Customer Reviews

History: Prehistoric Megastorms

5 star:		(1)
4 star:		(0)
3 star:		(0)
2 star:		(3)
1 star:		(0)

 

 

The History Channel puts on some very good documentaries, but unfortunately when they transfer them to DVD they don't do any re-editing. When these shows are originally aired on TV, there are commercial breaks of increasing frequency, and before every break there's a "peek" at what's coming up; after the break there's a recap of what's gone before. This is annoying enough WITH the commercials, but without it, one ends up watching the same footage over and over and over until it gets to the point of there being about two minutes' content per segment, bracketed by five minutes of recap and another five of "coming up!" I finally had to just turn this off as it was managing to bore me to death while, at the same time, driving me crazy (no small achievement if you think about it). This seems to be a pattern with History Channel DVDs, which is a pity because the program content is wonderful, but save your money and, if you want to see these messes, rent them from NetFlix.

What the heck is wrong with The History Channel? They re-cycle all of the video graphics and scenes into ad nauseum. They have several hours of programing that can be rightfully pared down to less than an hour.

I love the topics covered in this 7 episode collection, even if most really aren't about storms per se.

But...

After every commercial break, obviously not shown here on DVD, there's a recap of what was just discussed just a few minutes before... something we expect if a show was continued from the week before. Does the History Channel think we all have ADD? Is it a way to grab the attention of channel surfers?

But when it's a continuous episode, the repetition of content/graphics within each episode gets to be a distraction then extremely annoying. How many times do we have to be told the same scientists are out to prove the same theory! WE ALREADY KNOW THAT!

Each episode is really 20 minutes of content stretched into an hour show. I can't give this collection more than 2 of 5 stars. Best borrow the series from your local library than waste money on this collection.

The cd's have great simulations of the storms, these are worth your money and time. Even with the advances that will come, it is still useful information since it gives an idea of what the different countries are doing to protect the world from an asteroid strike. The other episodes are very interesting, discusing new and accepted ideas of actual events and possible ones. Very informative and entertaining. They do contain the advertisement recaps and peeks of whats to come, I wish they would edit them out, it is still realy good and I recomend this CD.