I will spare the reader the contrived or potentially self-important tone of the obligatory "welcome post" and jump right into commentary. Suffice it to say, this blog serves partially as a personal record of thoughts on any and all things, and with luck a forum for others to enjoy.
As one of those jerks who haughtily refers to himself as a "student of History" in casual conversation, I used to think there was at least one channel I could relate to in the unfortunate sensory deluge of so-you-think-you-can-dance-your-fat-Kardashian-ass-off-with-vampire-Guidos-in-3D programming. This is no longer the case. History Channel has now relegated itself to the odious realm of what I can only refer to as "White Trash Programming." Let us now explore this most tragic of roads to perdition.
In the beginning, History Channel presented a host of interesting programs focused on the various places, events, and people of History; very much like what one would expect from a channel that purports to focus on, you know, History. Presumably, in an attempt to capture the elusive 50-90 demographic, the programming shifted towards World War II and Vietnam. Needless to say, this got dry at times, (Yes, I just had the audacity to characterize something as "dry" in a blog post about THE HISTORY CHANNEL) but nonetheless contained a smattering of the other historical topics, keeping things tolerable. Scholarly opinion diverges as to exactly when this happened, but, somewhere along the line History Channel began to exclusively air programs regarding Bigfoot, aliens and the Illuminati. These topics would eventually set the tone for the even more paranoid Nostradamus/2012/Armageddon marathons made famous by street preachers everywhere. Though fringe, these shows were entirely watchable in the same way Peruvian pan flute bands in the subway are.
At this point it is unclear whether History Channel then made a 180º turn or kept going headlong into irrelevance, but, complete metamorphosis was achieved sometime after they decided to replace the ad nauseum airing of Mayan end-time prophecies with: a reality show about shootin' guns; a reality show about an illustrious Las Vegas pawn shop; a reality show about garbage pickers by trade; a reality show about lumberjacks; a reality show about rival stock car racing families; and, of course, a reality show about truck drivers. Much to everyone's surprise, each one of these shows features at least one morbidly obese "star". Rumor has it History Channel executives are in talks to acquire the rights to "COPS", citing a necessity to "complete the whole set."
In a last ditch attempt to feature anything even slightly resembling History, "America: The Story of Us" was aired as a 7000 part mini-series in four-hour installations. I venture to say that this was to American History what Peter Jackson is to film: chock-full of distracting computer graphics bordering on gimmick; (read: King Kong) artlessly superfluous celebrity presence; (read: Jack Black starring opposite Naomi Watts in King Kong) and of course, it dragged on forever with a questionable reading of the original story (read: Lord of the Rings or any other Peter Jackson film).
Until further notice, History Channel is hereby deemed unwatchable.
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