SYLLY: Shark Week Day 7 – Fin

 #sharklivesmatter

Return of the Mega Shark

Mega sharks are a very large, adult great white shark. Inquisitive, with seemingly no fear of humans. Great white sharks live all over the globe and each colony has it’s own genetic markers and character traits. Andy Casagrande and Dickie Chivell are in New Zealand looking for mega sharks.

Discovery Channel got me again! This was yet another “remember that time” episode. Andy and Dickie did a cage dive once during the day and showed some sharks. They unveiled a new camera called the sharkspy and showed a few minutes of that footage. They did a night cage dive and saw a shark. They repeated the exact same thing they just showed you in the reminiscing.

There was approximately 10 minutes of new footage in this episode. There are over 440 types of sharks!!!!! Pick another shark and get something new!

Sharks Gone Wild

Discovery Channel finally got to the shark attack statistics episode but let the public at large get their footage for them. This year they added shark knowledge and the shark attack statistics to viral videos about sharks from the internet. There were 83 non lethal shark encounters this past year, and four lethal shark encounters. Those numbers are for the entire planet for one whole year. Four humans died and 100,000,000 sharks died. They showed some of the new innovations in ways to prevent shark attacks, like drones that deploy flotation devices and alert lifeguards when there is a shark in the area.

I have always believed it should hurt to be stupid. Shark Week has disclaimers that say in bold letters “DO NOT TRY THIS AT HOME.” Most of this episode was a parade in human stupidity. If you are dumb enough to get in the water and wrestle a shark you deserve to get bitten. Dragging a shark out of the water or coming up to a living beached shark is not the time to take selfies. This episode was meant to be a fun fluff piece but ended up showing the entire spectrum of human behavior. There were a few decent people that tried to help the sharks or were just in the wrong place at the perfect time with a camera, but the vast majority were the worst sort of muggles imaginable.

I find it ironic that the viral shark videos showed more of a diversity of shark species than the entirety of the rest of Shark Week 2018. This was something new at least. 

Shark Week’s 30th anniversary was honestly very disappointing. The new findings were excellent and exciting but the fact that most of the week was spent remembering “the good old days” was a let down. This year was lazy. There is no other way to explain the lack of new programming. It was very much like ordering food from a restaurant where the entire staff is stoned and just doing the bare minimum to get your food on a plate. Underwhelming. The advertising was out of control. Nacho fries, Blizzards, The Meg, toothpaste, gummy fish,  Dodge cars, and Naked and Afraid were given more consideration than the fans of Shark Week. Shark Week brings attention to shark conservation, and that’s what counts, as a fan and shark lover, I feel let down. Every series has that one season that is hard to get through. Hopefully this is just Shark Week’s musical episode.

Our journey has come to an end, once again I am Sylly and it has been my pleasure to be your tour guide for 2018 Shark Week’s 30th anniversary. Do you have your exit buddy?