the owner. "Could the sword in the stone have been similar technology...? I think so!" said the "expert" being interviewed.

 

Man, and I thought the Nostradamus shows were scraping the bottom of the barrel....

ROFL! South Park nailed it!

Since no historical evidence of stuffing exists before the first Thanksgiving in 1621, does that mean that stuffing is alien technology brought to the Pilgrims (or were the Pilgrims actually aliens??)?

[jaxa]

Yup, real life is probably not like Stargate.

Luckily, the Story Channel has turned "probably not" into "could be". Edited November 15, 2011 by jaxa