April 17, 2010

• I guess tomorrow night is the finale of the nature series “Life.” According to the “Discovery Channel” website, Sunday’s episodes will be about plants and primates. I’ve been TiVo’ing all the episodes from previous weeks, but I haven’t been able to watch an entire one yet. I’m like this will all wildlife shows: I tune in with extreme interest, but will end up only watching bits and pieces of the show because I’m fraught with paranoia–paranoia that I’ll suddenly find myself witnesses the “Circle of Life” at work, but without any cool costumes or music.

  If that sounds too crazy to comprehend, here’s what I mean in picture form:

  So you’re watching a show about wild animals in Africa, and the segment opens up with something pleasant…

  

  You see the elephant, you hear the narrator, and you naturally expect the following clips to be of this baby elephant hanging out with his family.

  Instead, the show’s producers suddenly turn around and crap on your face!

  

  And then they make fun of your mother!

  

  And then they tell you that you’ve just contracted Hepatitis A because it was in the crap they dumped on your face!

  

  It get it: the purpose of a wildlife show is to focus on how animals interact with each other in their natural habitats, and some interactions will inevitably end badly. After all, it’s a Circle of Life that moves us all through despair and hope–I’ve seen “The Lion King;” I know how it works. But even though I’m aware of this, I still can’t stand watching lost baby elephants, or seeing wildebeests get washed away while trying to cross a river. It’s so depressing that I usually end up screaming at my television. It’s like I turn into that person who makes comments during scary movies or television game shows, except I’m all “Oh no he di’in’t just buy a vowel!” when I see a baboon trying to clobber a cheetah cub.
  
  The “Life” series got raving reviews though, so I thought I’d give it a chance. But I wasn’t going to walk in blindly. I decided to avoid the episodes I believed were most likely to contain heart-wrenching scenes. The only one that fit the criteria was the show about mammals because you know that episode was going to include a polar bear somewhere. And polar bears make people cry. You’ve seen that commercial asking for donations to save polar bears; you know what I mean.

  I thought, “Great! I am just denying myself one episode. I can watch the other ones!” So I started out with the episode about birds because I couldn’t imagine myself feeling sympathetic for them. Come on now, I eat chicken.

  I watched the episode with the confidence only balls of titanium could bring, and then saw this horrific segment about a tropicbird and a frigatebird. I tried to illustrate it for you, but I can’t draw birds to save my life so I instead drew chicken nuggets with wings…

  

  

  

  Note: I may have made up some of the narration stuff.

  The birds episode turned out to be a bad decision, but I was okay with that. One of last Sunday’s episodes was about bugs, and I’d been looking forward to it for weeks because I hate bugs, and don’t care if they get harassed or separated from their families. If there was an episode I could definitely watch all the way through, it was that one.

  

  

  I’m still wondering why that bear was in the bugs episode! It’s a mammal! It should have been in the episode about mammals!

  I seem to strike out with any show that involves living wildlife, so I think I’ll just stick to watching the “Life” episode about plants. I’m hoping it’s going to be boring as hell, but knowing my luck I bet there’s going to be a scene where a shrew impales itself on a cactus or something.

  • 7:59 pm
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