Disaster Autopsy

Treats it viewers like we're dumb. Also, disingenuous. For example, with the Columbia disaster, it was known from the very start of the mission what had hit the wing, and they spend so much time playing dumb being like "is it this" making it seem like that's how the actual investigation went. They start the episode with a straight up lie that the mission had gone well, when in fact people on the ground were spending the entire mission trying to figure out how the wing strike would affect reentry.

Also the weird table thing. Just show us the animation, no need to see random people in the background of it, they're just distracting.

The show does a good job of analyzing various disasters, with a number of 'experts' offering their opinions of what might have caused the event to take place. However, the shows presents these experts as looking over some sort of (non existent) holographic table on which CGI images have later been superimposed, to make it look like like that is what the experts are seeing. The experts are also interviewed siting on stools which are clearly in front of some green screen on which a computer image is projected of a warehouse of some sort, perhaps to give it an air of industrialized importance. Often, multiple 'experts' are shown simultaneously peering intently at where the graphics are to be added later, when very likely there is only one of them filmed at a time and they are then added together later in editing. Alas, these shenanigans do take away from the show.

I enjoy SHOWs like this - they are exactly what they are - SHOWs - aimed at telling the horrible and even sometimes boring story of what happened, in a more 'entertaining' fashion. Yes, there are sometimes hiccups and inconsistencies in animations and details - nothing in this world is ever perfect in execution. However, most reviewers today, seem to feel obligated to vent their own 'expert' opinions (no doubt gained by themselves through many many years of television production and forensic science experience), upon the producers and cast. What they seem to conveniently forget, is that this is, at the end of the day, an "entertainment" show. If one wants to watch the exact, dry, unvarnished truth, of any situation then one must realise that this will result in a 27second show where someone says 'The wheel failed because the metal fatigued, which caused the train to derail killing x number of people and injuring x number of others'. That is the exact, factually correct version, of an incident, which reviewers seem to be expecting, but which unfortunately, will not make a full tv show.

I looked forward to seeing this as I used to really like Seconds from Disaster -- the format is almost the same. BUT, that gimmick of the disaster autopsy table is one of the dumbest things I've ever seen.

It is obvious that the scientists there are looking at nothing at all and it is all CGId in later. The worst is when they appear to be looking at an upright flat photo or video, FROM THE SIDE. From that vantage point they would see nothing but a sliver, if it were real, like looking at the edge of a movie screen.

The other idiotic gimmick is having a genuine scientist reach up and turn invisible knobs in the air, ostensibly to "rewind" the video. They even look embarrassed when they do it.

Go back to the Seconds from Disaster format.

The shots of the professionals (very knowledgeable people) examining computer generated images and/or pretending to control the recreation is extremely annoying. For one, there's far too many of these shots. Secondly, the people aren't really looking at anything so it's rather pointless to include shots of them pretending they are. Other then that it's a decent show. Only 5 stars though for this glaring and extremely ignorant inclusion that makes the show nearly unwatchable. Watch with your eyes closed or have it on the background while doing something else. Also, occasional explanations of items that are already well know (an airplane needs speed to generate lift) as if the viewers are stupid.