DON ‘T swim alone this weekend.Starting tonight,Shark Week is back and ready to take a bite out of viewers for the 18th year in a row – just in time for the 30th anniversary of Steven Spielberg ‘s “Jaws.”
Sharks have always been a huge draw on TV and for some,The Discovery Channel ‘s Shark Week has become the equivalent of a television holiday.
“It ‘s human nature to be intrigued by what we don ‘t understand,” says Dan Huber,a world famous ichthyologist (fish scientist),who appears frequently on The Discovery Channel.”Sharks are just very mysterious creatures and the general public ‘s exposure to them literally comes from Hollywood so people have a caricatured mental image of
what sharks really are.
“While there are certainly sharks like the Great White which is just an amazing,gigantic apex predator, there ‘s a tremendous diversity of sharks,and it ‘s just great that The Discovery Channel has created Shark Week in order to satisfy the public ‘s curiosity about these amazing animals,” says Huber..
Discovery launched Shark Week in 1987 and the annual programming block is largely responsible for helping to put the cable channel on map.Last summer,there was even an 11-year-old boy who was mauled by a shark and saved
himself using a maneuver he learned from watching The Discovery Channel.
“That incident was just a potent example of how someone took that information and used it,” says Discovery programming chief Abby Greensfelder.”And that ‘s also part of what keeps people coming back to Shark Week,there is always new information coming out,” she says.
“The best ideas are the ones that are simplest,” says Greensfelder.
“The original concept of Shark Week was to take something that people are interested in and that we would have done one show on and make a perennial event out of it.”
This year the network has integrated a pair of former special effects wizards – Jamie Hyneman and Adam Savage,the stars of Discovery ‘s hit show “Mythbusters “- into the week-long event. On “Mythbusters ” the pair regularly put old wives tales and urban myths to the test.For Shark Week ‘s purposes,they ‘ll scrutinize old adages about sharks from real-life and the movies on “Mythbusters: Jaws Special,” premiering tonight..
The program will answer such questions as:Can a shark really eat a boat engine?If a shark bites down on a diver ‘s air tank and you shoot it,will the fish will blow up? As the hosts of Shark Week, Hynerman and Savage will also
debunk shark myths in interstitials that appear between programs. Other new “Shark Week ” shows this year include: “Sharkbite!Surviving Great Whites ,” (Monday,9 p.m.).People who have survived attacks from the world ‘s most fearsome predator talk about how their encounters have affected their lives.
“American Shark ,” (Tuesday,9 p.m.).A journey around U.S.coasts reveals the myriad of shark species that live here.
“Shark Hunter:Chasing The Great White ,” (Thursday,9 p.m.). This film profiles the real-life shark hunter who allegedly inspired the Captain Quint character in “Jaws.”
The week will also include some shark shows that have aired in the past.
“One of the things that we as scientists need to do is disseminate our information to the public,” says Huber,who adds that part of his job description is to make sharks angry in order to measure their bite power.”While we do it in a
formal,academic manner,Discovery has the opportunity to distill the information that we generate and pass it on in a simpler more fundamental way.
“Because there ‘s a number of people in our field who are involved in the production of the shows that go into Shark Week, there ‘s definitely a consensus [among experts ] that Discovery is doing a good job.”
SHARK WEEK
Sunday-Thursday, various times, Discovery Channel
