Sure, the Discovery Channel is enjoying huge audiences and critical raves for its new nature series “Frozen Planet.” But for every hit documentary the network shows, there are several that failed to generate even a single remark on Twitter.
House Flies: The Birds of the Living Room
The majestic winged creatures of windowsills and exposed garbage pails get their due in this dramatic 22-episode nature series about resting on a chair for 11 hours or accidentally getting sucked up by a vacuum cleaner. And for the very first time a documentary equips a fly with an IMAX camera to give an exciting bug’s-eye view of plummeting straight into the floor.
Squirrel Week
Hoping to recapture the dramatic intensity and visceral excitement of “Shark Week” with fewer missing limbs and hemorrhaging, Discovery crams their summer schedule with show after show of these “menacing predators of parks and picnics.” Whether they’re running up a tree, running only halfway up a tree or just running to a tree only to turn around and run elsewhere, these nut-thirsty squirrels will take viewers on a wild ride of scurrying, scampering or just freezing mid- tree trunk for photo opportunities.
Ice Floe: One Chunk’s Journey
From moving slightly to being visited by a seal to—in a heartbreaking episode—melting, Discovery follows a single slab of ice from its formation to perhaps being confused for another slab of ice, thereby negating the whole point of the series.
Hibernating Bears
Countless nature documentaries have focused on bears’ eating habits, mating rituals, and ability to snap a human neck like a crisp celery stalk. But only Discovery brings you as close as you’ll ever get to watching a bear remain utterly motionless for upwards of six months by placing a camera several feet away from a cave so as not to disturb anyone. The sometime in May the film crew is caught off-guard by the awaken bear and mauled to death.
Light Breezes: The Reason Leaves Move Like That
A branch slightly sways. A windchime jingles. A shopping bag hovers in a low circle. Someone’s hair is gently messed up. And $12 million of a BBC documentary studio’s money is blown on a nature series that could have easily been filmed with an iPhone and an open window.
Still No Bigfoot
The Discovery Channel interviews 300 people who have never seen Bigfoot, reviews more than 1000 photos of just trees, and leaves a camera on in the Northwest woods for a year to capture nothing in the most exhausting documentary yet about the complete absence of anything to document.
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