Kung Fu The Television Show!

Kung Fu the television show was a cultural event of no small significance. It featured an Asian character as the focus of a story, albeit that character was played by a white actor David Carradine. It broke the mold, to some extent, of the worldviews which predominated the TV airwaves and allowed actual philosophy of nonviolence to seep into the broader culture, ableit that the lead character got into a fight every week. There are a number of contradictions which inform the show, a show which began with great glory in an exceedingly strong TV movie and shifted into a reasonably strong first season. Alas the show would continue to weaken throughout its three year run.

The first year of Kung Fu is truly amazing to watch. In the long tradition of TV, we have a peripatetic hero who finds folks in trouble and helps. He is motivated by his own need to find his brother as he roams the historical western landscape of the United States, a land rife with racism as it has always been. He encounters all manner of threats, some which follow him from China as his crime of murder creates trouble for him here. Kwai Chang Caine as played by Carradine in the first year is almost mute, talking rarely and in a whisper as he attempts to live his life, find his relatives, and help folks who come into his ken. He ends up in jail nearly every other episode, but as we learn is hardly ever confined by the people who constantly underestimate him. The characterization of the folks he meets in the first season is especially strong and memorable. Especially memorable (and key in my mind to the success of the show) are the characters of Master Kan (Phillip Ahn) and Master Po (Keye Luke). These old wise men make the show resonate with a quiet dignity which was and still is uncommon in television.

In the second year Caine loses of his reality, becoming more of a traditional hero and a wee bit more proactive in his choices. One affectation of the role was that Carradine allowed his hair to grow throughout his time as Caine and in the second season we see it hanging in his eyes with regularity as his costume is refined. Gone are the hat and shoes which grounded in reality to a greater degree and more prominent is the flute which proves often a bit annoying. His goals are left unmentioned and his flight as a fugitive gets little mention in the season, almost as if the creators want to move beyond the details of his origin.

The third year of Kung Fu is well and truly a rolling disaster. Carradine's control of the show's details grows and almost all of the choices he seems to make are ones which make the character more of a superhero and less of a real man. He adopts a costume which is remarkable in its lack of practicality and he travels across the western lands with only a single pouch, which like Batman's utility belt has just what is needed in any particular episode. His fugitive past comes into focus and he does find his brother at long last in a series of episodes which are peculiar and ultimately unsatisfying. Carradine also directs some episodes, some of which violate the long-standing structure of the show and are set in China before Caine's odyssey to the U.S. The amateurish nature of some of the production is stunning. The show seems to slowly but steadily running out of gas and in the final episode, contrary to all previous ones, Caine is not seen in the final scene. It's weird but so was this show, one which started with grand promise and ended with bizarre miscues.

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Delay Of Game Of Thrones!

Over the holidays I got my mitts on some of the early Game of Thrones dvds for dirt cheap. Then for Christmas my daughters got me the rest of the series and I've just finished them.  I'd never been all that attracted by the HBO series for a couple of reasons, the first is I'm too damn cheap. The idea of paying extra for TV when I have more TV than I can watch now always struck me as ludicrous. And when I sampled the show once upon a time, I must've found a dull episode because it didn't strike me as much of anything but a wee bit of spectacle. So why buy it? Curiosity as a sword and sorcery fan of Conan and LotR and frankly the spur of the moment.

I enjoyed the early seasons for what they were, soap operas in medieval clothing with a hint of magic. What I found to my pleasant surprise were some really good actors in some complex roles.  Sean Bean has been a fave for years and his morally tormented Warden of the North Ned Stark was a noble but ultimately foolish man. Ian Glenn as Sir Jorah Mormont has proven to be perhaps my favorite character, a tortured failure of a knight who is desperate to win back some measure of approval from his chosen queen and his peers, but mostly himself. Other standouts are Bronn (Jerome Flynn), the Hound (Rory McCann), and the Onion Knight (Liam Cunningham). Some of the darlings of the show like Peter Dinklage as Tyrion Lannister and Kit Harrington as Jon Snow are fine but my interest varies as their stories wax and wane. The girls are dandies with Maisie Williams as Arya Stark the stand out. Sophie Turner has grown into her role, but still falls short relative to the other talents who populate the show.

The show hurts itself with the exceedingly soft porn it peddles from time to time. A woman's breasts and behind are lovely to behold and I'm happy to do it, if it makes sense in the story. Sometimes it does, but more often the nudity is clearly presented for its own sake. When the lovely Emilia Clarke as the would-be queen Daeneryis Targyrean steaps out naked from the fire which gave birth to her dragons, that's necessary for the story. A few of the visits to the brothels make sense but often they seem thrown into the story just to wiggle some bum at the audience. I noticed this sort of thing waned as the series progressed. The internal strife of King's Landing usually brings the show to a halt, the political intrigue is never ending and frankly can be quite dull at times. Tywin Lannister (Charles Dance) was fun, but he wasn't on screen all that much.

My favorite story line was about The Night's Watch, a cadre of dedicated men who have committed crimes or fallen out of favor in some way who work to protect the world of mankind from a threat it no longer understands nor really believes. Much of the best of the early series dealt with that aspect of the world and spoke to the core plot which slowly (too slowly sometimes) begins to develop.

And that brings me to the show's greatest weakness, a sense of scale and time. When it is required by the story a character's journey can take weeks if not months. But if the story requires it, a character's journey over that same territory can take only a few moments in terms of storytelling. The Army of the Dead have been marching relentlessly for years, while humans come and go across the same territory multiple times. It don't make sense to me. Communication across the sprawling world of Westeros is maintained by a network of ravens who carry messages, a great gimmick, but one relied upon a bit too much and conveniently.

The story adapts the unfinished fantasy series by George R.R. Martin, a writer I've been dabbling in all my reading career. He's a good one for certain but this sprawling yarn has the looks of a tale which might have consumed its creator. The inspirations of Tolkien are clear and I see more than a mote of Moorcock sprinkled about Westeros and beyond. The last few seasons of the show are derived from Martin's  notes and not from the books because those books have not been published nor are they written to my knowledge. The story has only gotten better as the show gets more resources for special effects to support the world-building they required to do. The greatest difference is in the way the Night Walkers and the Army of the Dead are displayed. When they first showed up they were mysteries (smart move) and later weak computer graphics. Now as they the story focuses on them more and more they have become a truly awesome enemy, one I'm eager now to see routed...I hope.

More to come as the end isn't near, but I hope it will come.

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Drama On The Jurassic Coast!

I'm not at all sure when I first ran across this compelling bit of television called Broadchurch. Maybe it was just a chance  pop on BBC America or maybe my Anglophile daughter mentioned it to me or maybe it was both at the same time. But I knew it was better than a lot of stuff I tickled my eyeballs with on the boob tube. I was at first put off that it starred David Tennant who is not my favorite Doctor, but I figured out pretty soon that this D.C.I. Hardy is far away from his frenetic turn as the master of the TARDIS. His nickname is "Shitface" and frankly it fits quite well. Also there is the completely alluring character of D.S. Ellie Miller who becomes the center of this story and is almost always the most interesting person in any scene she's in. She offers up a "Plain Jane" of increasing wit and force as the story rolls on. I've just finished watching the series all the way through thanks to my daughters who have introduced their old man to the fancies of Netflix. Don't worry, there are no spoilers in this review, the show's too good for that.

In the first season we meet the quaint town of Broadchurch and all seems sunny and calm but the murder of an eleven year old boy throws the town into a lurch of suspicion and paranoia as new cop Hardy attempts to solve the crime. His second is Miller, whose job he's taken, and together they sort out their own feelings and the clues to slog into a mystery which is a lurid as it is bizarre. People get hurt along the way and mistakes are made. But it seems that this series was filmed in sequence and that the identity of the killer was a mystery from the cast itself. It's a  honking good mystery too with lots of twists and turns and some of the best red herrings on the small screen.

The second season presents us with the results of the first season's investigation as the town folk must cope with a trial which calls into question much of what we saw in the first year. The challenges are mighty and the new additions to the cast, in the form of lawyers of great potency, is pretty dynamic. The pace is somewhat slower as we know most everyone, but we do have a somewhat older murder to solve, one which haunts Hardy and is part of why he came to Broadchurch to begin with. It's great to see Hardy and Miller working together again as they have developed a back and forth which the best teams get after time.

The third season deals with the consequences of the trial and offers up a new mystery altogether -- this one not a murder but a rape. A serial rapist is at long last uncovered and the pain which goes with that search is typical of the angst and grim critique of human nature which the show has from the very first put on display.

And looming over all three seasons is the spectacular Jurassic Coast.  This awesome sight dominates the landscape which itself is a vital part of the storytelling in Broadchurch. The fictional town sits on this site and the creators take every opportunity to feature it. That implacable face of rock says to anyone who is remotely aware that the doings of human beings are momentary and fleeting. It's ironic that a former Doctor Who would be in such a story. The drama which unfolds beneath its crags and along its beaches are just whims in the maw of impossible time. The details of Broadchurch are mysterious and evasive, but the theme never is. We are small and have only a short time to make what we can of a life which outraces us all into the grave.

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The Good Knight Falls!

It's not too much to say that I'm here now typing this because of the delightful work of Adam West. When Adam West and other fine talents attempted to bring the four-color excitement of comic books to the recently full color small screen with the Batman TV show, it was a true-blue spectacle.

West and his co-stars were elevated to iconic status and the actor who had developed a perfectly okay career to that point was transformed into many young men's personal hero. He came to represent that which is good and that which stands for right even when it seems painfully corny. Despite the irony which dripped from each episode there was a core charm of forthrightness which helped define the series and its that central integrity which makes it still one of the most entertaining TV shows of all time.

The wild  success of that show helped salvage an industry which lived close to the rocks at all times. I came to comic books because of the TV shows which were inspired by them at that moment in time, and that adoration of the comic has persisted throughout my life.

So to Adam West I say thank you, bon voyage and farewell.

Rest in Peace Good Knight.

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The Secret Origin Of Sherlock Holmes!

Like countless others I have been a fan of the Sherlock series. Benedict Cumberbatch and Martin Freeman are big deals now and frankly I personally doubt we ever see another installment, though I'd love to see another movie somewhen down the line. Season Four seems to have put a pretty good little bow on the run and for the first time we don't have a monumental cliffhanger which is highly suggestive to me that new ones will be far off if ever.

The shows in this most recent trilogy had the kinetic fun we've come to expect from the series and some pretty well done deduction scenes for the classic Sherlock fan, but the constant twisting and turning gets a bit tiresome after a bit. It's rather like a roller coaster that goes too long, eventually the fun begins to wear off and the whole shebang becomes somewhat of an ordeal. These shows don't quite reach that point,but there were places in the storytelling where I did just want the plot to progress a bit more rapidly and to dispense with the quips.

More after this break for SPOILERS.

Of the three episdoes this time, my favorite was "The Lying Detective" which delivered a proper villain played brilliantly by Toby Jones. The malignant Culverton Smith was the most odious TV villain I've seen since this same show gave us Charles Augustus Magnussen a while back. Sleazy and oily and just plain vile, he was a truly bad man. Now Sherlock's scheme to capture him seemed a bit overheated and wildly unreliable, but I guess his ability to read people and anticipate them was the point. Best twists of the season. And an immoral man who is too rich and famous and so powerful to be properly brought to heel by his fellows seems a very timely creation indeed.

"The Six Thatchers" began wonderfully, but the secret was a bit too apparent though the action sequences were very compelling. The death of Mary was a surprise but not a shock. Her continued appearances as a ghost giving advice to the two of them was a nifty twist and added a bit of heart to a show that can depend a bit too much on intellectual whimsy.

"The Final Problem" had the most potential, seeing as the we were on an island of madmen, but somehow the incessant games Euros played with Sherlock, Watson, and Mycroft became tiresome before the final revelation and that seemed a tad overheated. The secret of Redbeard was properly gruesome but the web of deceptions was a bit opaque at times. The death and mayhem was pretty strong in this one and the ending seemed a tad antiseptic given all of that destruction. Nonetheless the end of the this series did leave a good feeling overall as the heroes are finally fully formed.

This marks the end of the SPOILERS.

What we have at the end of this series are a fully-functioning Sherlock Holmes and Doctor Watson team, both men more emotionally stable than they've been in the entire run, both having to some extent come to terms with the torments of their personal lives. Sherlock's fractured personality seems to have healed itself as he allows himself feel and Watson's survivor's guilt has transformed into a life of service which helps him and us all. They are properly heroes now, less concerned with themselves than helping others. It bodes well for any new ones they do decide to cook up. I'll watch. 

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Ripper Street!

I watch a lot of television, but truth told much of it is of passing interest. That said there has been a trend in recent years for shows to appear and disappear after a handful of episodes. I grew up in the era when a series arrived dutifully in late summer or late fall and stayed around for many months unless ratings were truly abominable. I grew up used to shows which cranked out thirty or forty episodes and lasted four or five years before moving on into the great TV graveyard. Now it's different, as shows appear and disappear with not even a dozen episodes each year, they appear for a few months then shuffle off to be replaced by something maybe as good, but often just different.

It is in that landscape that several years ago I chanced upon Ripper Street, a BBC production which told the tale of cops of Whitechapel in 1889, a few months after the notorious murders of Jack the Ripper. These are conflicted but essentially noble and passionate men who seek a modicum of justice in a grimy and dangerous and tragic world where justice is often a luxury. We have Edmund Reid, an erudite Detective Inspector who is moved by the plight of those in his precinct and who is himself plagued by the seeming death of his daughter. He is assisted by Inspector Bennet Drake, a ferocious fighter and stalwart policeman who admires his boss and who himself seeks love in all the wrong places. The third member of the team is Captain Homer Jackson, an American surgeon and scientist who lives in a brothel with his one true love the madam of the joint Susan, a powerful savvy woman.  These three men work together and apart to use modern techniques to discover the sources of crime which plagues the painfully poor denizens of Ripper Street.

Later seasons see mysteries solved and lost children found and loves consummated. Along the way this trio of law officers defeat a menagerie of villains who prey upon the hapless and desperate. Things change in the series and after the third season it seemed the story had reached a conclusion of sorts, but with the fourth and current season events have reignited these men to work together once again. Time passes and the current season is set in 1897 amid the waning days of Queen Victoria. The nature of police work has changed as technology and other younger men adept at its uses come to help the original trio who pioneered the way forward.

The real strength of Ripper Street is the remarkable dialogue which has its characters sounding like they just walked out of a Dickens novel. No real attempt is made at naturalism here, but there is a sense of idioms of the day finding regular purchase in the speech. It's not a show you can watch with one eye, it demands your complete attention and earns that attention with compelling stories.

I read that a fifth season is in process though I also read it will be the last. I hope not.

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A Savage Series!

It was the merest happenchance that I  stumbled across the listing for a show called Hap and Leonard on the Sundance Channel. I don't watch that station very much, but there was something about the description of this show which intrigued me. I set it up to record and was exceedingly surprised and exceedingly pleased by what I discovered.

Hap (James Purefoy) and Leonard (Michael Kenneth Willams)

Turns out this six-episode series is an adaptation of the work of Joe Lansdale, an author I first became aware of many years ago now when he finished the last original Edgar Rice Burroughs manuscript for Tarzan: The Lost Adventure.

Later still I became an unabashed fan of the movie Bubba Ho-Tep which is an adaptation of Lansdale's novella of the same title. I've not read very deeply in the Lansdale canon, a few stories here and there, but I know he's prolific.

The duo of Hap Collins and Leonard Pine debuted in Lansdale's award-winning Savage Season and he's written many stories starring the duo since. In this tale which adapts the debut novel, we are introduced to the pair who work in the Rose fields of Texas and who are suddenly without work. Hap is an aging bachelor who once upon a time refused to go to Vietnam and spent some time in jail as a result. Leonard is a black gay man who is a Vietnam vet and who is filled with rage. Both have an absolute trust for one another, though Leonard has no regard for Trudy, the love of Hap's life who drives up and offers the two a chance for big money because they might be able to find a bundle of stolen cash which has been at the bottom of a river for a few decades. They accept the offer but it's more than they realize when we meet Trudy's new beau Howard and his amigos Chub and  Paco. They are leftist radicals who want to use the money to fund their revolution, though Hap and Leonard have no interest in that. Also circling around are a couple of ruthless murderers name Soldier and Angel who end up becoming key to the affair.

Trudy (Christina Hendricks)

The story is filled with truly vivid characters, salty language and an exotic yet down-to-earth vibe that gives the whole affair a sublime weirdness. Hap and Leonard are true anti-heroes, men of character if not nobility who seek what most folks want, happiness in this world, but they realize to their chagrin that it's a difficult search. But it is their unbreakable loyalty to one another which makes them admirable and which sets them apart in a series which is fundamentally about how human beings can come to trust one another, if they take the chance.

James Purefoy and Michael Kenneth Willaims who play Hap and Leonard respectively do remarkable jobs in a story which demands a lot of acting both with words and without. There's a profound patina of regret and sadness, a stark statement about the fundamental nature of life itself that grounds this story and both actors as well as Christina Hendricks as Trudy tap into that with a gusto which makes the narrative shine as the unpredictable story unfolds.

With the high-profile of his new TV series, which I hope gets picked up for more episodes as it ends on an intriguing mystery; I suspect we've not seen the last of these oddly charming anti-heroes.

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The Bridge!

 

Over the past few years among the shows on my must-see short-list has been FX's The Bridge. The first season was enthralling, a mysterious and atmospheric search for a serial killer brought together American detective Sonya Cross (Diane Kruger) and Mexican detective Marco Ruiz (Demian Bichir) and the two are dynamic. Cross, a singularly dedicated officer plagued by demons about her sister's murder and her own Assbeger syndrome is a fascinating and unpredictable character. Ruiz, an experienced and capable officer is a man of many passions and seeming contradicitons, love for his family but with a roaming eye. One understands only the truth and the other understands all too well the nature of lies.

Cross and Ruiz are wonderful on screen, visually different and at this point pleasantly not romantically connected. That would be a mistake as it fundamentally alters their effect on one another.

Sonya is also very much influenced by Lieutenant Hank Wade, a man who is all but a father to her. Ted Levine is one of my favorite actors and it was his presence in this role that first made me give this show a chance. Wade has some secrets of his own, as have been revealed in the second season. More on that later.

Running parallel to the story of the two detectives is the sub-plot of two reporters. Daniel Frye (Matthew Lillard) and Adriana Mendez ( Emily Rios) are two friends of sorts who seek the truth at significant cost to their personal lives. "The Story" seems to be the most important thing to both these characters as it is of course to the audience as well.

The villains in this show are everything though. After the first season the serial killer was disposed of and I wondered how the show would continue. They started with a real bang this year introducing Elaneor Nacht (Franke Potente) a lapsed Mennonite murderess and large dark secrets as well as startling tatoos. She's a full-blown nutcase, but weirdly fascinating.

Always entertaining is Monte Flagman played by Lyle Lovett, who adds some homespun whimsy to a show which can be exceedingly dark. He's not a good man, but he seems to have some limits, though this last season showed him a bit darker indeed.

And it's this current season which almost got me off the show. It started with a blood-saturated bang, but some episodes have been pretty undeveloped and while important I realize lacked the punch of last season. I was just considering getting out of the show after this year when the most recent episodes the show has picked up the tension missing from the middle and I'm back in the saddle.

The show is very unconventional, and when it degrades into a mere cop show it loses its way. It's more about weirdness and the depraved nature of men and women and how that percolates through the culture at all times despite the lies which are perpetrated to keep the lid on. This is ain't cops and robbers, this is about evil and the how that evil is in the very heart of every man and woman alive.

Sonya and Marco look in as much as they look out. Sonya relentlessly seeking the truth and Marco trying to make sense of the lies. Both fight desperately to save innocent lives.

If you ain't watching The Bridge, you might consider starting. It's a hoot.

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Mountains Of Monsters!

I have to confess a softness in my head for professional wrestling. I know it's a lame and exceedingly low-brow entertainment, filled with knot-headed tropes which play themselves out in predictable and violent ballets. That said, I find the characters fascinating, not because of themselves so much as what they indicate about the audience which is attracted by them or repulsed from them or sometimes both. It's like a blue-collar bug-zapper which I find a surprisingly accurate barometer of the public mood. And like most TV it's utterly unimportant, and a disarming way to distract from the true problems of the world.

I say that, to say this -- Mountain Monsters, a dopey TV show about a gang of mostly rotund hillbillies traipsing through the hollows of West Virginia, Kentucky, and Ohio trying to wrangle Bigfoot and other assorted folkloric beasties is an absolute howl and an exceedingly pure entertainment.  And as far as I can figure it functions almost exactly like professional wrestling.

The premise suggests the hills of Appalachia are riddled with all manner of mysterious monsters. Some are walking shaggy menaces like Bigfoot under various names like Yahoo, Grassman, and the Grafton Monster. Others are veritable dragons, giant lizards that prowl both the streams and hillsides. There are werewolves, devil dogs, and bloodless howlers, all vagely canine and mysterious. There are supernatural threats like the infamous Mothman, the lesser known Shadow Creature and such like. There seems to be a critter for every county in and around West Virginia, the home base and primary setting for this Destination America show.

The leader John "Trapper" Tice, a co-founder of A.I.M.S. (Appalachian Investigators of Mysterious Sightings), is a dour but supposedly experienced hunter who leads his men into danger weekly in search of monsters who are upsetting the local populace around and near his home state of  West Virginia. All the team defer to Trapper, who operates like a military commander in the field as they track their weekly menace. Usually Trapper leads a "squad" of three other men as they meet "witnesses" and discover "evidence" concerning the critter-of-the-week.

Jack Buck Lowe is referred often as "The Rookie". Younger than all his colleagues he is the low-man on the totem pole and gets most of the grunt work, with Trapper as his Yoda. Despite his portly frame he is often ordered into narrow gullies to find some obscure clue or get some random measurement. Buck gets a lot of screen time and I imagine is supposed to be at once comedy relief and  our avenue into this team of seemingly reticent hill men.

Jeff Headlee is a quiet member and co-founder of A.I.M.S., evoking thoughts of St.Nicholas, this roly-poly even-tempered fellow eschews a weapon, the only member of the team who doesn't carry a shotgun or rifle on the hunts. Instead Jeff is the researcher, the guy who knows the lore and who scans the woods constantly with his thermal image camera corporeal evidence seeking monsters.

Joseph Huckleberry is the quietest member, a tall man (6'4" according to one episode) who functions as "security" for the team. But he often does other things as well and seems pretty much an all-purpose member of Trapper's investigative team. His main job seems to be to look exceedingly "hillbilly".

Functioning apart from Trapper's sub-team most of the time is the third A.I.M.S. co-founder Willy McQuillian, a McGuiver-like woodsman who contrives and seemingly builds unique and often pretty dang dangerous traps for the creatures they seek to locate and contain. Willy is pretty spry and is often shown falling or being dragged by mysterious and invariably unseen beasties. He rarely passes a hole in the ground he doesn't stab his shaggy head into.

Willie is joined in his trap construction by "Wild" Bill Neff, a former Marine and skilled lineman who is able to clamber into trees and on top of bridges with equal speed and aplomb. Arguably the breakout character on this show, "Wild Bill" has a hot head and is sometimes rebuked for his impulsive manner which can put the team into "danger". But like Willie, Bill is one of the few team members who is nimble enough to pull off some of the mild stunts the show sometimes require.

What makes this show like professional wrestling is pretty easy to see. We have a contrived event which pretends to be a real activity populated by memorable and distinctive characters who perform predictably in a program designed to fulfill the audience's desires.

The first thing to know about this show for those who might never have seen it, is they always, and I mean always find their quarry. Usually they locate the creature in the first fifteen minutes of the show after checking in with one or more rustic witnesses usually named "Wolfie", "Sparky", or some such colorful nom de guerre. Witnesses have photos and videos of the supposed creatures, though never anything particularly compelling. Trapper, Jeff, Buck, and Huckleberry lumber into the woods adjacent to some sighting (usually less than a month old) and find some track, nest, or sign of the critter or maybe even the critter itself. Meanwhile Willie and Bill begin to design and build some laborious trap next to this same land (seemingly) which they will later try to drive the beast into. After more witnesses and some entertaining trap-building, the six members assemble for the final night's hunt which is filled with yelling and scrambling and misbegotten maneuvers as the creature they are tracking either eludes them eventually, or attacks them or both. The trap almost always fails and they just miss capturing the creature we never actually see (despite cameras galore on the hunt) but the team assures us is quite real.

After two full seasons (a total of twenty episodes), the second having just finished, these stories are sometimes leavened with personal touches like Buck being hypnotized by the Mothman, Willie suffering losses on his own farm from the Devil Dogs, Bill being made unreliable by his rage at the beast which specializes in killing his beloved bears, or Trapper needing a dentist or getting Sheepsquatch piss in his eyes. These little personal flavors change up the status quo a smidge, but the creators of this show are very careful never to mar the overall structure. Like wrestling, predictability with some small variations is allowed but the experience must reinforce certain preconceptions to remain viable.

I find the show exceedingly entertaining. These guys have discovered that years of watching people stumble across the United States and beyond in a vain effort to find Bigfoot is much less entertaining than a gang of yahoos rampaging through the forests trying to capture or blow the holy hell out of him. You still don't see Bigfoot, but it's a lot more fun not seeing him with this zany mob of hillbillies.

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