To anyone who viewed Jurassic Park III and witnessed the battle between the once-formidable Tyrannosaurus and the newly introduced Spinosaurus and thought, “There should really be a show about just dinosaurs fighting,” History has your answer in Jurassic Fight Club. While this Fight Club is soap and Tyler Durden-less, it does feature the most primal battles outside a video game.

The standard 42 minute program takes careful steps to setup the ensuing battle, and in the premiere episode a team of researchers on Madagascar discover the bones of a male Majungasaurus seemingly attacked and eaten by a female of the species. This leads researchers to extrapolate how this carnivore would have turned to cannibalism as the information is presented via CGI models in a life-action landscape. Future episodes will delve deep into the ocean, and then return to land with the final episode of the series focusing on the extinction of the dinosaurs.

The fight itself is contained within the last 10 minutes of the program with the other 30 being divided up between the discovery of the bones and a CSI-like research extravaganza to identify the killer and piece together the story. The first 20 minutes roll along great, with lots of background information on the dinosaur itself, but the steam runs out after that. The second act of the program is basically a summary of everything we’ve heard before, including numerous mentions of the same facts after every commercial break. You grow tired of hearing “65 million years ago…” from the narrator each time you return.

It doesn’t help as well that the same CGI clips are shown nearly all the time, including a trick to mirror the image to make it look like a new clip (especially when showing a Majungasaurus baby behind a tree). This is a shame because the production values are otherwise very high throughout the program, and the repeated clips themselves, while not Stan Winston/Jurassic Park awesome, do a serviceable job for the budget allowed.

With the amount of recapping available, you’re able to leave the room and return without missing much information, and you’ll quickly be back on track for the battle at the end. While the fight itself is narrated from pure speculation extrapolated from behaviors of current animals and dinosaur theory, it still provides an entertaining closing to the program and pulls no punches.

Starz continues its original series, Starz Inside, by taking a look at the gross out comedy and its origins in Hollywood after the Production Code started to break down and John Waters got hold of some cameras.

As with all of the Starz Inside products, In The Gutter‘s format is that of critics and artists in a talking head setting talking about the films and subjects brought up as we progress from Pink Flamingos to Superbad teenagers. Problem is the biggest star that Starz was able to snag is Jason Biggs (American Pie) who just tells us some semi-funny anecdotes about having sex with pastries on the set of the film.

The timeline presented begins with the Waters films and evolves through National Lampoon and MAD Magazine‘s rises in print, and eventual movie makings of the former with Animal House, slowly making its way through Porky’s, American Pie, Van Wilder, and the like. Strangely a big amount of time is spent on both Porky’s and American Pie, yet South Park gets two lines of dialog saying how they raised the bar. This shows one of the biggest shortcomings of the special in that the producers couldn’t (or wouldn’t) get the rights to show anything more than the film’s poster. This seems inconsistent throughout as clips from There’s Something About Mary make it into the film, but we’re left with only a single screen grab from Superbad.

The hour is packed with enough gross out jokes, jabs, and humor to clear a room, even the 20 second clip of the infamous Van Wilder donuts scene caused both my girlfriend and I to cover our faces, but that’s exactly what the filmmaker’s were going for when they shot that scene.

As with previous specials in the series it is disappointing that more named talent couldn’t be brought on board, including some writers or directors famous for launching this subgenre of comedy beyond the bounds of good-taste. There isn’t a lot of information here that is new, but you do get probably the world’s easiest compilations of scenes from gross out films to make a entire Scene It! game

Starz continues its monthly documentary series, Starz Inside, this month focusing on the hot property of comic book movies and how the industry started, then sagged, was revitalized and continued in an up and down movement throughout the days of the serials all the way up to Oscar nomination and box office records.

The Starz Inside series has always been more of a topical production, focusing on a current event (like Pixar and horror movies) and analyzing where the genre or company has been before. Unfortunately, the series has always come off a bit superficial, only touching upon certain aspects in an hour long overview rather than delving deep down into one particular area. Serious fans of the genre will know most of this before, but even comic and movie fans will pick up on a few things (such as Road to Perdition being a graphic novel before a movie).

In the now-standard way of doing things we get interviews with various cast and crew from comic book movie adaptations talking about what influenced them and how the genre has survived some horrible adaptations over the years (such as the first Fantastic Four, and the horrendous mess the Superman franchise turned into). Interviews mainly center on the cast and crew of the upcoming sequel, Hellboy II: The Golden Army, including Guillermo del Toro, Ron Perlman, and Selma Blair as well as Superman director Richard Donner, Marvel poster boy Stan Lee, and various comic book writers and artists.

One of the more interesting stories is that of Michael Uslan, producers on Tim Burton’s 1989 Batman reboot, and his attempts to shop the movie around to various studios and their responses. As Batman sets off a flood of properties being sold off we’re also treated to the origins of the adaptations starting in the 1940’s well before movies had established themselves as “talkies”.

While mentioned only briefly, the program could have benefited from further analysis of films like Sin City and 300 which used the comic source material to a new level, firmly establishing the link between storyboard and ink panel.

While the documentary is entertaining, a wider selection of interviewees, including big names like life-time comic devotee Sam Raimi, or even any of the writers/producers/directors on some of the bigger adaptations couldn’t have hurt. As it stands, it’s only an hour long, all the broadcast shows are in reruns and there’s much worse things you could be doing with your time than tuning in.

Comic Books: Unbound premiers June 10 at 8PM on Starz.

The History Channel presents and interesting question: what would happen to the planet if people suddenly disappeared, for good? Every last one of the 6.6 billion people on the planet Earth were suddenly gone, how would nature, both flora and fauna, reclaim the lands which used to be their domain?

First of all, the amount of disbelief needed to imagine this is pretty hefty, not to mention even a catastrophic event in the world would have a hard time eradicating each and every last human being on the globe. Still, with fleeting thoughts of impossibility stowed away, it becomes a matter of awe as the destructive forces of plants, animals, and weather decimate what we hold to be a proud civilization full of technological marvels and engineering feats.

The fine cut released to the media lacked some of the special effects work and still used temporary footage in places, so its impossible to really gauge the quality of the CGI work being used at this time, but the thought provoking and factually based segments, as we go from 1 day without humans to 10,000 years, really do make the program an interesting viewing experience.

The facts are based on simple science and study of plant life and events like the repopulation of wolves in Yellowstone National Park, but the biggest indicator is the town of Prypiat, Ukraine which was abandoned in 1986 following the disaster at the Chernobyl nuclear power plant. Scientists have seen nature begin to take back the land with trees growing on and in buildings, animal population returning at higher levels than before the disaster, and various other factors which allow them to gauge estimates on just how long before all remnants of modern civilization disappear.

The program itself follows the logical chronological order of decay of everything from buildings, bridges, to entire cities. The editing is a little rough, and the use of a strange “static” noise and disappearing humans superimposed over background footage (as a not to them being gone) is particularly annoying for two hours. A lot of the focus is on the United States and our landmarks, including a whole ten minutes devoted to the Hoover Dam, while only touching on the burning of Rome and the falling of the Eifel Tower in Paris.

However, the questionable editing doesn’t diminish from the awe inspiring scenery and revelations that without human intervention, things we take for granted like the Golden Gate Bridge wouldn’t exist for more than a few years after we were gone as our constant maintenance is the only thing between a cold abyss for one of our nation’s most recognizable engineering marvels.

The weather can be a massive, destructive force leveling cities, killing millions, and generally being an unmatchable reckoning tooling which can change in seconds and leave nothing behind. In a post-Katrina world, many would view the weather as a large scale, history changing might, but even with hurricane winds and damages something as simple as freezing temperatures can change history as explored in The Weather Channel’s new series, When Weather Changed History.

The series focuses on events in history that were caused or drastically altered because of the weather and its power. The pilot episode features the Challenger disaster in January of 1986 in which extreme cold caused o-rings within the space shuttles solid rocket boosters to lose their effectiveness and fail 73 seconds after launch. The though that a clear day in Florida could end in such horrific tragedy because of something so simple as cold weather certainly shows the many facets weather has to it, and how we almost take for granted the small stuff when faced with tragedies like tsunami and hurricanes.

The program is well constructed and paced throughout its 43 minute running time, devoting about half the show leading up to the accident and the second half on the cause and outcome of the investigation. Even nearly 22 years later, the footage of the accident, pictures of the debris in a hanger still bring a wealth of emotions and powerful feelings for the seven heroes who lost their lives on that cold January day.

A common device in TV programs these days is the prefacing and recapping of earlier events after each commercial break, and while its understandable that producers are editing to bring in additional viewers who might be channel flipping, those who are watching the entire program are usually treated to a total of five to six minutes of re-used information over the course of the entire program. When Weather Changed History is thankfully light only recapping 10-15 seconds before and after each break, but the device is already overused.

 
Heroes

Interviews with the flight director and those responsible for launching the shuttle that morning provide a clear perspective into the mindset found in the Roger’s report in 1986, that no problems were known to them that morning and that larger problems within NASA had caused the ill-fated launch to proceed and disaster to strike. It’s nice to see references to the true problem that caused the problem, the groupthink mentality at NASA and not necessarily the weather, as the shuttle should have never been launched. Finally an ending reference of the Columbia accident nearly two decades later show that the everlasting affects of weather on man and technology will always be present, even as innovation advances.

When Weather Changed History premieres January 6^th at 9PM on The Weather Channel with a look at the Challenger disaster. Future installments will feature The Battle of the Bulge, the aftermath of Hurricane Katrina among others with new episodes every Sunday.

It’s 1965.  The scene opens on children starved for music to describe their anguish and turmoil…and then Dennis Hopper starts talking? 

Aging baby boomers who haven’t had a paying gig in awhile aside, VH1 Classic’s 7 Ages of Rock, which premiers Monday, December 17^th, takes us from the turbulent beginning of rock, all the way through the stadium performance era, and present day.  For anyone that is a die hard lover of rock, you will love this seven part documentary special extravaganza.  There is a lot of original footage from concerts and television appearances like “Live Aid” and U2’s multimedia blowout Zoo TV, and a lot of interviews with the greats like Eric Clapton, Bruce Springsteen, Gene Simons (this special is worth it simply for his quote, talking about critics panning KISS, “…more than 1 billion dollars later, they can kiss my ass.”) and many more.

For the less musically inclined, there are still lots of things to appreciate about this special, including tons of factoids and wonderful chunks of music’s impact on history from Cream’s Disraeli Gears being the first album to contain a psychedelia sound, to the Rolling Stones performing at The Altamont Speedway Free Festival that resulted in 3 deaths (thus ending the carefree 60’s era), and even the stadium rock megaperformance “Live Aid” which raised money for Ethiopian famine relief. People who have an appreciation for the sounds’ impact on world events, that know rock has truly changed the world in some respects, can definitely get a lot out of 7 Ages.

All in all it was a very interesting special, but there were a few notable problems that were not able to be overlooked.  For one, a lot of the earlier content of the special centers around rock in the UK.  They talk about how the British youth took the tones of black lament, the blues, and used it to help them express their angst.  Unfortunately, they talk about it like the British invented the wheel with this concept, completely overlooking the fact that a decade before, people like Jerry Lee Lewis and Elvis Presley in the United States pioneered a new version of music, stemming from the blues.  Also, the narrative of the special was a bit choppy in parts, going a few years in history with one band, then cutting back through history with another, and then fast forwarding past that to go back to a previous band. 

In sum, 7 Ages of Rock isn’t going to change the world, but it is a very well put together documentary sure to entertain.  For the avid rock fan that pulls a Wayne’s World in their car when “Bohemian Rhapsody” blasts from the radio, for the want to be guitarist out there that strums the simple start to Cream’s “Sunshine of Your Love”, or for anyone who just wants to flick on something on television at night for a week without being tempted to purchase anything Billy Mays sells on late night infomercials, turn on VH1 Classic and prepare for the history of rock.

The History Channel’s pedigree in history is unparalleled, which should be a given with the channel’s namesake name, but not everyone is enthralled with stories of pilgrims crossing the Atlantic or the story of Christopher Columbus. Still, a subject that everyone can bask in is recent history, history that affected people directly, history that actually changed something that we know, something that we face each and every day in this country so it comes as no surprise that The History Channel’s latest special, 1968 with Tom Brokaw, hits close to home and is one of the most memorable programs of the fading year.

The program is deeply focused on the politics of the aforementioned year, which is the only real disappointment because it bills itself as 1968 when in all actuality it is the changing politics and the real power players of the late 1960s who take up center stage. Except for the final few minutes devoted to the three astronauts who first orbited the moon at the end of the year, the entire program focuses on topics ranging from the Vietnam War, women’s liberation, the 1968 presidential election, and the ramifications of the assassinations of Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr. and Senator Robert Kennedy.

The special is powerful, even for a youngster such as me who wouldn’t be born for another 15 years. Even the most jaded individual will be brought to tears at the sight of Senator Kennedy’s funeral train progressing to Washington, D.C. with thousands upon thousands of viewers along the tracks holding American flags and saluting the fallen soon-to-be-leader. The outcome of Kennedy’s death is felt throughout the subsequent months as the republicans lead by Richard Nixon take the presidency ushering in a new breed of politics, and we all know where that’s lead us.

With interviews from many of the figures who were there shows the advantage of focusing on a more recent event. Instead of old journals and diaries the viewer is able to hear the stories and recollections from those who were actually there, including the hosts, Tom Brokaw.

Through archival footage we see a young Brokaw on a street corner in San Francisco reporting on the hippie movement, and in the present day we see the soothing, commanding presence of the man who may very well be news to many Americans. His personal stories and how the war in Vietnam directly affected him, how the events of this year impacted his career only exemplifies the fantastic choice of host.

Through interviews with comedians like Lewis Black, Jon Stewart, and musicians like Bruce Springsteen and James Taylor, the image of 1968 is painted for the viewer to understand, and the parallels between ’68 and soon-to-be-’08 are painfully, and terribly obvious. But without diverging into a political triad, its evident that those who do not learn from the past are doomed to repeat it, and we seem to be doing that today.

1968 with Tom Brokaw is an excellent program; one of the best The History Channel has produced, and may very well be one of the best, if not the best special of the year.