TV Blogging: Ghost Hunters
Thu, Mar. 30th, 2006 02:23 pm![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png)
Last night was the season premiere of Ghost Hunters. For anyone who doesn't watch the show, basically, it follows the investigations of The Atlantic Paranormal Society (TAPS), based in Rhode Island, as they attempt to disprove claims of hauntings. These guys aren't die-hard believers; I don't think they're the die-hard skeptics they insist they are, but they do work hard to find every reasonable explanation for the phenomena people claim to experienceor that they themselves experience or capture via instrumentsbefore being willing to accept a paranormal explanation. That's why I like the show; these guys are debunkers, not evangelists. They ask tough questions and don't take everything at face value.
Grant and Jay took the TAPS team to Waverly Hill Sanatorium, formerly a tuberculosis hospital, now a majestic abandoned ruin in Louisville, Kentucky which is apparently notorious for its haunting. The place is so huge that the team investigated for two nights, something I haven't seen on the show before, though it may not be uncommon practice with other cases they investigate. The place is plenty spooky all by itself with halls full of doorways and windows without glass, but the team caught an apparition on an infrared camera (which was pretty damn cool), and one of their stationary cameras caught a light phenomenon.
The other tension in the show was that at the end of last season, Brian, a TAPS member who had been basically fired for lying and being unreliable, was allowed to return to work with the group. He appeared in this investigation, though I can see the potential brewing for him to get himself kicked out again; this guy just doesn't know how to respect the rules the group sets for itself in terms of how it functions for its own safety and for the integrity of an investigation. He does it over and over again. I was surprised with Grant and Jay took him back. Wonder how that's going to turn out. I was also surprised at all the giggly flirtation between him and Donna; eeeiw! She could do so much better! Anyway . . . good ep; good investigation. Love the spookiness of it all, and it pushes all my buttons when it comes to exploring the unexplained. Cool stuff. This ep will be rebroadcast next Wednesday night at 8 PM before the new ep at 9 on SciFi, if you're curious.
Grant and Jay took the TAPS team to Waverly Hill Sanatorium, formerly a tuberculosis hospital, now a majestic abandoned ruin in Louisville, Kentucky which is apparently notorious for its haunting. The place is so huge that the team investigated for two nights, something I haven't seen on the show before, though it may not be uncommon practice with other cases they investigate. The place is plenty spooky all by itself with halls full of doorways and windows without glass, but the team caught an apparition on an infrared camera (which was pretty damn cool), and one of their stationary cameras caught a light phenomenon.
The other tension in the show was that at the end of last season, Brian, a TAPS member who had been basically fired for lying and being unreliable, was allowed to return to work with the group. He appeared in this investigation, though I can see the potential brewing for him to get himself kicked out again; this guy just doesn't know how to respect the rules the group sets for itself in terms of how it functions for its own safety and for the integrity of an investigation. He does it over and over again. I was surprised with Grant and Jay took him back. Wonder how that's going to turn out. I was also surprised at all the giggly flirtation between him and Donna; eeeiw! She could do so much better! Anyway . . . good ep; good investigation. Love the spookiness of it all, and it pushes all my buttons when it comes to exploring the unexplained. Cool stuff. This ep will be rebroadcast next Wednesday night at 8 PM before the new ep at 9 on SciFi, if you're curious.
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Date: Fri, Mar. 31st, 2006 06:09 am (UTC)db
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Date: Fri, Mar. 31st, 2006 03:06 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: Mon, May. 8th, 2006 08:41 pm (UTC)I watched seven or eight episodes yesterday during the marathonI'd never seen the show before. I think that exposure was enough for me because I've noticed that every episode seems almost exactly like the other. Seen one, seen 'em all, alas.
Also, not enough EVP. ;) The other stuff seemed entirely, I don't know, it didn't really do anything for me. I saw the episode you quoted above, at the TB hospital, and saw the IR footage. That was neat but too ... I'm not sure. I wasn't creeped out even though I should have been because I do love stuff like this.
Perhaps part of it was that the blush was off the rose for that location because of all the graphiti. A TB hospital haunted by shadow people? Hells yeah, sign me up! But, once we got there, it's all tagged and apocalyptic. It harshed my ghost buzz.
Also, a movie was shot there that was about ghosts, so I was already associating it with fiction.
EVP is the only thing that honestly creeps me out, even though it fails to pass even the most basic Pepsi challenge. I'm a total sucker for it! If TAPS got some EVP every episode, it'd find my way onto TiVo. As it is, meh. :/
I didn't know about any of the Brian stuff, so I tuned that out entirely. I'm not concerned with the team as much as what they're doing.
Oh! I know what it is, what sours my TAPS-liking: The only thing they're expert in is setting up cameras and reviewing tape. Their analysis of the data, indeed even their collecting it, seems haphazard, and everything else seems too staged.
For example, in one episode, one of them got a super high spike on his EMF reader thingy. EMF is, in my mind, perhaps the least reliable, highest waste of time endeavors related to ghost hunting in modern times. On top of that, he later discovered that his reader was reacting to the IR camera. Oof.
So, when we see an IR image of something going across the field of view, I'm less inclined to be creeped out or amazed by it (as I should) because I know who's behind the camera.