A number of years ago, I remember telling someone that despite the fact that schools rarely seem to teach much history any more, at least the History Channel was still there and people did watch it. Now it seems to me that that is little comfort. I was perusing the channel guide today and found that there were no listings for THC, just ‘To Be Announced’. When I clicked on it, they were showing a rerun of “Monster Quest.” I checked again this evening and found nothing but “Ice Road Truckers.” If I was willing to stay up until 11:00, I could see R. Lee Ermey’s ‘Lock and Load,’ but that is past my bedtime.
When you consider the other usual offerings of THC any more, things don’t get a lot better. ‘Pawn Stars’!!?? another ‘reality show, this time about pawn shops? Before that was “Axe Men,” which about loggers. I suppose these shows are interesting to someone, but as far as being history, anyone of them is worth maybe an hour show, let alone a series!
Then there is the whole ‘End of the World’ class of shows which apparently grabs a lot of viewers, since they show many different variations on this type. There was one the other night which seemed to want to include all the horrible possibilities out there under one title, although I can’t (thankfully) remember it at this writing.
Of course, tied in with the ‘end of the world’ shows are the ‘Nostradamus’ offerings. I think the latest was something like ‘The Lost Book of Nostradamus.” How many shows can they do on this guy? Of couse you also have Edgar Cayce and the Mayan Calendar in the mix as well. I wonder if any of these shows are sponsored by pharmaceutical companies which make anti-depressants? That seems like a natural tie-in. “Take 40mg of ‘Moodsawingin’ from Acme Pharmaceuticals and you won’t care if a big rock is falling from the sky!”
Moreover, who watches this stuff? One show here or there-okay-but this many!!? Am I wrong about this? I have also noticed that a lot of the good old shows like ‘Civil War Journal’ are shown at ungodly time slots when folks are getting ready for work or in the middle of the night. Admittedly there are some occasional real history shows still being done. I noticed there is a show on tonight about the sexual revolution in the sixties. Well, sex does sell. But…I might watch that one.
So, in place of history, we often have: UFOs, Monsters (I don’t think they have ever found one) death and destruction, and reality shows, which usually involve somebody arguing profanely with someone else about what ever job it is that they are supposed to be doing. Is this all just an admission on the part of The History Channel that Americans are just so ignorant and tasteless that there is no longer any point in trying to do any better for them?
Maybe they ought to rename it ‘The End of the World Channel”, or the “Tabloid channel”. I’m open to suggestions. I would just like to see them go back to concentrating on what they used to do well -shows about history. Well, having said my piece, I think I’ll go see if ‘Wings of the Luftwaffe’ is on the Military Channel tonight.
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