I like watching paranormal shows. It begs the question as to what reality truly is. I know people try to explain it or rationalize it away, but that's a really poor way to face the world in general. One should not be fully accepting or fully skeptical. We should always have a mind for discerning. Take each piece of evidence given and weigh it on its own merit. I think doing so would create a more harmonious view of the world as a whole.
I am sure I am missing one or two, but I think when you see what I think of these, you'll pretty much figure out how I feel about the genre in general.
Anyway, here I go:
Celebrity Ghost Stories - Fascinating stories, but for an hour long show, I think we only have 15 minutes of actual story being told. Reality tv has really cheapened a show's content. How many times can you show the same clip on one show? Is 5 times too many? I guess not.
Destination Truth - Basically this show is what happens if you give a paranormal fan with a voice for radio and face for television whatever he wants. Ghost hunting in the radioactive wasteland of chernobyl? Sure! Looking for a mermaid off of the coast of israel? Sure! Helicopter searches for the jersey devil? Okay. If they find anything, sometimes it's a surprise. Not for a second do I think they have a chance in actually seeing anything, but I guess they're pretty lucky. I wouldn't call it a thorough investigation, that would just be impossible by any means. As for finding the truth? I don't think that's possible either.
Extreme Paranormal - The ghostman and demonhunter show on tv. The podcast is fun and sometimes informative (i'm kidding, it's not informative), but the whole show came of as some kind of ghost adventures meets jackass. Perhaps innovative in trying to investigate an underwater ghost town, it falls flat as you can't really see anything. I've never seen anyone try harder to be stupid about something, but here it was.
Ghost Adventures - 3 guys locked overnight with just a set of cameras and whatever equipment they could carry. Sounds like an incomplete investigation. However, they are picking up some of the more interesting ghost related phenomena on camera. I only wish that they didn't feature themselves and it's really insulting to the level that goes. It leaves me at times saying "really?" And if you want to know where they got all of that weird equipment? Digitaldowsing.com Now you know.
Ghost Hunters - The big ratings boomer for SyFy. When your primary focus is to debunk rather than capture and establish, the idea that they are hunters seems to go out the door. The editing on the show doesn't represent the actual investigation, but even at that, sometimes I wonder if they are even "trying" to find ghosts or if they just happen to catch stuff by accident.
Ghost Hunters International/Ghost Hunters Academy - Different name, same show. They aren't finding much on any of them.
Ghost Lab - I will give a hand to the klinge brothers for their differing techniques, but I am a bit put off by what they end up with. I mean, they went to lemp mansion, and I went to lemp mansion. They got a dog barking/yelping, and I got that and more. And I am not part of any professional team! I just turned a recorder in my room and went to sleep. I'll try to calm down, but I would expect more from a group of professionals. I don't expect the TAPS team to find anything because of their approach, but come on! This is the 2nd show on ghosts and they are coming away with NOTHING!!! Okay, next to nothing. I so badly want to see Ghost Hunters take on Lemp, because I know that they couldn't possibly do better with a location once called one of the 10 most haunted locations in the US.
A Haunting - The show dramatized the most extreme cases of haunting on the discovery channel. Eventually one of the episodes was made into the movie "A Haunting in Connecticut". Perhaps my favorite show of the lot, I felt that it kept it as true as possible to the actual events, and presented many different aspects about haunting while not trying to insult your intelligence. I wish they were only still making this show.
The Haunted - Pets getting haunted. Apparently Animal Planet is getting in on the paranormal bandwagon. Boring as can be tho.
Most Haunted - If monty python did a ghost hunting sketch, it would be expanded upon by this crew. Most of their "vigils" are sounds of knocks and whistles combined with the "actors" (as I don't know what else to call them) getting startled and waving the camera wildly about. Toward the end they hold a seance and have a table shake wildly about before trying to use a ouija board to get some kind of idea if anything's there. To me, the show is a comedy in three acts. First is the seriousness of the location combined with random "paranormal" experiences. Second is these "vigils", which you might as well call them sketches, as it's goofy as it can get, and then you follow it up with a group goofyness. When it's all done and they try to get Dr. Okeefe to explain what went on, you're left with the idea that "they really don't know what they are doing".
Paranormal Cops - Forensics meets ghost hunting. Sounds great in theory and it turns out to be a very informative reveal when it's done. On the other hand, you can see their equipment is about as cheap as one can find. I really think the ghost meter (which can be picked up for $20) should not be a part of any serious investigation. You should give those out for people to use on "haunted house tours". The best meter for the price is the Ramsey tri-field. $74 with assembly required, it's so sensitive it'll show the magnetism of the earth! It's on my wish list. I do like their use of a report, but I could easily see a dossier for my results from lemp.
NOTE: Here's a brilliant idea to all of the shows, how about a DVD containing all of the collected materials, the poignant clips and whatever in regards to what you found!!! Okay, that may be the computer programmer in me, because that's pretty easy for me to pull off.
Paranormal State - I like this show and I hate it at the same time. On the one hand, they really are trying to help, the only problem is that sometimes it just feels like a bunch of high school/college kids doing it. It is similar to what they did with shows like "scariest places on earth" and "mtv's fear". They rely too heavily on the psychic figuring out the problems and basically resolving the issues for them. Lately they started blindfolding the psychics. I feel the show is turning a corner and heading down a road that leads to boring. There was the tremendously hyped "darkness falls" where ryan tries to refocus his group, but I think the whole episode failed for two reasons. The group never refocused and ryan was just way to cryptic. Once a season the show turns into some kind of cryptozoology field trip and the credibility is left there. Mothman? Jersey devil? Next you'll be looking for bigfoot. Honestly, we get that stuff with Destination Truth and it's not that good there either.
Let me just say in conclusion, for a professional ghost hunter, providing evidence shouldn't be a potshot kind of affair. There's plenty of techniques and getting the right one to work at the right time? That's where the professional comes in.
If you want to impress me with the paranormal, feature what is found than the people that it's about. I know for me, I would rather impress someone with what I do and how I do it rather than who I am.
No comments:
Post a Comment