“Weird or What” is a TV series
on the paranormal hosted by William Shatner (Captain Kirk from Star Trek). The
old commander turns out to be pretty slow paced and boring, but yes, he cracks
a few Trekkie jokes, as when he comments on a “theory” about aliens destroying
our sun with the words “We did some pretty crazy things onboard the Enterprise,
but this…”.
Otherwise, I must say that Shatner and his producers tackle some really bizarre topics in this series, and interview people who are definitely on the fringe. One interviewee claims to be a reincarnated Confederate general, a Haitian comes back to life after 18 years as a zombie, New Delhi is terrorized by a “monkey man” wearing a helmet with two flashing lights, and mysterious carved stones from Peru (well, yes, the good ol' Ica stones) supposedly prove that dinosaurs and humans walked the Earth together.
We also meet a survivalist who sells bunkers for a living, in case the Yellowstone super volcano erupts during our lifetime. The bunkers come fully stacked with food for one year. There are just two problems: reputable scientists don't believe the super volcano will go mustang any time soon, but if it does, it will devastate pretty much everything in North America for decades, even centuries. The bunker-dwelling doomsday preppers might feel a wee bit cheated when they discover this after spending one year eating powdered milk or whatever they got down there…
We also meet a few old acquaintances: Mothman, the Mayan apocalypse 2012 (but on December 12 this time), Ray Kurzweil still babbling on about the singularity (it will happen in 2050), and the Starchild skull. Pretty horrendous stuff, if you are a sceptic a.k.a. hard core Illuminati mole. However, “Weird or What” does differ from other paranormal shows in one respect: the sceptics get as much time, sometimes more, than the true believers. I admit I was surprised! Some of the sceptics are also old friends of ours, such as Joe Nickell, debunking Mothman for the 666th time. It was a barn owl, remember? (The producers, for some reason, show a different species of owl, except in one scene. Trickster archetype?) I was particularly heartened by hearing that the hype surrounding Mr Super Vulcano in Yellowstone National Park is grossly exaggerated. Now I can stop worrying about it, concentrating on the danger from the Icelandic volcanoes, instead…
“Weird or What” isn't really my cup of tea. I'm clearly getting to old for this stuff, LOL. But OK, I give it three stars for the effort. This is the second season, by the way.
No comments:
Post a Comment