ugh.. Discovery Channel Alaskan Bush People hype / BS

[westcliffe01]

I don't find much worthy of watching on TV, but it is pretty sad to see the extent to which the discovery Channel has fallen. Anyone who watched the first series of "Alaskan Bush People" knows a few things about them. Like the fact that they moved into the Alaskan interior in late fall without funds or a plan and were going to freeze to death. They ended up loaning and borrowing supplies from all sorts of strangers so that they could build their house. Then they were never going to get it done in time and several of the locals pitched in to help them get a roof over their head before they woke up cold blue and dead.

Then had 1 or 2 individuals fire shotguns in their general direction at night, which caused them to pack up and leave the next day.

Now in the nightly preview which they have to run at least every half an hour, papa Brown makes statements like "Nobody is going to stop the Browns" and "We don't need the outside world". Seems that the actors and the producers seem to think we all have a short memory.

"Alaska the last Frontier" seems to be at least a relatively honest portrayal of a homesteading family, and "Gold Rush" seems to finally be reaching a point where the people seem to have an idea what they are doing.

 

[dave1949]

This is an example of why we dropped cable tv.

Yep, Discovery used to have some decent programming even if it was paced slow enough for a 7th grader, that I could live with and understand.

We've gone to streaming programs. We pick a series with a couple seasons already done and watch an episode about every evening. Peaky Blinders is what we are watching now. It's like taking the Sopranos back to 1920 in Birmingham, England.

 

[Baby Grand]

That gold rush show was painful to watch. I'd stop there while surfing for something tolerable, but could never gut out a full episode. Too much idiocy - I'd get annoyed and move on. Reminded me of that Loudon Wainwright III’s song “Hometeam Crowd” from 1972: “When the Mets don’t win/I get upset/I got a bullet hole in my TV set.” I'm a geology nut, and almost anything that involves digging in the ground is interesting to me, but I can't hack that show. It seems to be the format of lots of shows, too. Minimal science/discovery/useful information an lots of yam-yam-yam filler supplied by people who don't know the first thing about what they're doing, but spending the family's future doing it.

Streaming is starting to look more and more like a winning proposition.

 

[Western]

I think the Discovery channel lost its "Discovery" along time ago. May still be better than many other cable shows, but far from the "Discovery" concept and into unrealistic reality shows. Still like the History channel somewhat though.

 

[oosik]

I lived in Alaska from 1960-1982. I'm very proud, pleased & gratified to see that these "Alaskan Reality TV" shows are being seen for what they truly are. BUNK - DRIVLE - BUTKUS - BALLEYHOO - etc - etc. I have watched all the shows mentioned above - once - and was so very embarrassed that I can not/will not ever watch them again. I certainly hope nobody thinks that these shows represent the true Alaska.

 

[VroomVroom]

Mick dodge, the barefoot sensei............... ridiculous.

 

[mjw357]

Yeah some of those shows are pretty bad. Even the ones we like, "Alaska the last Frontier" is pretty good but the way they are produced get a little tiring. If you notice, for an hour program, you are really only getting about 12 minutes of program. Starts with 'Last time, on [show name here]', ends with 'Next time on [show name here]'. Every commercial break is followed by about 30-60 seconds of recap of WHAT YOU JUST SAW before the commercial. Umm, yeah we remember this happening 2 minutes ago, you don't have to go through the whole sequence again. And they always cut to commercial just before something DRAMATIC (usually not) happens.

 

[bakerg]

It is not 2 minutes ago, it is 5 or 10, there are so many commercials that they have to recap because it has been so long, we forget what show we are watching.:laughing:

 

[Citydude]

Yes, it's bad TV but somehow I got sucked into Goldrush. I'm waiting for Tony to bend Parker over his knee and give him a good old fashioned spanking.

 

[Danny C]

Yes, it's bad TV but somehow I got sucked into Goldrush. I'm waiting for Tony to bend Parker over his knee and give him a good old fashioned spanking.

Tony's making too much money off Parker to do that! lol