This used to be one of my most favorite TV shows ever. It was the first show I looked up on IMDb so I could rate it a 10. It has never been entirely rigorously scientific, but that would have been too boring anyway. In the first seasons they managed to strike a great balance between sensation and scientific validity. Initially each episode spent quite a bit of time showing how Jamie and Adam constructed their experiments, which made it quite educational.
Then it gradually went downhill. The attention for how the experiments were built, was gradually reduced with every new season. Until 2013 however it never reached a level where the show was reduced to all style and no substance. Then however, episodes started popping up that were obviously intended to promote some other Discovery show. This only got worse with the 2014 season which started with a Star Wars special that gave a forced impression like "someone paid us to spend an entire episode on this franchise that has no ground in reality at all".
Then came the live Twitter pop-ups, which I find horribly annoying. Every thirty-something seconds there is this moving rectangle in the corner of the screen that grows to cover a substantial area of the image. I do not care at all about the text inside it. Having comments from random viewers shoved in my face is like watching YouTube and being forced to read the inane comments below the video. Ignoring these pop-ups is nearly impossible due to the attention-grabbing animation and the simple fact that they cover essential parts of the image. Please, please stop superimposing this junk on the broadcast. TV is not interactive and I like it that way, so do not pretend it is by feeding us these obviously heavily moderated tweets. Anyone who badly wants to read live tweets can see them on any other device they like.
My dwindling respect for this show got another hit when I stumbled upon a report of some episodes being unauthorized re-makes of copyrighted material, like the "airplane boarding" episode which never aired in the USA because the lawsuit is still ongoing. I still have respect for Jamie and Adam because I tend to believe they just go with what their producers hand them, and most of all, because of all the years of televised enjoyment they offered me. Yet I am afraid that if MB continues on its current trajectory, I will have to say it goodbye.
Then it gradually went downhill. The attention for how the experiments were built, was gradually reduced with every new season. Until 2013 however it never reached a level where the show was reduced to all style and no substance. Then however, episodes started popping up that were obviously intended to promote some other Discovery show. This only got worse with the 2014 season which started with a Star Wars special that gave a forced impression like "someone paid us to spend an entire episode on this franchise that has no ground in reality at all".
Then came the live Twitter pop-ups, which I find horribly annoying. Every thirty-something seconds there is this moving rectangle in the corner of the screen that grows to cover a substantial area of the image. I do not care at all about the text inside it. Having comments from random viewers shoved in my face is like watching YouTube and being forced to read the inane comments below the video. Ignoring these pop-ups is nearly impossible due to the attention-grabbing animation and the simple fact that they cover essential parts of the image. Please, please stop superimposing this junk on the broadcast. TV is not interactive and I like it that way, so do not pretend it is by feeding us these obviously heavily moderated tweets. Anyone who badly wants to read live tweets can see them on any other device they like.
My dwindling respect for this show got another hit when I stumbled upon a report of some episodes being unauthorized re-makes of copyrighted material, like the "airplane boarding" episode which never aired in the USA because the lawsuit is still ongoing. I still have respect for Jamie and Adam because I tend to believe they just go with what their producers hand them, and most of all, because of all the years of televised enjoyment they offered me. Yet I am afraid that if MB continues on its current trajectory, I will have to say it goodbye.