DISGRACE: Most Watched Show on History Channel

<teenage boy or girl coming home from school>

Sam: "Hey Mom!"

Mom: "Hey Honey, how was your day at school?"

Sam: "Cool, we saw that series on America in history class. Puff Daddy said we americans are hardworking folks, like it's in our history y'know?"

Mom: "Oh he said that? how lovely."

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Sometimes I wonder if there's something wrong with me, or maybe there's something wrong with the world. But let me begin by saying that I've always loved the History Channel, one of my favs together with TCM, National Geographic, and of course all kinds of sports channels. So anyway I've seen a lot of shows and specials on the History Channel that were really interesting and I found no reason to complain. Until I saw "America: the Story of Us". Where do you want me to start, "graphics" or "content"? And yes I use quotation marks for both.

I've never in my life saw that much amount of flashing white screens, constantly flashing for no damn reason. (like every 10 secs, and I'm not exaggerating). I was on the verge of a seizure. This ultra-cool show will run, or should I say fly with the camera from point A to point B, even if there's one meter between them. The cam is CONSTANTLY on the run with horror-like music in the background to follow, but hey what's better than "history on drugs" ? nevermind the fact that even when they show you girls and women working in a cotton factory for instance, you have to wonder if some beast is about to attack them. But apparently this mayhem and MISUSE of "special effects" is worthy of emmy awards...this episode I'm talking about was nominated for outstanding cinematography, picture editing, sound editing, and yeah even writing. So that's why I think there's something wrong with me.

But hey, if you happen to survive the super-graphics, you just might learn something new from all the experts they brought to this show: P.Diddy, Martha Stewart, Michael Douglas, Donald Trump and many more celebs...I mean historians.

I know it's just one show. But when it's the most watched show on that channel, when they're sending DVD's to every school, when it's basically the flag-show of the History Channel, then you know many more shows will follow these footsteps. It's just the beginning.

Reality shows all over TV is one thing. But polluting the History Channel is much more annoying.

Is there any clean channel left on TV?...yeah, thank god for TCM.

There is nothing wrong with you. I feel the same way, I'm not as intact with the film business as you are, but I feel that 10 years ago they took more time to put stuff together. Nowadays they just throw all this crap together.

TV is accomodating the short attention span that is characteristic of many people today, especially young people. TIS and I had a discussion touching on this about the movie Unstoppable. To create the illusion of movement in many scenes, dynmaic camering is used which has the camera moving instead of the people and objects. To simply watch trains moving on tracks would not be interesting enough for most viewers, so they create the illusion of movement to augment it. The same is true with graphics and other on-screen illustrations. Some of that shows up on CNBC's series American Greed about the Decalvacante family in New Jersey.

You are on the mark Fame. These are not Ken Burns productions. We've been duped into thinking the History Channel, Nat Geo, Animal Planet etc. will give us quality productions. Some are good but some take 20 minutes of pertinent material and stretch it into an hour with repetition and meaningless narrative and still shots. Filler.

One of the worst for this technique is "Mobsters". Just a melange of photos and simulations clipped together to create a biography - sub-mediocre at best. Where can we go to find good TV?