Life After People - This TV Show Was a Real Dud
Since I mentioned this show, which ran on The History Channel last night, in a couple of posts and comments, I feel obligated to put a review of it up today.
The verdict, (mine at least), is in on the History Channel’s Earth After Humans, or “Life After People“… Two big thumbs down! I must admit I watched only the first hour or so of the two hour show. I did record it, though, and might be able to stomach the rest of it in a week or two. If anyone reading this watched the whole thing and liked it, please post your comments. That might help me find the time to finish watching.
Adjectives like simple, inane, melodramatic, hokey, and dumb, come to mind when describing the show. It really was almost unbearable to watch. The opportunity was there for The History Channel to do something interesting with the topic and they blew it. Their programming has been uneven in it’s quality in recent months, and overall I am still a fan of the channel, but this was really bad!
Even from a technical standpoint, the show was weak. Just as one example…. After the first 30 minutes where they kept showing purported examples of what the earth would be like 1 day, 1 week, 1 month, etc. after humans died off, all I could think of was this: “Where are all the bodies?” Unless it was indeed the rapture and everyone qualified, they should have at least acknowledged that there would be some corpses lying around for all the show’s escaped pets and zoo animals to feed on.
While watching I came to realize that even the main premise of the show was weak. There was no hint at all as to what might have happened to all the humans. Every scene just portrayed a sort of “here today, gone tomorrow” assumption. Again, unless it was an all inclusive rapture, this assumption is lame. There are many potential dangers that may eventually end the reign of humans on earth, but whatever happens, complete extinction will likely take place on a longer timescale than overnight.
The show is being run again on Wednesday night at 8:00, Thursday at 12:00 am, and Saturday February 2nd at 5:00 pm. Talk about beating a dead horse! Oh wait… sorry, in the show the horses survived, and took over Rockefeller Center or some such place.
I should have just spent my night working on my reading list.
|
Choose from box
Will thanks for the update, I guess I will not be watching this program if ever comes up at our place. My favorite one are National Geographic and Discovery (or Science) channels. The only problem with Nat Geo is that they have this Dog Whisperer show everytime I flick to the channel. Otherwise, lot of good stuff. Sorry to hear you were dissapointed. Thanks again for our update, Anna
Comment by Anna (145 comments.) — January 23, 2008 @ 3:33 pm
Hey Will thanks a bunch, for some reason we don’t get it at anytime, I was going to watch it, but thanks to you you saved me some time, what is the clincher for me was the lack of human remains, I don’t think we are all going to be raptured. The history channel is one of my favs, hopefully this isn’t going to carry on, thanks for the heads up on this one.
Comment by Bob (114 comments.) — January 23, 2008 @ 5:15 pm
Anna - The Dog Whisperer? My favorite!! (not)
Yes, Bob, I usually would never tell people to not watch something. You know, sort of let everyone make up their own mind. But this show was so hyped and then so bad, I just could not help myself!
Comment by Will — January 24, 2008 @ 9:49 am
teah i watched that show last night it really did SUCK i’m not trying to be really mean but it did and my dad is ussally glued to the history channell but he wasnt last night so i think it was the big thumbs down
Comment by madison (1 comments.) — January 25, 2008 @ 3:41 pm
Hi Madison! Sorry you were disappointed also. I have seen other posts about the lack of quality in that show. Hopefully The History Channel gets the message. So much of their programming is great and they had the opportunity to do so much better!
-Will
Comment by Will — January 25, 2008 @ 4:41 pm
I had just finished reading the popular book “World Without Us” by Weismann, and this show was directly related, so I did sit all the way through it. The book intentionally starts with the impossible premis that we all just disappeared. This focus is essential, or you have a completely different set of issues. The issue in question is what survives us, and the answer, unsurprisingly, is not much that we value.
I was disappointed that they didn’t even mention the author, or his book, that clearly influenced the making of the show. It felt like a dishonest rip-off. That being said, I think it was okay - in the scale of generally pablum TV, with sensationalist repeating graphics and overly dramatic score.
Comment by Ken — January 27, 2008 @ 8:58 am
Hi Ken - Thanks for that. I did not know about the book. As with many TV spin-offs, it sounds like the book was better than the show. That is also a good point about the impossible premise that we all just disappear, thus creating a unique situation for the book to explore. If it really was that close in theme, the History Channel should have worked with and credited the author of the book.
Comment by Will — January 27, 2008 @ 12:32 pm
Will, if it was played once a week I can understand, but every day I don’t understand - I think the dog whisperer is too too confident. Thanks, Anna
Comment by Anna (145 comments.) — January 30, 2008 @ 2:46 pm
I know and I wonder how many failures he has to go through before he gets a good one for his show?
Comment by Will — January 30, 2008 @ 3:17 pm
Yes, no one ever tell you the whole story, never know may be he does have this magic wand, lol. Anna
Comment by Anna (145 comments.) — January 30, 2008 @ 3:22 pm
Yeah the show was a dud, I seen this and it was pretty horrible I couldn’t stand this at all.
Comment by In Plain Sight Episodes Online (1 comments.) — June 4, 2008 @ 2:14 pm
i watched it completely to the end. True there are some inconsistencies to the story, the reason might be that many people have different views about them. For example, how people vanish all at once? Some would say a plague, others would call it armageddon. Some would even say alien invasion/abduction and some would believe that humans’ time was up. What ever the cause, the show described the *after effects* of the human absence. The way other creatures deppend on us and to what extend. How we surpressed nature to make our civilizations and, most importantly, what are the factors behind our successful civilizations. But most importantly, how our marks of us ruling the earth arf so vulnerable, that they would not even last a thousand years!
Comment by hqq — July 22, 2008 @ 6:00 pm
but that would raise other questions. Is it possible that between us and the Egyptions or the Aztec there might be a civilization that would have reached a level of technology that we have or more? And the reason we don’t know about them is because they also used perishable means of records like we have paper and CDs? After all we only know about the past civilizations because they had engravings on rocks and stone!
Comment by hqq — July 22, 2008 @ 6:09 pm