It’s been a while since I visited this particular topic…and since this is only the second entry and it’s about another Travel Channel show, it must seem like I’m focusing all my ire on one of the few channels that I still watch with any frequency. Don’t worry. There’s enough anger within this wolf’s warp core to break the Travel Channel barrier soon enough.
Right now, though, this is the show in my line of fire. First, let me point out that I love scary things. Scary books, scary movies, scary music, scary coworkers…love it all (well, maybe not the coworker part). I always have. Even before I was assimilated into the Star Trek Collective, I was a horror hound.
Additionally, within recent years I have become addicted to many of the “reality” ghost shows out there, starting with another Travel Channel offering, the British BS of Most Haunted, right down through Ghost Hunters, Paranormal State, The Scariest Places on Earth…hell, my obsession probably started with the scary episodes of Unsolved Mysteries. I know that most, if not all, of what is seen on these shows is either faked or edited to be more than what it really was, but I still find them fascinating.
As for what I believe in regard to the paranormal, supernatural, otherworldly, or whatever…I’m not really sure. I’ve experienced things that, I’m sure if I thought about them long enough, I could come up with a logical explanation for them. But would that be me just trying to rationalize something that really was irrational? Or me getting a grip on reality rather than letting myself be swept away by the fantastical? I’m not really sure.
I do know this, though: If the afterlife is real and I was somehow stuck in that netherworld and forced to walk this earth as a spirit, the last thing I would want is to have my sanctuary disturbed by these douchewangers from Ghost Adventures.
These three are the most insipid, ridiculous, posturing assclowns ever to enter the paranormal reality show genre (and that’s a huge feat since they share this genre with the likes of Derek Acorah). I suspected as much when I heard them being marketed as “Extreme Paranormal Investigators.” The word “extreme” makes me want to vomit. Why does everything for my generation have to be “extreme”? No, I’m sorry… EXTREME!!!!1!!1!!!
Whatever. I’ve actually watched several episodes of Ghost Adventures. Yes, I secretly am masochistic. The premise itself is quite intriguing: Three investigators are locked inside a location that is presumed to be haunted, with no camera crew, no additional staff, no nothing. Just them, their equipment, and the possibility of paranormal activity that they must find before sunrise. What could have been an amazing premise in the hands of actors able to inspire a sense of competency and intelligence is instead a clusterfuck of testosterone-induced strutting and screaming strung together by the ever-present bleat of curse words being censored out. It’s boring. It’s tedious. It’s predictable. It sucks.
Final analysis: If you like paranormal things like I do but have no patience for predictable Gen-X drivel, definitely skip Ghost Adventures. The Mystery Inc. gang is more professional in their ghost hunting than these piles of smegma. Check out A&E’s Paranormal State or Syfy’s Ghost Hunters and Ghost Hunters International. Sure, they’ve all been edited down to meet viewer expectations, but at least these shows offer something a bit more intelligent than “Holy shit! Oh my god! I am fucking out of here, dude!”
Indeed.
