VICELAND, Bitches!!!!

Holy shit, what da fuq is this now?

H2, the History Channel’s red-headed stepchild on which UFOs, Aliens, Conspiracy Theories, and maneating snakes (FAKE maneating snakes, that is) have come to abound, will diez a merciful death in merely 10 days.

Now, I’m not at all saying that the sorts of programming referenced in the above paragraph are worthy of your time. Aside from comedic escapism, at least. I do freely admit to occasionally watching them and shouting at my TV regarding the respective idiocy and logical fallacies displayed therein.  I have an education grounded in scientific method.  And I like feeling superior.  So, on occasion, there IS some value to this drivel when I have a need to feel smart.  But by and large it really sucks that it gets as much airtime as it does and that the public at large sees it as real history.  Or real science.  Or real anything for that matter.

HOWEVER, H2 also has been a place for overflow of REAL historical, and even scientific documentaries, which in recent years the History Channel has forsaken in favor of old guys in pawn shops looking for old shit, old guys rooting around barns looking for old shit, and old guys trying to restore old shit that the aforementioned old guys had found in old barns or old pawn shops.

Did you know that the moons Pandora and Prometheus are shepherding moons, keeping those awesome rings of Saturn in order?  DID YOU?????  Probably not.  But I bet you know that these two douchebags found some random gas station sign in a barn somewhere in rural Kentucky, bought it for $30 from some guy not wearing shoes, and were able to restore it and sell it for $500.

American Pickers

On the day of this writing…in fact the exact moment of this writing…H2 has been featuring an all day Civil War documentary marathon of sorts. That was/is some good shit.  I mean who doesn’t love rows of dead rotting corpses from 150+ years ago….right????

gettysburg

I mean, it’s not worse than those two schlubs from American Pickers walking around with severed mannequin heads is it?

OK, maybe it is….but I digress…

To further my point, which I’ve kinda forgotten now, but I think it had something to do with the dying off of people wanting to actually learn about history or the physical sciences…..tomorrow, H1 (as it will be henceforth known here, because I’m tired of typing out History Channel….awww shit, just did it again anyway) has an all day lineup of the old guys/old shit routine.

Pawn Stars

How much old shit can a person tolerate???  The ONLY good thing about that show is Chumley, and they just dump on him at every opportunity.  One of these days someone’s gonna come in and pawn a Colt LE6920 converted to full auto, and after Chumley does the paperwork he’s gonna go postal.  Now THAT’S a damned show!!!!!

But again, I digress….

H1 did premiere something new last night, Join or Die with Craig Ferguson, which I haven’t watched yet so no spoilers please (Yeah I know it’s not scripted drama, so spoilers are largely not something which would….HEY, SHUT UP!!!) and I do have high hopes for that. But 30 minutes a week? That still leaves a lot of time for old shit to be found, shown, talked about and restored.

And granted, promos currently running on H2 do claim that “your favorite H2 shows will be moving to the History Channel”….dammit!!!! H1!!!! Son of a bitch!!!!

But you just know “your favorite shows” is merely code for this guy…

ancient aliens

And that Brad Meltzer fuckwit isn’t much better, though they do at least keep things ALMOST grounded in reality….usually.  But they also tend to spend an hour chasing shit around they could have figured out in 15 minutes, filling the other dead air with “hey look at that…it might be significant….wait, no it’s not”.  Hey, I like symbols and signs as much as the next guy, but sometimes hard research and legwork beats out wild speculation about a random stain, conspiracy theory and/or paint smear.

So where is this all going?  What is to become of H2? (as if you’re even still reading at this point)

Rebranding, Baybee!!!!!  VICELAND!!!!

What the heck is that you ask? Well, after reading about it and watching the promo vids, I’m at a loss to be able to explain it fully. But it appears that this internet presence has bought themselves a TeeVee Channel…more or less.

https://youtube.com/watch?v=4pCNJKGhQXM

So…backhanded compliment forthcoming….at least it looks better than Ancient Aliens.

In all honesty, some of it looks very interesting. Some of it looks rather fun(ny). Much of it looks just this side of brainless. Some of it looks completely idiotic. These guys seem to like it though.  And the channel owners themselves (incl. Spike Jonze apparently) seem to think it’s good stuff too, not surprisingly.

And admittedly, it does appear to have crime, weed, Henry Winkler, and what I think appears to some questionable sexual orientations.  Not that there’s anything wrong with that.

So pretty much business as usual on my TV.

Fuck you, TV.

I’ll probably give it a chance, as it’s already programmed in my remote as a favorite channel, thus I’ll have to surf by it whether I want to or not because I’m damn sure not going in and editing my favorite channels.

But I swear, if it ends up becoming just another outlet for more dumb shit I am NOT gonna watch it more than 5-6 hours a day.

You’ve been warned History Channel.

I mean H1.  OH DAMMIT!!!!!!

/Sits down, clicks remote, let’s see what’s on…grumble, grumble
//Yay, H2 Civil War docs still on…notices it’s same narrator as Ancient Aliens
///Bastards

////Later I’ll be looking for Uranus

 

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theeWeeBabySeamus
An unapologetic, even if often manic-depressive (it's a requirement given his choices of sports teams), fan of NC State University, the Baltimore Ravens and the Baltimore Orioles. When not parked in front of the computer and/or TV, can often be found on the golf course shouting obscenities to no one in particular.
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Wakezilla

Wait. There was actually a channel worse than History Channel?

https://media.riffsy.com/images/96307173ab9a679a4f8e70a6604ed7ad/raw

Moose -The End Is Well Nigh

No; H2 actually has about 1 in 20 shows that are about ACTUAL history, but its close.

jjfozz

I just finished Breaking Bad and caught up on Better Call Saul.

My wife and I are watching The Wire – and wondering if our hometown could ever look fucking worse than it does in that show. (One of the scenes was shot in the ‘burbs about a mile from where I live. Cool story, bro.)

One show I watch is called Tiny Houses or Tiny Spaces or Midget Mansions or some such shit. Yup, they’re small houses built by weird people that are obsessed with utilizing every square inch of the structure. Like, “Oh yeah, when we’re done with the cook stove, it lowers into the floor and heats the 10 gallon tin washtub for our weekly bath!”

Wakezilla

Ever watch Arrow? You know, Star City, which is an absolute dump full of abandoned buildings and shady as shit? Yeah, I live around where they shoot. They actually sanitize the area to make it less repulsive and the mayor gets rid of all the homeless for the time they need to film.

I hear you.

JerBear50

My g/f watches those shows and every time she watches, she ends up carrying on about how we need to build a tiny house. At which point I explain that I’m 6’3 and she’s 5’11, so no, we’re not getting a fucking tiny house.

Ahhh…good ol’ network decay, any of you guys remember when TLC used to show surgeries?

King Hippo

Man, when I first got HD, and there was no sporting event on…surgery was my go-to gawking option.

Doktor Zymm

I remember when a crazy guy (you know he was crazy because he had a poorly written manifesto) took the Discovery offices in Silver Spring hostage. His rationale was that the Earth’s population was too high, and Discovery promoted this because all of their networks, with TLC being one of the major offenders, had a shitton of pregnancy and baby shows. They were apparently glorifying procreation, and making the overpopulation worse, and he was saving the world by waving a gun around in the lobby, probably near the cool dinosaur statue.

Col. Duke LaCross

It’s always my go-to argument when some Ayn Rand disciple drops the “private industry always does it better than the government” line. TLC was started by NASA and for years, in addition to all the surgery, you had shows where you could actually learn something. They sold it off, and their most-watched shows since were about a pudgy redneck family that enters their little girl in pageants, and dwarves making candy.

JerBear50

Remember when A&E (Arts&Entertainment) and Bravo used to actually show, you know, kind of arty stuff? Music, documentaries, indie films, Breakfast with the Beatles every Sunday, etc?

BrettFavresColonoscopy

I just watched the new Craig Ferguson show, and he (as always) is hilarious. HOWEVAH, an episode titled “History’s Biggest Political Blunder” maybe just MAYBE should include things beyond the last decade. ‘Tis the very problem with the History Channel as encapsulated above.

JerBear50

Haven’t seen it yet either, but I will be watching. More Ferguson is good. I’m still waiting for his “wandering the Earth solving crimes” show.

Rikki-Tikki-Deadly

I find everything that Spike Jonze produces to be vastly overrated.

nomonkeyfun
King Hippo

Black dude who saw Django Unchanged, did not smire. Me no rikey.

Rikki-Tikki-Deadly

Is there some confusion here between Spike Jonze and Spike Lee?

entropy

I think it was a general conflation between people named “Spike,” basically saying they all suck.

JerBear50

Bessie can’t stand the way he sings, but she loves to hear him talk.

nomonkeyfun

I will pour one out for History International tonight, as I’m sure Horatio will. What other channel would show the Iaon Gruffudd version of Forester? At least in ‘Murica.

King Hippo

Man, back in the salad days when History International was a purer, more nerdy version of the History Channel…I fucking ATE THAT SHIT UP. Then, like most American things, it got dumbed down and fucking ruined.

King Hippo

I certainly DO hope they run another Karl Pilkington “An Idiot Abroad” series, though. Fucking love that shit.

JerBear50

Several years ago I got a compilation of all their old podcasts and radio shows (the ones The Ricky Gervais Show are cut from). Listening to those has been some of the hardest laughing I’ve ever done. It’s truly indescribable.

entropy

I stopped watching the Science channel BECAUSE it’s always How It’s Made, and honestly, I don’t give a fuck how golf balls are made, and you can’t make me with upbeat music and a monotone voice over.

Amy Mainzer, now, yes, we need MOAR of her.

The Right Reverend Electric Mayhem

I dunno. Is there anything better to take a nap to than How It’s Made?

entropy

I have never been able to watch more than ten minutes of The Others. Seriously. It’s my go-to insomnia cure.

King Hippo

I like Ellen Page. She deserves all the mad Canadian poon she gets. /no ofence

laserguru

I have watched Vice on HBO so I may give this a try.
I had no idea there was such a thing as H2 and I’m reasonably happy that I missed it. So many of the 200-300 channels have such similar content that I just tend to avoid them all.

Except for the Food channel and the Cooking channel. That’s my shit right there.

entropy

There’s a Heroin Network?! WHAT THE FUCK HAVE I BEEN WASTING MY TIME ON?!

JerBear50

There is a Heroin Channel, but it can be a pain in the ass trying to find it. Better off just sticking with the Methadone Channel. The programming isn’t quite as good, but at least it’s always there when you need it.

entropy

Fuck Ancient Aliens. Seriously. Fuck it right in the ass.

Also, regarding the new channel:

1. Any channel that gives me more Snoop Dogg and Michael K Williams on my TV is fine by me. Also, Ellen Page just seems kind of funny in a drier-than-dirt way, so I’ll check out her show, too.

2. Any show that talks about the truly weird future we’re currently on a collision course for, I’m interested in watching. The world has gotten very strange, in lots of isolated pockets, and seeing someone explore that could be interesting, if they don’t mock it all.

entropy

It’s not THAT weird, but come on now. Someone now legitimately believes his mother is a fucking robot, and has some kind of animatronic Turing machine to prove it. Cryogenics have become a way for people to improve health while ALIVE. The future is gonna be fun as hell.

entropy

I’ll settle for a legit space program with more manned missions. I want to watch someone walk on Mars before I kill all my brain cells.

JerBear50

Some of the absolute craziest, out-there shit you will ever hear.

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