Discovery Channel: Better Reality

If you look at the other shows included in this list, you’ll notice that they’re all scripted. That is not an accident: Reality shows (particularly reality game shows) don’t do anything for me. The Discovery Channel, on the other hand, has really impressed me with their reality programming.

Mythbusters is perhaps the most engaging science-lite programming on TV right now. While they occasionally get important things wrong and seem unduly dismissive of real-world evidence of “myths,” their tests are really clever, and they seem to respond well to criticism, devoting entire programs to attempts to address criticism of their prior tests.

Planet Earth was simply breathtaking in its cinematography. The footage they captured for that project just about made my TV cry for its inadequacy. If I ever pony up for a blu-ray HD player, the DVD version of this series will be my first purchase.

Deadliest Catch and Dirty Jobs both reaffirm my career choice in an emphatic way on a weekly basis. Much as my wife reports watching Jon and Kate Plus Eight makes her appreciate how easy we have it as parents, both these shows present the unpleasant future that awaits should I be denied tenure (joking!). Actually, a pleasant surprise watching these shows is the surprising degree to which the host (Mike Rowe) doesn’t come off as a condescending outsider who is secretly laughing at the rubes–while they do dwell a bit too much on literal potty humor, Rowe isn’t afraid to get dirty (or bitten: the snake census episode still makes me want to run away from the TV). Plus both shows do a good job showing how the sleek, polished surface of modern life actually conceals lots of messy workings beneath that surface.

I haven’t watched very much of the two survival shows (Man vs. wild and Survivorman), both of them are surprising hits with my daughters. While the former actually seems a bit more staged and artificial (and cops to that fact during nearly every commercial break), Survivorman actually impresses me a bit with its apparent willingness to kill its host. The gimmick of the show is that its host, Les Stroud, is completely isolated during his attempts to survive in harsh locales, without even a film crew accompanying him (unlike Man vs. Wild). While I’m sure they have some sort of contingency contact plan to evacuate Stroud in the event of a catastrophe, he really is out on a ledge (sometimes literally).