Discovery Channel's SHARK WEEK 2013 started today!

And so I plop myself in front of the television to watch their all new shark-tacular Shark Week special... Megalodon: The Monster Shark That Lives... only to find something that wasn't SHARK EXTREME as expected... but a load of horse shit. Instead of being some kind of scientific exploration of one of the most brutal killing machines that ever lived, it's some kind of fictional Blair-Witch "found footage" garbage which tries to convince people that a mega-shark that went extinct millions of years ago is actually alive and terrorizing people even today. Which explains the odd title of the program.

Wondering what the bloody fuck was going on, I do what I usually do when I want to find out about something happening right now... I turn to Twitter. And there it is, courtesy of Wil Wheaton...

Discovery Channel Owes Its Viewers An Apology http://t.co/8kCqSSpcyD

— Wil Wheaton (@wilw) August 5, 2013

This is so disappointing. Shark Week bites: Discovery criticized for hugely misleading documentary http://t.co/S069YOysIH via @verge

— nilay patel (@reckless) August 5, 2013

Well crap. The write-up at Discover along with Wil Wheaton's comments pretty much sum up how horrible this situation is. What was once a brilliant television channel dedicated to science and education has ended up dredging the gutters of "trash entertainment" in a pathetic ratings grab.

Kind of puts a damper on something I look forward to all year...

On Saturday I spent 20 minutes on my DVR going through Discovery Channel's entire week of programming to record all the great new shark stuff (along with old favorites) so I wouldn't miss anything. I'm not going to dump all that work in some kind of boycott (as a lot of people are doing), but I am going to be watching with a lot less enthusiasm knowing what Discovery Channel has become.

We live in an age of scientific discovery that's both wonderful and fascinating.

But that's not enough to entertain the huddled masses.

Is this what we've come to? Really? Our "science facts" have to be sensationalized with bullshit or else nobody cares?

Apparently.

And I really shouldn't be surprised. We've got "news" channels with very little actual news, "music" channels that don't play any actual music, and now "science" channels that don't feel the need to air actual science.

I suppose the next step is to have science channels denying science.

I weep for the future, I really do.

   
UPDATE: And... point made. So many people have been passing this crap off as a real story that Snopes had to make an article about it. The huddled masses are so gullible to believe anything on their television... especially something on a "reputable" educational "science" channel... that it doesn't matter how outrageous or crazy the tale. Of course, it's not like anybody ever bothers to verify what they see on TV, even though the internet makes it easy and nearly instantaneous to do so. Unless people start forwarding the Snopes page at the rate they forwarded the Megalodon story, it doesn't make any difference. A giant extinct shark is actually terrorizing the seas.