Sometimes I like to watch bad television. I know I’m not the only one. Sharknadoes don’t occur in a vacuum, after all. There is one channel that has been a dependable destination: The History Channel.
I’m old enough to remember back when many of today’s cable channels named themselves, the late ’80s and early ’90s. AMC was American Movie Classics. They didn’t have original programming such as Breaking Bad or The Walking Dead, they played old movies. They filled the niche that TCM (Turner Classic Movies) fills now.
Back in the day, The History Channel mostly consisted of newsreel and propaganda footage of World War II relentlessly edited and re-edited, patched together to suit whatever narrative a particular show’s producer wanted to promote. At the time, the financial success of that channel depended on the fact that all major participants in WWII (particularly the Nazis) were very keen on filming their armed forces and politicians in action.
Thanks, A-Holes!
As it happened, I also had a fascination with that war, even as a child of the ’70s. Perhaps it was because it pervaded the culture. The first models I built were the Bismark, a Spitfire, and a B-17. My 5th grade teacher was a former B-25 pilot. At the time, it seemed both ancient and immediate.
So along with the normal teen television consumption of the day, over the years I watched hours and hours of black and white footage of that horrible war. I could appreciate what I learned, that the German and Japanese cultures had pushed racist nationalism to the point where they threatened all other cultures. I hated that, but I watched the shows again and again.
Somewhere along the line I stopped watching The History Channel, and during that time it seems as if they changed. Now their programming seems to be… something else. History-ish. History Adjacent. But it mostly still stays on target if you consider All Things That Are Old to be roughly synonymous with History. A pawn shop that specializes in high-end antiques. People who dig though the detritus of hoarders in order to find item to sell to collectors (aka high-end hoarders).
But let’s talk about Ancient Aliens, my current “favorite” for hate-watching. It does tend to ask us to look at history and ask questions about things that we don’t fully understand. Of course, the one answer to any and all of those questions is always Aliens.
A&E Television Networks, LLC
There’s one thing I should probably make clear at this point: I don’t consider watching something to be a good hate-watch experience unless you find yourself talking to the program. Or maybe shouting at the program. Shouting things like, “What the hell kind of ecological niche do giant spiders evolve to fill, anyway?” Mystery Science Theater, but performed by you and anybody watching with you.
It sounds insane when you think about it; talking to an inanimate object. But I’m guessing you may have done something similar at some time or other. That’s the kind of experience I get with Ancient Aliens. There are only so many times that a person can hear “Could it be…?” or “Is it possible…?” questions before you start answering. And the answer is usually along the lines of, “Well, yeeeaaaahhh, monkeys COULD come flying out my butt. Is it likely? No. No, it is not.”
But it’s getting old. They’ve grown predictable. They’ve reached the point where they are just taking footage they shot and are editing and re-editing to make “new” shows. I guess there are realistically only so many times you can speculate about the “Secrets of the Sphinx” without covering the same ground. It’s all hogwash, but some topics stand out.
COULD IT BE that aliens had a hand in building the Pyramids that can be found all over the world? Yes, the pyramids found all over the world are cultural wonders. Yes, seeing them does trigger the imagination, causing us to wonder about the experiences of the people who made them. But there’s NO reason to think that their similarities are due to alien intervention. The pyramid is the most basic monumental shape you can make that isn’t just a big pile of dirt. I mean, seriously, it’s easier to make a pyramid than to make a cube, or a walled room. No buttresses or ornate supports needed. Also, no aliens needed. Stop using the same footage to illustrate: aliens (both modern and ancient), ley lines, mystic preservation, and advanced power sources from space.
IS IT POSSIBLE that there was an ancient nuclear war in India, or that the Annunaki were really aliens? Again, sure, all things are possible in the absence of any evidence. The next step should be to look for evidence, to go from the realm of the possible to that of the provable. For example, look for the end products of radioactive decay in areas that were supposedly nuked. But the Ancient Aliens producers and pseudo-scientists never do this.
Here’s the final thing that cracks me up and makes me shout at my television: Ancient Alien Theorists never say ‘No.’ The line is almost always, “Ancient Astronaut Theorists say ‘Yes.'” with the occasional, “Ancient Alien Theorists say ‘Absolutely.'” I find myself wondering how often these people have helped a Nigerian Prince get his money out of escrow. How many shares of the Brooklyn Bridge do they own? How many plots of “beach front property” have they purchased in the Florida Everglades?
Sometimes I’ll let the show play in the background while I’m preparing food, but in the same way that they’ve run out of new things to show, I’ve run out of new tidbits of scorn to shout at my television. It’s not fun anymore.