Wait, did Discovery just fake a shark week documentary??

Soooooo . . . my somewhat impressionable 11 year old just came upstairs from watching a supposed "documentary" on the Megalodon, a pre-historic species of giant shark. Sadly, I quit watching it to catch some baseball, so I can only go off from what he's telling me. Apparently, they presented in documentary form supposed "evidence" that this shark (allegedly approximately 60 feet long) is still alive and roaming the oceans. According to Snopes, this included faked news stories about a fatal giant shark attack on a fishing boat (I saw this part), actors portraying marine biologists and a dramatic "sort of" sighting "on film" as its conclusion. Here's the Snopes article: http://www.snopes.com/critters/malice/megalodon.asp

Don't get me wrong, I know a lot of their supposed "reality" TV is ridiculously fake (I mean "Amish Mafia", really?) But this seems like a new low. For some reason this just pissed me off.

next you will tell me that the ad with the seal that they were putting back in the ocean was fake, too..

what does shark week jump when it's gotten stale and predictable?

novaderrik wrote: what does shark week jump when it's gotten stale and predictable?

The fountains at Caesar's Palace?

Nothing is as bad as that Mermaid: A body found thing.

UGGHH.

My BIL is totally convinced on that one, btw.

I'll reserve my judgment until I see the Sharknado documentary.

BoostedBrandon wrote: Nothing is as bad as that Mermaid: A body found thing. UGGHH. My BIL is totally convinced on that one, btw.

I'm sure this is exactly the same as that......and like War Of The Worlds

The disclaimers are there, but people who are not paying attention to them think the entertainment is real. I know that's what the mermaid one was.....they never said it WAS real, they just implied it, and cut biologists' statements into TINY soundbites that could be taken out of context.

This happens even with slightly less controversial/sensational stuff:
http://svpow.com/2009/12/15/lies-damned-lies-and-clash-of-the-dinosaurs/

More galling are the places where animation is cleverly cut with talking head bits so that we end up describing things that were never in the script. I explained on camera about the unavoidably high mortality among juvenile sauropods, and how groups of Deinonychus could probably pick off the baby sauropods like popcorn. I had been speaking of hatchlings, but my words are cut together with a scene–which you’ll see about 15,000 times–of three Deinonychus taking down an elephant-sized subadult Sauroposeidon. In the real world, it would have pulped them.

Oh, and for those of you tempted to think Europeans are so much more sophisticated than us, the BBC can be just as bad
http://darrennaish.blogspot.com/2006/02/walking-with-dinosaurs-micro.html

But I am told that the most amusing bit (Toni was texted by Jeff Liston on this point) concerns what happened as a clip from Walking With Dinosaurs was played. I’ll happily admit that I am not a fan of WWD: I really don’t like the way many of the animals were depicted, I don’t regard many of the behavioural speculations as useful or realistic, and on the whole I think they should have worked harder to include in the series what _is_ known about the palaeobiology of the relevant animals, rather than what might be extrapolated based on living animals (remind me to explain the ‘meerkat theory’ on this some time). Some of these criticisms were reflected in Naish and Mar... I mean Martill and Naish (2000), but most weren’t. Moving on, I am told that, when WWD was mentioned, I made some sort of hilarious grimace. I assumed this was a micro-expression, but apparently it wasn’t so micro. Oh well.

....and the "Boycott Shark Week" movement starts.
http://www.businessinsider.com/discovery-channel-fake-megalodon-documentary-2013-8

I actually preferred Sharknado to the Megalodon fake documentary. Completely worthless as both an entertainment or learning show at the same time. Whatever crap is on now is only slightly better since it shows sharks other than the great white. Discovery is pretty much dead to me at this point.

Someone told me about the mermaid thing. They had zero doubt it was real. I PAID to watch it. 10 seconds in, my wife and I turned to each other and went "Uuuuuuhhh. These guys don't look or sound like scientists." Five minutes later, we turned it off. I was pissed. Saw the stupid Megalodon thing last night. Rolled my eyes & went to bed.

Fake "documentaries" and the fact that people believe them (not your kid. He's a KID) = more evidence idiocracy is here.

poopshovel wrote: Fake "documentaries" and the fact that people believe them (not your kid. He's a KID) = more evidence idiocracy is here.

Wait... wait... Does this have anything to do with why I can't find Spinal Tap reunion tour tickets anywhere?

Beer Baron wrote:

poopshovel wrote: Fake "documentaries" and the fact that people believe them (not your kid. He's a KID) = more evidence idiocracy is here.

Wait... wait... Does this have anything to do with why I cantfimd Spinal Tap reunion tour tickets anywhere?

you just gotta be patient...

Talladega Nights is still the best documentary ever made.

Waitaminit... Amish Mafia ain't real?

People are so much more gullible and trusting of the media these days. Before TV people would never have believed fake news programs about b.s. like aliens landing and dramatized attacks or any crap like that.

Will Wheaton: Discovery Channel Owes Its Viewers An Apology

Sounds normal for the History Channel these days, but I thought Discovery was still a bit above that.

same company....same business plan.

In reply to JoeyM:

I don't care what Sheldon says, Will Wheaton is awesome.

Atleast there are some people out there trying to unberkeley this stuff.

Ancient Aliens Debunked (Part 1) - Megalithic Sites

It is a sad state of affairs that these guys have to do a 3hr "debunk" of this E36 M3 but it's nice to see them try.

http://blogs.discovermagazine.com/science-sushi/2013/08/06/cooler-than-sharkweek-shark-cartilage-wont-cure-cancer/?utm_source=twitterfeed&utm_medium=twitter#.UgEJ4NKyBXk

Christie Wilcox said: Discovery Channel has pissed off tons of its viewers—including me and Wil Wheaton—by launching shark week with the mockumentary “Megalodon: The Monster Shark That Lives”. With so much awesome shark science out there, it’s sad that they had to stoop so low for ratings. In response to the outrage, Brian Switek started “Cooler than #SharkWeek” on twitter, highlighting actual research on sharks. I’m continuing the movement by posting or reposting a blog entry about sharks every day this week. So instead of watching Shark Week, tune into Science Sushi all week for real shark science! For today’s post, we revisit my 2011 post on the pseudoscience of shark cartilage pills…

Trans_Maro wrote: Talladega Nights is still the best documentary ever made.

Yes and no, an arguement can be made that every passing second, the movie Idiocracy becomes more and more like the documentary of our future....

The BBC did botch the whole "giant prehistoric spiders" bit a few years ago: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mesothelae but it seemed like an honest mistake. This fake documentary just makes me glad that I ditched cable TV years ago.

I did enjoy the hour they spent with the team that built the camera that follows Great Whites around the Cape Cod area. Having spent all of my summers there, and the summer they filmed this, it was interesting to see just why they closed the beaches, and how incredilby close the sharks come in to the shore. Other than that, most of the shows have been jokes (ie VooDoo Sharks).

Unfortunately, Discovery and History channel have strayed from the format they had 10 years ago by doing more of these type of stupid "documentaries" and reality shows. Science channel had held out the longest but last I checked, it became the new SciFy channel playing a bunch of Firefly episodes.

I blame Orange County Choppers. Since that show, it has all gone down hill.