"Ghost Hunters"... can it be saved, or should we play TAPS?

Despite being the major trigger in the 'ghost hunting show' craze, it has become very apparent to me, having watched the show from the beginning, that the fifth season of "Ghost Hunters" has paled greatly in comparison to recent episodes of copycat shows like "Ghost Adventures" and relative newcomer "Ghost Lab".

First though, before I get into what's wrong, I do need to commend the show for the problems that *have* been fixed over time:

1) Psychics and demonologists. As TAPS doesn't normally believe in psychics, I'm not sure why they were on the first couple seasons; but their presence can really bring the credibility of a show down. Look at "Paranormal State."

2) The ridiculous subliminal crap in the first couple seasons. No, TAPS isn't really to blame for this; they've said in the past that they can't control Sci-Fi's editing. And being that Sci-Fi like to drown out TAPS's audio with horror movie music, I'll place the blame for this failed experiment on them.

3) Overabundance of drama instead of ghost hunting. This really, really spoiled the first couple seasons - the Willard Library episode especially. While I do realize that there were personality conflicts going on at the time, it just didn't seem appropriate to spend so much time focused on them.

Now, here's my list of suggestions as to how this show could be saved from its current plight. These are based on my own personal observations - if you have anything else to add (or argue), please do.

1) STOP THE SPINOFFS. "Ghost Hunters Academy" was a disaster, and I can actually say that I have never seen anyone that *didn't* agree with this opinion. (I checked. Good God, I checked.) Besides the fact that the college kids recruited for this show were incredibly hard to watch, they brought out the worst in Steve and Tango. It's unsettling to see the guys that have been the comic relief for the last few seasons of "Ghost Hunters" get so pissed off all the time, to the point where they just seem mean.

2) Whatever happened to investigating private homes? The most memorable episodes of seasons past were in the houses of ghost-troubled families. When's the last time we saw anything to match the torso sitting in the rocking chair, or the vibrating attic?

3) Stop with the "we can see it, but no one else can" stuff. This really made the last episode (the Hindenburg crash site) difficult to watch. I'm not bashing TAPS here, because I'm willing to believe that they DID see something; but I think this also ties in with the need for smaller, more private locations. When something is spotted a quarter mile across an aircraft hangar, we're not gonna see it, because their night vision cameras just aren't that powerful. Anything outside of a 20 foot range is blackness to us. In closer quarters, we'd see stuff all the time - the shadow in the bar a couple weeks ago was great proof of that. The Sci-Fi (I'm sorry, SYFY) cameramen also need to stop shooting directly at someone when they point and say "Look over there!" If they're looking at something, friggin' point the camera at it, not at Grant! If they were less focused on filming the living people and more on the possibility of a dead one, we might've actually seen the face Grant saw in that underground prison. (Actually, no, that's a bad example, because it was a completely unexpected incident; if the camera was already pointing at that hole before Grant looked there, it would've seemed staged. And James Randi worshippers would've been pleased that their holy leader blessed them with such wonderful evidence that ghosts don't exist.)

4) I could be wrong about this, so excuse my theorizing here... but I get the distinct feeling that SYFY is telling Kris what to wear in order to "sexy" the show up. I personally like Kris, and I would feel terrible if this were true.

Now, I like "Ghost Adventures" and "Ghost Lab" just as much as I like "Ghost Hunters", but they DID come around much later, and I'm willing to stay loyal to TAPS come what may. I would hate to see the popularity of another network's copycat idea drag down the show that originally sparked everyone's interest, all over problems that are easy to fix.

My biggest fear is that, since they've spent the last five of their twenty years in TAPS in a much larger public eye than before, Jason and Grant are getting tired of the constant "You faked this / you're a bunch of liars" bullshit. I mean, for example, people are just NOT WILLING to let the jacket pull from the Halloween episode go. Would YOU get excited over finding something new if you knew that no one was going to believe you, time after time after time? Probably not. (Remind me to post my "TAPS wouldn't fake evidence, and here's why" list. Not that the thicker people of the Internet would pay attention to reason.)

While I do know that there is a sixth season in the works, I'd hate to see Jason and Grant leave one day and let Steve and Tango take over. As much as I like Steve and Tango (and they've been missed over the past few episodes where they were away doing GHA), it wouldn't be Ghost Hunters without the two guys that started everything.

That's my two cents.

Reviewing the Askewniverse (part 1 of 7)

Today, whilst trying to stay awake as I piece together my 3D Design project, I decided to revisit a couple old friends - Jay and Silent Bob.

While I originally intended to pass a couple hours with a repeat viewing of "Clerks," I thought it would be better to make my way through the whole series once more, and write a review after each stop. This'll be a seven part series... one for each movie, and then a final one (or two, if I decide I can't pile in everything at once) covering the odds and ends such as the cartoon series and the shorts. But, I have a lot of ground to cover, so let's get this underway...


First off, "Clerks" - Kevin Smith's first feature film, from 1994. Though not my favorite of the View Askewniverse series, this film should be a big inspiration for anyone (like myself) working on a low budget independent movie. Although it managed to look surprisingly professional in the end, "Clerks" was strictly a product of the environment it depicts. Kevin Smith actually did work at the Quick Stop, and decided to base his first full-length project around the occupation he knew best. The production was paid for out of his own pocket, which meant he had to go for a cheaper, black and white film stock. This amateur look certainly doesn't do anything to downgrade the visual appearance of the movie; in fact, it fits the setting perfectly. Imagine "Clerks" as a sleek, shiny, full color Hollywood movie (and I don't mean "Clerks 2", that was a whole different entity altogether), and it just doesn't realistically put across the appearance of a small, dingy convenience store. This movie is what nature intended it to be - dark, black and white, and grainy.

As for the acting, the faults of the cast are understandable given the miniscule scale of the production; but at some points, these faults actually become a little distracting. I almost hate to say this, because he was completely inexperienced and basically playing a scripted version of himself, but the weakest link seems to be Jason Mewes - his crucial speech at the end of the movie is marred by a slip-up and a character break. But thankfully, this movie proved to be Jason's only weak performance in a Smith film, as his ability improved quite a bit by "Mallrats." Jay aside, I find Marilyn Ghigliotti (Veronica) rather stilted, with numerous awkward pauses throughout her first scenes. Unfortunately, I haven't seen her in anything else, so I can't comment on whether or not she improved. The acting isn't all bad, however; Jeff Anderson and Brian O'Halloran fall instantly into the characters of Randal and Dante, and have no trouble carrying the movie on their shoulders.

Incidentally, the fact that this was the first appearance of Jay and Silent Bob is interesting, because unlike later movies (such as the aforementioned "Mallrats", where they began their mainstay as Kevin's most important recurring faces), they have almost no purpose whatsoever until the very end. Here, they mainly serve as a reason to cut away from the monotony of the Quick Stop interior; and aren't yet the Jay and Bob we would later grow to love. At this stage, Jay isn't particularly likeable, being overly crass and sarcastic; and Silent Bob is just... there. From what I understand, the changes in their personalities (particularly on Jason's part) in "Mallrats" were due to the fact that the company did not want such unpleasant, drug peddling characters in a big budget movie; and though this was their idea and not necessarily Kevin's, I think it was for the better. I doubt the rougher-edges versions seen in "Clerks" would have become the legendary characters that the revised versions became.

Overall, I think "Clerks" was a great start for Kevin, and a groundbreaking independent movie - every indie filmmaker dreams of making a smash hit and spawning a highly popular series, but Kevin was one of the few to actually accomplish that. Personally, it's not my favorite of his films, as I find it a little dull and slow-moving, but it still holds up as an interesting and very intelligently written movie fourteen years later.

"Ghost Hunters" - what do you think?

Thanks to my mom's interest in the paranormal, I recently started watching the Sci-Fi Channel series "Ghost Hunters." Basically, it's a reality show in which a camera crew follows a group of professional ghost hunters from Rhode Island called the Atlantic Paranormal Society (their website is here: http://www.the-atlantic-paranormal-society.com/) as they investigate reports of paranormal activity throughout the country. They generally set out to debunk any claims they receive, and often find logical or scientific explanations for the stories they're told. However, every once in a while, they manage to capture video or audio that they find to be totally unexplainable, such as a clear disembodied voice or footage of a full-bodied apparition.

I've tried talking about this show to a couple people; one dismissed it as fakery (though the show claims to be 100% legitimate), and another immediately said there was no such thing as ghosts and refused to watch it. (Sounds like a chicken to me...) I personally think that it is in fact legit, because they don't *always* find something amazing; several episodes have included locations that came up empty, and at least one saw an inhabitant of a supposedly haunted hotel attempt to fool the TAPS crew (and fail) by tampering with their camera. But when they do find something big, I'm not afraid to admit that it's scary as hell. :-)

I do, however. find some of the show's 'scare tactics' to be cheesy - the 'on this episode' and 'on the next episode' previews are usually heavily manipulated, cutting and pasting footage and dialogue in order to lead one to believe that something absolutely outrageous happens; and the second season especially made totally unnecessary use of "The Ring"-type subliminal images and sounds that popped up whenever a scene started to get quiet. But those two complaints aside, what we see does appear to be real, and does shed a horrific light on what could possibly be sharing this planet with us.

What do you think? Do you think that the show is staged for entertainment value, or do you think that the ghosts that they sometimes see and hear (and then present to us) are legitimate?