Too Good To Be True

Since I love a good aquarium, dabbled with majoring in marine biology and think "Jaws" is one of the ten-best movies ever made, it should come as no surprise to anyone that I enjoy the Discovery Channel's "Shark Week." For those of you who live in a cave, this is when the network spends an entire week unveiling all new shows, each with the central theme of sharks. They will even have their established shows like "Mythbusters" be exclusively about myths concerning sharks. It has become quite the cultural phenomenon and gives the channel some of its best ratings all year. With so many species of sharks to work with you would think there would be enough material to last all seven days, which is why I was slightly disturbed when I flipped over to the Discovery Channel the first night of Shark Week and saw that they were running what appeared to be a documentary about a group of scientists hunting for a megalodon, a 100 ft long shark which has been extinct for 2 million years. After watching it for a few minutes it was pretty clear that the "documentary" was closer to a movie made to look like a documentary and the entire thing was a waste of my time. Apparently there was a small disclaimer that ran at the end of the show to let people know it was fake but it was so quick and so small that most people didn't catch it, which is why 70% of people watching the program thought it was real and that a megalodon could be out there.

Now, I'd like to think most of those people were fooled because they trusted the Discovery name brand and not because they were high. But, it does point to a more serious issue and that is the way the people running the Discovery Channel are trampling down all the years of good faith they built up by showing us programming which was entertaining but also interesting. I'm not saying people should have been watching the Discovery Channel instead of reading a book, just that they seemed to be above the fray of normal reality TV. Clearly that is no longer the case because just a couple weeks ago I was telling you about the sham that is the new show "Airplane Repo" which they were presenting as a documentary series but at the very end in very small lettering they explain several of the incidents are done as dramatic reenactments. The problem is that I think the Discovery Channel has forgotten its place in the television landscape. If the viewing public wanted to watch faux-reality TV there are plenty of other channels where we could get that. But I'm watching the Discovery Channel it is because I actually felt like learning something along the way. If all they are going to show me is the same crap as all the other channels I'll watch those because at least they don't lie to me for the first 59 minutes of every hour.

The channel actually got a small amount of scorn for this program, but if you were expecting the Discovery Channel to apologize or feel shame over this abuse of trust you'd better look elsewhere, because the network seems to be pretty pleased with itself. The story got a lot of buzz and the ratings were good, which means this kind of stunt will absolutely be happening again. With that in mind I figured I would list a few things people should look out for on the next documentary which will tell them if what they are watching is fake or real.

1. You've never heard of the story before now. Look, no one in television respects the sanctity of "exclusive footage" anymore. If Discovery actually discovered a rare or exotic animal you would have heard about it way before now. Hell, the Discovery Channel probably would have leaked the news themselves because it would create some hype around the show. And if you are sitting there saying to yourself, "Yeah, but I don't watch the news all day long, it may have slipped through without me hearing about it" I would simply direct you to your local news broadcast and observe all the useless information they consider to be news. If you watch that dreck for five minutes you will see four and half minutes of stories which would have been dropped for the news of a 100 foot shark in a heartbeat. The 24-hour cable news networks are even worse as those people will put anything on the air if it means they have 2 fewer minutes to fill, so they would have milked the crap out of this story ("What does megalodon mean for your vacation plans? Our travel expert will be here to answer your questions.") if it had even the smallest appearance of credibility. Trust me, even if you never watch the news a story like this would have found its way in front of your face at some point.

2. The 'amateur footage' is really well done. In my mind this is the clearest sign of the fake documentary. There is a reason people have to go to school to be professional cameramen and that is most people can't take good pictures. The world of YouTube is full of shaky hands, out of focus objects as well as action taking place to the left and right of the center and is the reason why eyewitness footage on the news is usually worthless to police. So when a documentary claims to have "amateur footage of the incident" and everything is dead center so it looks like the key piece of evidence was framed that way, that is because it was. (Also, you want me to believe just one camera was rolling? Have you been outside in 2013? I'm probably on 4 cameras going to get my mail.) Conversely, the 'actual police photographs' always look awful. These pictures are supposed to be what really bring the story home (because they're official) and they always look like they were edited by someone who installed PhotoShop for the first time that afternoon. This could be done on purpose as a way to let people know the show is fake, but then why do I feel like the real reason it happens is the Discovery Channel doesn't have any money left after hiring a professional camera crew to shoot 'amateur footage'?

3. The animal in question shows up, but they can't get a picture of it. It is one thing when a nature show spends an hour looking but never finds the animal they are looking for. I think we have all watched enough "Hunt for Loch Ness" shows to know that just because a show makes it on the air that doesn't mean the search was successful. I don't doubt those people are authentic (dumb, but authentic). But on the other hand, if the animal shows up and the camera is out of position, it is a fake show. I don't know what their exact budget is, but if there is one area in which the Discover Channel is willing to put their money where their mouth is it is with cameras. They put cameras on every conceivable surface they can find and then they leave them running at all times. Hell, half the new Shark Week shows are about the new place they figured to shove a camera and got an amazing new angle of a shake, making it virtually impossible that one could get very close without someone seeing something. Therefore it is far too convenient when the mystical fish knows exactly where it can swim to stay out of the line of sight. Either show me the shark or show me a disappointed scientist because both make me suspicious.

4. People are speaking far too dramatically. The only way to pull of a good fake documentary is to have people you have never heard of in it. I mean, if I see a person from a Sprint commercial appear on screen than I immediately know what I am watching is full of actors and I stop watching. So, having amateurs is the key. The downside comes when you remember that these people are amateurs for a reason, which is that they are horrible actors. Thus they deliver their lines the way you would expect a person who has never acted a day in their life and is now trying to act like they are not acting would. On top of that they never speak like normal human beings, with every sentence being over-dramatic and full of words no one says in real life. Sure, some of it could be chalked up to the fact that these guys are supposed to be scientists who don't get out of the lab very much and don't know how to interact with humans outside of what they have seen on TV, but if everyone is talking like that friend who is trying way too hard to convince you that there is no surprise party for you this weekend while saying words like 'dastardly' it is pretty safe assumption that what you are watching is going on someone's audition tape.