Open letter to the makers of “Perfect Disaster”
So my wife and I sat down last night, glommed down on pizza, and watched the premiere of a new Discovery Channel series called “Perfect Disaster.” (Oddly enough, she had just watched a CNN special on what would constitute the perfect energy crisis, and I’ve seen promos for a similar show recently on the Weather Channel – Irwin Allen would be proud.) I’ll get into the bizarre psychology behind the sudden preponderance of shows like this another time, but for a moment let’s talk about the premiere installment of this one show. Basically, the premise of this hour-long episode was “What conditions would be necessary for a ‘super tornado’ to form near Dallas, Texas, and how much havoc could it wreak?” Not a completely uninteresting premise there. However, the show’s biggest failing was in trying to illustrate this situation through the eyes of a fictional Dallas family – the lovable working-class lout of a dad (who just happens to be an emergency management official for the city), and his all-American wife and son. Even here, we’re not doomed for disaster. Yet. Until whoever wrote the script took a goofball-sized hailstone to the head just before firing up the word processor. … Read more
