Shark Week 2006

[gangrel441]

Ok...I have been pretty unimpressed by what I have seen on Shark Week over the years, but I have to say, this year may have some promise. They opened it with a 2-part show, "10 Most Deadly Sharks", which had me cringing. But when I watched it, I noticed that one of the main contributors to the content was George Burgess! The host was an UW photographer who was attacked by a gray reef shark, but as much as he tells the story of his attack, he takes a large part of the blame for it upon himself, and he continues to dive with sharks to this day. He also told quite a few of the stories about sharks that had the opportunity to do harm and didn't, and he stressed each species admirable qualities and their endangered status in addition to the damage they can inflict. Fairly well rounded for Discovery...

I have more of the new shows on TiVo, just have to catch up on them. I saw Mike Roe was testing out the shark repellant made from rotten shark meat. There was much talk about that around here a few months ago when the story broke. I wonder how his tests went....

 

[Phreak]

I swear that this channel is interested in showing some great shark footage. But I cant actually stand the narration. There are something over 400 species of shark...and ok, maybe 10 of those have nibbled or even killed humans before.

I cant think of a better way to turn people off from taking scuba than to put shark stuff all over Discovery...for an entire week.

Hey, I love sharks, love to see one when diving because it's so unbelievably RARE anymore ...to see even a dogfish.

But the Discovery Channel is catering to people that are scared of sharks, and probaly don't dive or live near an ocean. So...299 Million Americans basically? Thtas a big audience...so this is most likly a HUGE week for Discovery Channel to make serious $$ from their advertisers.

 

[gangrel441]

I actually haven't found the programming or the narration to be that bad or skewed so far. What I have taken exception to is the advertising. They seem to want to lead everyone to believe what they all believe anyways about sharks to get them to watch the shows, then give programming that spends most of its time leading in that direction, then disproves it at the end. I don't know that this accomplishes the enlightenment of the public that we all would like to see....

 

[ReefGuy]

Shark week would be great if it wasn't the same exact thing every show. The discovery channel needs to discover that there are more than 10 species of sharks, and that people really are interested in the others too. Where are shows that have more than glimpses of leopard sharks? Megamouths? Whale Sharks? Angel Shark? etc.

Most importantly, where are the shows on Sharks' Teeth?!?!

 

[sasscuba]

Too many re-runs this year and a not nearly as good as previous years.

 

[robbcayman]

Too many re-runs this year and a not nearly as good as previous years.

Agreed!! Every year I look forward to shark week & for the most part it's re-runs.

 

[Stormbringer]

Yup...way too many reruns.

 

[nerobanchee]

Yeah, a lot of reruns, but some of the shows were very informative. I really liked the ones with the actual attacks on camera. Like the crazy one of the girl getting her leg bit off by a white shark.

 

[havnmonkey]

The re-runs also bother me, but you can't fill a whole seven nights with new goodies. I felt the new stuff was pretty cool, and pretty straightforward. I'm not a fan of using stock footage for documentaries; many shark shows will talk about a few species and then show footage of different ones. I do like shark week because they go out and get the shots they need. The new shows were not just a narrated montage of looped shark footage like many others; so I see definite improvement in this season. And the continuing emphasis on protection instead of destruction is always good.

I liked the part on the Recife beach in Brazil; they were able to show the cause behind the increased Bull Shark bites was the loss of the Reef Ecosystem near a new port.

 

[gangrel441]

You guys keep talking about reruns, but I saw no fewer than 3 hours of 2006 production every night. They usually started off with reruns from previous years, then started the new programming at 8 or so, then went back to reruns at around 11.

I haven't had a chance to watch the Mythbusters shows from this week, but I don't think they were the same ones they ran last year. Both episodes were marked with a 2006 release date on my TiVo guide.