Kick In The Eye

For a while now I've been convinced Hurl was the worst show on television, but I've since managed to find something even more repugnant: Discovery Channel's Destroyed in Seconds. Each episode is 30 minutes of planes crashing, factories exploding, boats sinking, burning houses, collapsing buildings, auto wrecks, flames, wracked metal, carnage, destruction and death. All presented as entertainment. Check out the promo:


Or this little bit from the show's website:

From well-orchestrated implosions of massive structures, to rampaging tornadoes, catastrophic mid-air collisions and sudden terrorist attacks, no topic is too trivial or taboo for our show.

Yeah, hey, fuck you, Discovery Channel. Why don't you go ahead and just change your name to The Explosion Channel. Between this show, MythBusters' devolution from fun, quirky show to The Hey-Let's-Blow-This-Shit-Up Hour, and it's progeny, the dreadful, dreadful Smash Lab (AKA MythBusters Without The Charisma), Discovery Channel has become the number one network for exploding crap.

When they're not showing Bear Grylls drinking his own piss.

Discovery Channel's website offers up this pathetic bit of linguistic hopscotch as rationalization:

Destroyed in Seconds is not meant to just shock and entertain, but to explore the causes of mass destruction and how, when possible, families and communities bounce back from devastation.

The show isn't just meant to shock and entertain, no, not solely, just like 95% of the time. When possible they talk, as an aside, about the survivors. You know, on those rare occasions a plane bursting into flames or a rescue chopper slamming a hospital leave survivors.

I watched an episode of the show and it left me queasy. Literally. How this collection of human suffering is packaged as entertainment is beyond me.