UFO Hunters!

[Joanne98]

Sorry to interrupt the 911 debate but the mods are making me put me UFO stuff here! Two new shows start Wednesday night....

http://www.heraldtribune.com/article/20080201/BLOG32/791849768/-1/RSS1013

In televisionland, as a general rule, you want to save the stuff you’re excited about for sweeps weeks. The first shot at impressing the Nielsens is always February. So what’s new?

In a reflection of the national sickness that starts sucking big $$$ into the 2008 presidential race immediately after the '06 midterms and sprinkles Christmas inventories onto retail shelves immediately after Labor Day (yes! It’s true! At Walgreens!), the History Channel and the Sci Fi Channel managed to break new ground this week.

But wait. Before we even discuss timing, let’s talk about something even dumber. A group of linguists and bibliophiles called the Global Language Monitor say the English language is now just 4,883 entries shy of 1 million words. Some scholars argue English has more words than any other language on Earth.

Now. The Sci Fi and History channels get this bright idea to launch simultaneous “reality” shows about gumshoes working to resolve cases about unidentified flying objects. They’ve got nearly a million words to work with in the dictionary. Sci Fi names its show: “UFO Hunters.” History names its show: “UFO Hunters.”

It gets worse. A few weeks ago, their noise machines start dispensing press kits promoting their respective programs for premieres in February. On the same night: Feb. 6. In the same time slot: 10 p.m. EST.

Remember how Florida was so desperate to butt in front of the elections process that it scheduled its primaries earlier than both parties permitted? And instead of attracting the candidates’ attention as intended, just the opposite happened? The contenders couldn’t make campaign speeches and Florida wound up depriving its voters of convention delegates?

History and Sci Fi decided to go Florida. They chucked their sweeps calendars and shoved their shows ahead to Wednesday night in a head-to-head showdown. “It’s unclear which network made the first move,” wrote Reality TV World, but the result was “a game of trademark chess aimed at ensuring neither show can claim to have aired before the other.”

Principles, man.

Fortunately, De Void was able to review both shows. Who won? “UFO Hunters” — the one with the real footage.

Look, reality television is what it is. You’ve still gotta have a script, and there are only so many ways to make blocking look spontaneous. Both were a little stagey, but the History Channel came off as trying a bit harder to look unrehearsed.

The History Channel’s “UFO Hunters” is at a disadvantage in the Immediacy Department because, well, it’s history. Its niche is revisiting cold cases like Wednesday night’s spot on the 1947 Maury Island Incident. Not surprisingly, with its reliance on archived footage, this show had more of a documentary feel to it, but those resources didn’t help them solve what happened over Puget Sound.

On the other hand, “UFO Magazine” publisher and de facto show host Bill Birnes has a respectable Dr. Hunter S. Thompson thing going on with the baseball cap and the sunglasses. If only he had a T-shirt with the fist-and-blade logo that reads “GONZO!”

The editing of Sci Fi’s “UFO Hunters” exudes more kinetic energy and trumpets the thrill of tearing off after contemporary UFOs on a moment’s notice. Highlight: Chasing down a Carteret, N.J., sighting from 2001.

Sci Fi grabbed compelling eyewitness testimony, but the package got a little lame when team member Dennis Anderson put a cloak-and-dagger spin on how his sources had slipped him the local FAA radar reports profiling a fast-moving UFO. Those records were actually written up by the National Institute of Discovery Science in 2001. (Sci Fi showed the cover of the report but never mentioned it was more than six years old.)

Bottom line: Sci Fi wins the head-to-head because it actually showed footage of the New Jersey UFO’s arrayed lights, captured by a police department employee’s camcorder. No solution to this story, either, but a little more drama than History.

Moral of the story: Two “UFO Hunters” in the same time slot aren’t nearly enough. We need five or six.

http://www.heraldtribune.com/article/20080201/BLOG32/791849768/-1/RSS1013