Sunday, July 29, 2012

Viking Shores Review

I should have posted this long ago.  I'd like to give you a review of the Whale Wars spin-off, Viking Shores, that I told you about a while back (see http://theyneedavoice.blogspot.com/2012/04/whale-wars-spin-off.html for original post). I watched all five episodes with my Dad, and I believe that it started very good. The first couple episodes were exciting, but by the third it began to get boring. At the end of each episode, it would show a "Next time, on Viking Shores," and they would make you think there was going to be lots of action in the next episode. Then in the next episode, there wouldn't be any action and it would show the same "Next time," that the previous episode did. Starting in like the third one, it just kept showing and explaining the same stuff over and over again. My dad and I just wanted to see them to try stop a Grind like they kept showing on the "Next time," clip. We got to where in the last two episodes we just forwarded through most of it. Finally in the last episode, it showed a little bit of action with them trying to stop a Grind. It was nothing like we were expecting though. They did stop one Grind, but at the very end of the episode, it had a message on the screen saying that shortly after the sea shepherds left, there was a Grind where like 250 pilot whales were killed. Such a happy ending, isn't it? My dad and I were both disappointed with the show overall. We agreed that it was just way too stretched out and could have been better if it was shorter.

2 comments:

  1. The frustration you feel may be more an issue of contemporary programming. We see television only while locked in a hotel room, but my recent experiences have only further soured my perspective.

    Bear in mind that the content of a program is the advertising, while the fill is the excitement between commercials. Most mass-produced fill is designed to compel your interest so you'll suffer the fill, something beyond my own sensibilities. We saw ''Whale Wars'' a couple of times, and the advertising, as you've described, was highly misleading.

    Your best bet is to continue seeing good documentaries on the subject, avoiding the more commercialized nonsense deemed fit for mass consumption.

    You can see a list of good dolphin documentaries here.

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  2. I agree. The advertising for this particular series is incredibly misleading. Documentaries chronicling scientific inquiry suit me better. I don't believe I'll be watching these radical stunt men with endless financial resources attempting to appeal to all with bleeding hearts. The money used to pay for the shepherds' crimes could be put to much better use in my opinion.

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