Megalomania

A review of "Real Dragons", an episode of MonsterQuest

Australians just have to be the meanest, toughest and worst. Can't anyone stop these outrageous guys "down under" from bragging? Not satisfied with their *real* beasts, such as the Taipan or the Tiger Snake, the Aussies have invented the meanest cryptids as well. Yowie is scarier than Sasquatch, the Bunyip is meaner than Nessie, and the supposedly surviving thylacines are at least cooler than the Turner Beast. In this episode of "MonsterQuest", we meet Megalenia, a monitor lizard the size of a bus which some enthusiast claim still live in remote areas of Australia, where they terrorize outlaying farms and Aboriginal settlements...

Yeah right, matie!

How can a breeding population of lizards the size of a school bus avoid detection for centuries, in the most trigger-happy nation in the world? And what do they eat? Vegemite? All those implanted rabbits? They must be tired of rabbit meat after all these years!

The problem with this series is that they just have to keep ratings up, so real mysteries (such as good ol' Sasquatch) get mixed with stuff that's simply ridiculous. This is one of those episodes. It's worth watching for the Komodo dragons, but the idea of Megalenia still surviving is typical Australian megalomania.