Very Disappointed With Shark Week

As someone who loves both sharks and “geek-TV” (my girlfriend’s term for History, NatGeo, and Discovery), I wait all year for Discovery’s Shark Week. But, this year’s Shark Week truly sucks.

The week began with a very poorly done, 2-hour docu-drama, Blood in the Water, about the 1916 New Jersey shark attacks that became the inspiration for Peter Benchley’s Jaws. After last year’s program about the U.S.S. Indianapolis, I figured it’d be great. Not so. Blood in the Water was repetitive (annoyingly repetitive coming back from commercial), and the historic drama/interview style of the show was badly done, bordering on gratuitous gore. The shark action footage was unoriginal, most of it coming from previous Shark Week.

The rest of the week has not been much better, featuring old programs, or new shows which simply go over ground (sea) that has been covered in previous year’s programming. I’m hoping tonight is better.

Oh, and one last thought. I never thought I would say this, but the airborne Great White film is really becoming cliched. It was cool in Air Jaws (and Air Jaws II), but when every show has footage from False Bay in South Africa sprinkled throughout, it gets kinda old.