The Antichrist, Nostradumbass and 9/11...yep, it's "learning" TV...

[onager]

It's Saturday morning, and before I start my Personal Apocalypse of cleaning house, I checked the cable channels IN SEARCH OF something worth DVR-ing.

Today on The History Channel:

The Antichrist (2 hours. The whole myth could be explained in a half-hour. Or less.)

Nostradamus: 500 Years Later - Experts examine 10 of his most famous prophecies. (I've laughed at all these experts on previous shows. No doubt one will be that dope who affects a medieval hat, and another one that geezer who looks old enough to have personally known Nostradumbass.)

The Next Nostradamus - using the computer to predict events (GIGO...)

Meanwhile, over on National Geographic channel...

Who Really Killed Jesus? (Food poisoning. Conjuring up 5,000 fish on an afternoon in the Middle East is not a good idea...)

The Search for Noah's Ark (Again?!?)

Decoding Bible Relics (Maybe they'll decode Jan Crouch.)

The Devil's Bible (Minus the woo-woo about doomed monks and a cursed book, that show was actually pretty good. I saw it a few weeks ago.)

9/11: Science and Conspiracy (probably shouldn't judge unless I watch it. But any pairing of "9/11" and "conspiracy" automatically raises my hackles.)

[Orrex]

1. Every time I turn on the "History International" channel...

there's a program about either the Book of Revelation or the end-time predictions of Nostradamus.

[onager]

2. **Gasp!** You're psychic!

Today's History Channel lineup from 8:00 AM:

Decoding The Past - Mayan Doomsday Prophecies

The Universe - Aha! A boring old scienc-y show! But they had to work the key word into the subject description. The subject - Stopping Armageddon - Asteroid Collision.

Countdown to Armageddon - World events lead some to believe that the end is near. (Omitting the key word "morons.")

The Lost Book of Nostradamus

Seven Signs of the Apocalypse

The Universe - It Fell From The Sky - What? They couldn't work an "Armageddon" or "Apocalypse" into the title? Bet that pissed 'em off.

And after that short break, we're right back on topic with...

Nostradamus 2012 - Nostradumbass AND Mayan Doomsday Prophecies! Ha! Top THAT, NatGeo!

NatGeo is pretty much behaving itself today, re-showing The Human Family Tree.

For cinema connoiseurs, there's a rare showing of Escape To Athena, a 1979 WWII epic starring Telly Savalas, Roger Moore and Sen. Sonny Bono. It often shows up on lists of the worst movies ever made. Probably because of those damn liberal propagandists...

[HappyCynic]

12. Apocalypses

I'm getting quite tired of all the apocalypses people promise time and again but never once deliver on. Y2K and other millennial doomsday predictions (including the Rapture), Nostradamus's King of Terror in 1999, 5/5/05 (a book predicted an ice age triggered by the alignment of the planets), the Fatima prophecies (the previous pope was supposed to be the last pope), etc. And these are just some of the most recent ones. At this point, I swear that if the apocalypse happens, it better be a spectacular one. Plagues? Not good enough, especially with medical science today. War? Too mundane. Climate change? Too long and drawn out. Zombie apocalypse? Only slightly better than a normal plague. Asteroid impact or the ring of fire spewing dust/volcanic ash into the air simulating a nuclear winter? Closer but still not spectacular enough. What do I think *would* be spectacular enough? I'd accept the sun and/or the Earth exploding, the moon changing orbit and hitting the earth, or anything similarly grand. Anyone else feel this way?

[charlie]

3. Heh. A search for "history channel" at Reddit raises stuff like this

Last night the History Channel aired a 2-hour long insightful, informative documentary about the geological and biological origins of the earth that every high-school student in America should see. I'm outraged. I demand more shows about ghosts, phychics, UFOs, lumberjacks, and Alaskan truckers.

Who else thinks that the "History Channel" should change it's name to the "Speculative Bullshit Channel" from now on?

WTF happened to the History Channel? Today's programming consisted of: Nostradamus, Revelation, End of Days, Bible Code, UFOs, Jesus, and UFO Jesus.

...and this nice infographic:


http://www.reddit.com/r/all/search?q=%22history+channel%22&sort=top

[onager]

4. Thanks! I just wasted too much time reading those comments.

Yeah, I woke up from a nap the other day to "Nostradamus 2012" playing. In the 15 seconds before I could find the remote, they mentioned Nostradamus, the Mayans, the Masons, and the Illuminati. I was then forced to throw a lamp through my TV in an effort to stem the tide of stupid.

:rofl:

[Warpy]

5. The History channels seem bizarrely fixated on PROPHECY

instead of HISTORY, especially on the weekend. I guess they've decided to follow the pack in keeping the fundies ignorant, not that too many fundies watch anything but televangelists.

As an aside, Direct TV has given me 3 free months of the Showtime channels, all 8 of them. There's not a damned thing worth watching on them, either.

[salvorhardin]

6. I'm sure that for similar reasons to why SciFi changed their name to SyFy

The History Channel doesn't want to be stuck in such a narrow rut. They want to appeal to a wider audience than just history buffs. So they program anything that remotely has something to do with history. The Bible and Nostradamus are history, right? ;-) Of course, like SyFy, they fail to realize that in programming the same crap (and it literally is the same crap -- you see the exact same shows on Discovery, and a dozen other channels) as every other cable channel they dilute their brand so much that there's no real reason to watch The History Channel, ever. My prediction for The History Channel: Next up, reruns of Hogan's Heroes, Happy Days and M*A*S*H. They're all about history too, right? ;-)

[Warpy]

7. SyFy rarely has science fiction, I noticed

Part of the reason is that there are so few really good flicks out there in the genre. Most are b-movies from the 50s with really cheesy effects.

So they show horror movies and elaborate fantasy movies, also b-movies but in color and with better effects.

Now that I've caught up to about 10 years of cable programming, I find there is actually very little new stuff that's worth watching.

National Geographic is about the best of the bunch. Right now, they're demolishing all the "troofer" theories about 9/11. The Troofers are unimpressed, of course.

[salvorhardin]

8. Yeah, that's why I haven't subscribed to cable or even owned a TV in very nearly a decade now

Well, that and not having the money for cable. But mainly because there's very little that interests me and what does is available online, increasingly legally. I really think the future of cable will be as a high speed internet provider (if they can up speeds and handle the bandwidth) rather than as a content provider. Services like Hulu and even YouTube will come to dominate content delivery I think. How anyone makes money in all of this as disintermediation reigns I don't know, but of one thing I'm pretty sure -- the old school networks, broadcasters, cable and satellite companies are doomed.

[onager]

9. History Channel has a new series every week now!

The Nostradamus Effect

:banghead:

I just watched Manson on History Channel. That was a "dramatized documentary" and it really sucked. I was expecting more of a real documentary. Though I don't know why I should expect such a thing.

And after that we were treated to...The Other Nostradamus: Edgar Cayce.

It started right out with a bunch of whiz-bang testimonials:

"He was like a human X-ray machine!"

"Edgar Cayce was definitely the most important prophet of the twentieth century."

Bang head again. And again...

[charlie]

10. Geez. How many fucking quatrains did that dude write?

I mean, what more can be said about him? By the '80s, Nostradumbassery was already the spackle lo-rent cable channels used to fill their late night lineups. It was Nostradamus who conditioned me to do a reflexive scrabble for the remote whenever I saw Orson Welles.

[realisticphish]

11. The Hystyry Channel

That's what I'm calling it from now on (props to one of the posts from reddit above)

[onager]

13. Hystry Chnl sort of perked up today...

With the 2-hr show The Dark Ages.

Subtext: all that Xianity was just a cover for grabbing political power.

Naturally, they had to give short shrift to MANY things, since they were covering a millenium in 2 hours. But it wasn't nearly as embarassing as some of their recent crap shows.

Minor gripe: they seemed to use the same "re-enactors" - in the same costumes - interchangably as Goths, Franks, Generic Barbarians, Islamic Invaders, and Vikings.

Vikings wore horny helmets. Everybody knows that.