The History Channel presenting dramatic reenactments of Bible stories is worse than Syfy showing professional “wrestling.” From the Guardian:
It describes fantastical events, yet appears on the History Channel…
More than 13 million viewers watched the first episode, featuring a cast of actors who are often so good-looking that scenes from the Old Testament can resemble a fashion advertisement…
Critics panned some graphic scenes – such as Mary’s labour giving birth to Jesus – while slamming its apparent squeamishness about sex in others, such as the destruction of the city of Sodom, where little is given away about the sexual behaviour of its citizens…
[S]pats have arisen over the lack of prominent non-white characters, aside from Samson. Others have attacked it as a too-literal interpretation of a religious work that many theologians believe was allegory as much as a telling of factual narratives. The Bible has certainly played it straight, recounting Adam and Eve’s fall from grace, Noah’s flood and the work of angels as straight factual narratives.
At least Syfy is pretty much admitting that wrestling is fiction.
Oh my gawd, the History Channel’s Jesus (above, played by Diogo Morgado*) is hot. No wonder people are watching.
*In the ancient tongue of the Dúnedain, of course, “Diogo Morgado” means “the Right Hand of Sauron.”
As an astrophysicist, science teacher, and atheist raised in a non-practicing, mixed Ashkenazim Jewish and Irish Protestant household, I still think Biblical reenactments are a significant step up for THC from “Ancient Aliens”.
http://goo.gl/FCZtd
Or Nostradamus. Or Doomsday Preppers…
Now I’m having visions of David Naughton singing the following: “I drink Doomsday Prepper because I’m proud; I’m not one of the same old rapture crowd. I’m not waiting till the Judgment Day. I’m going to drink Doomsday Prepper any way! I’m a Prepper, she’s a Prepper, wouldn’t you like to be a Prepper too?! Drink Doomsday Prepper, drink Doomsday Prepper…”
The unexamined life is not worth living. I think I’m going to drink some hemlock. I’m comin’ home Socrates.
http://www.eatliver.com/i.php?n=8549
Posting a link without saying what it is makes you look like a spammer… :->
Yes, the History Channel has been shit. But this is a new low for shit, because lots and lots and lots more people do think the Bible is history than think Nostradamus was actually foretelling the future.
The thing that infographic is missing is all the shows about pawn and junk shops and ice road truckers/pilots. Oh how did that happen. Not as bad as the alien shit, but yeah, that is a pure TLC move there.
Even though I have no interest in watching the above miniseries, I would rather they keep making miniseries than throwing money into the alien shit and ice road truckers and pawn shops crap.
I’d take fiction over “reality” shows at this point… that’s how low it has sunk.
Sorry about that! I’ll be sure to add context next time.
I agree with you completely, the History channel hit bottom and started digging. Still it’s a hoge shame that virtually all of the “educational” cable channels have moved away from educational programs to sensationalistic anti-intellectualism. Most of them have gone to “reality” tv programs with little resemblance to reality.
Indeed. Unlike these examples, there is at least some historical value in reenacting mythological stories, even mythology from the Christian Bible. (I mean, god knows there seems to be a hell of a lot of Christians who’ve never read the damned thing.)
Maybe this signals the beginning of a series of miniseries, where they reenact stories from several major religions, like Hindi or Buddhist stories.
Hey, it could happen!
I’d love to see the History Channel present reenactments from the Koran or the Egyptian Book of the Dead as if they really happened. Just to see the howls of protest from the audience that’s loving this.
I remember back when it was the 24/7 Nazi Channel. (And someone posted a lovely spoof review of that “WWII” show…)
Sure, and then we can start calling FlickFilosopher “MAJ’s One-Note Symphony”.
I object to that. There are *at least* three or four notes I hit stridently over and over again.
I thought it was funny when I ran across the book that accompanies this series… it was co-written by Rona “Touched By An Angel” Downey and Mark Burnett.
Wait… there’s a miniseries called “The Bible”, where they reenact stories from the Bible, but there’s a book going with it that isn’t the Bible?? What the actual fuck?
I looked it up on Amazon and there is a novel and a book of 100 inspirations based on the miniseries.
It is even weirder than I had first observed.