Vice

There are two kinds of programs on T.V. at any given moment. Entertainment: which tends to either dumb down, or completely distort reality. And News: which is painted so objective and distant it gives no clues about the human motivation behind it all.

Vice is nothing like anything I've ever watched. It's a documentary of the extremes in the world as they are now, and they aren't pretty. It's not so much objective as it is honest.

You get a glimpse of how it's really like living in places and situations they make movies about. Suddenly Afghanistan, China, rebellious Europe, and small-town USA aren't mystical places where things are completely backwards. It's just people who live in circumstances that are impossible. Circumstances where you and I would do exactly the same things as they are, if we didn't know how things could be.

What I love most about this show, is the rawness. It's not trying to be a piece of art. It's not trying to spoon-feed you with their view. It's just trying to show you how it is.

It's refreshing.

Stumbled upon Vice during a free month trial of HBO. Wow... what a great concept -- info about current events presented without network TV fluff, and no ad breaks.

Initially, I thought 15 minutes per topic wasn't enough to cover a topic. I was wrong. Without ads, and without producers needing to be concerned about advertiser repercussion for honest and unbiased presentation of controversial subject matter -- it's like the orange juice concentrate of TV -- just add viewers ;-)

If I'm being honest, having 4 seasons to choose from is ideal as not all the episodes contained something that sparked my interest. The show did however prompt me to keep my HBO Now subscription recurring and I definitely look at the summary of Vice each week to see if it's something I want to learn more about.

Vice won't give you 100% of the info on everything it covers, but I don't think it intends to. It's a springboard for motivation to learn more if that first 15 minutes wets your appetite for knowledge.

How do these reporters do this? It would be the hardest work ever. The places they go in the first episode about the children bombers is heart breaking.

This is news.

Not the rubbish that is shown on our televisions of an evening before the 43rd rerun of Simpsons starts.

Well done to all the crew and the people involved in making this show.

You are good people doing an extremely hard job.

Do not watch this show if you are easily upset. I found it like watching a car crash.

I hope we get to see this show in Australia on main stream television in the future. Sadly I don;t think any of them will have the guts to run it.

I'll start with the negative. Yes, there's some room for improvement: there is some bias (but I think understandable in almost all cases), hidden cameras are used which can be low-quality and even when high quality cameras are used they're often not in ideal filming conditions (but both of these are nearly impossible to rectify given the scenarios), also, I would enjoy longer episodes, often the 15 minutes per story just doesn't seem like enough. Eventually I'd like to see this show move up to an hour long slot with 20 minutes per story, but that may be too ambitious for now.

However, the positives of this show are simply overwhelming, there's absolutely nothing like this in existence when it comes to investigative journalism. I think it's revolutionary, personally, and hope it raises the bar for other television news outlets, which frankly are unwatchable. The world could be a better place because of the awareness this show brings to Americans, it's extremely ambitious and I have high hopes for its future. For now, after a season and a half (maybe this review is premature though), I feel like the sky is the limit for Vice. It deserves a watch from everyone, regardless of your viewpoint.

Vice is a very interesting show that gives a brief introduction to some extreme behavior all over the world including the U.S. The problem however, as with any documentary, the perception of any situation can be slanted or only certain issues/groups will be focused on to get across the message that the creators want to get across. With Bill Maher as the executive producer, you know exactly which way that slant is going to lean. Nevertheless the guys to a good job telling their story and add a good bit of humor along the way. Another problem is that 2 huge issues are attempted to be covered in each 30 minute episode which leaves 15 minutes to try and give a fair covering of each topic. This seems impossible in itself. Overall I would say give it a watch as it does give some basic information about some very interesting issues in the world.