Second-person disasterporn? (original) (raw)

| | September 2nd, 2009 z_gryphon**12:58 am - Second-person disasterporn?**There's a new show on Spike TV, Surviving Disaster - another of the curious plethora of shows hosted by ex-Navy SEALs who talk unusually fast. (Maybe all SEALs talk unusually fast. It might be a side effect of their training or something.) I usually sort of flinch and try to stay away from Spike, but I caught an ad for this in something I recorded on another network and decided to give it a look. (What the hell, The Daily Show is in reruns this week.)It's basically Worst Case Scenario: The Series: Each week they present a disaster situation in which an everyday citizen might find him- or herself caught, and then the host (who is a character in the dramatization, but who often pauses to address the camera without the other characters noticing) explains how to get out of it intact. (Hence the title of the post.) This week's was "How to Re-Take a Hijacked Airliner" (aka the United 93 problem).I enjoyed this episode - I'm a little skeptical of the opening claim that nothing you're shown is beyond the capabilities of the "average Joe", but only a little. The actual retaking of the aircraft relies on you having the rather improbable ability to make an impromptu SEAL team out of a group of total strangers without actually being able to speak to them, but if you can get past that there are nuggets of interesting, potentially useful information, such as the frequency you need to put the airplane's radio on so you can convince the F-16s not to shoot you down (121.5 MHz, if you're curious). Still, it was pretty entertaining and not (as I often fear with Spike productions) mind-bendingly machismo-soaked. I'll catch next week's and see if it keeps being fun. (Next week's scenario is apparently derived from the 1974 Irwin Allen disaster movie The Towering Inferno.)(Please note that this series should not be confused with the recent BBC series of the same name, which also looks interesting and which I think I'd quite like to see.)(Leave a comment) | | -------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------- | | | | LiveJournal.com |