I remember both of those going downhill in real time but the one that hit me the hardest was Discovery Channel. One day it was Bill Nye, Mythbusters, Shark Week, and science documentaries and the next it was Pawn Stars, Swamp Loggers, and American Chopper. At least we got a nice meme template out of that last one.
American Chopper … that was supposed to just be a show about building bikes, but on day one, the Pauls had one of their legendary disagreements. They didn’t have to script, the drama just wrote itself. Everyone jumped on the reality tv bandwagon to try and recreate the popularity of watching Paul Drama, Inc.
Yeah. Swamp Loggers was okay (at least interesting and sort-of fit the theme of the channel) but the rest definitely were a jarring shift to lazy reality shows.
Deadliest Catch was pretty fantastic, but I don’t remember exactly when it came into the picture.
Deadliest Catch started when those other shows were still on, and the first bunch of seasons were good. In more recent years, the “will they find crab” story was getting too repetitive, so now they’re manufacturing storylines. I had to stop watching a few seasons ago because the bad acting from fishermen was just too cringy. I would lump it in with the other reality shows now.
I remember both of those going downhill in real time but the one that hit me the hardest was Discovery Channel. One day it was Bill Nye, Mythbusters, Shark Week, and science documentaries and the next it was Pawn Stars, Swamp Loggers, and American Chopper. At least we got a nice meme template out of that last one.
American Chopper … that was supposed to just be a show about building bikes, but on day one, the Pauls had one of their legendary disagreements. They didn’t have to script, the drama just wrote itself. Everyone jumped on the reality tv bandwagon to try and recreate the popularity of watching Paul Drama, Inc.
It also made for great memes.
Yeah. Swamp Loggers was okay (at least interesting and sort-of fit the theme of the channel) but the rest definitely were a jarring shift to lazy reality shows.
Deadliest Catch was pretty fantastic, but I don’t remember exactly when it came into the picture.
Deadliest Catch started when those other shows were still on, and the first bunch of seasons were good. In more recent years, the “will they find crab” story was getting too repetitive, so now they’re manufacturing storylines. I had to stop watching a few seasons ago because the bad acting from fishermen was just too cringy. I would lump it in with the other reality shows now.
Sounds about right. I dropped cable in 2010 or thereabouts so probably right around the time that shifted.
Lmao that show is still going?
9/11 did it.
People wanted fluff all the sudden for some reason.