Entries Tagged 'Travel Channel' ↓

I’ll have the full review for you later over on DVD Verdict, but I’ve just seen the first two episodes of Wild China, the BBC documentary on the land which will host the 2008 Olympics, and they are beautiful. I was hooked about 5 minutes in, as the sheer human accomplishment behind the rice paddy terraces of Yuanyang County sank in.

I’m blogging now because The Travel Channel will be running Wild China in two big Sunday three-hour blocks on July 27 and August 3, starting at 8 p.m. each night. Since the shows run 59 minutes on the DVD, there will likely be cuts to fit the hour time slots. The documentary also has a rare graceful flow that could be lost amid commercials and those ubiquitous promos. Still, it is something to behold, and you ought to catch it.

Yeah, you’ve heard that before about documentaries, and yeah, I realize there are a lot of times when you just aren’t interested in the subject. From what I’ve seen so far, though, you could be hooked even if you think you’re uninterested.

I’ve noticed that Samantha Brown’s shows on the Travel Channel seem to be downscaling with the economy. When people could afford overseas trips, she did Passport to Europe. When that got pricey, she switched to Passport to Latin America. Now, as gas prices top $4, she’s doing Passport to Great Weekends, a show that looks like it’ll be recommending getaways closer to home. Now that’s an indicator of a recession. When Samantha Brown does Passport to Sitting In Front of the TV Wistfully Watching Travel Shows, we’ll know it’s an outright depression.

“I have to know what the world’s best steak tastes like,” Andrew Anthony says. To find out, he’s skipping the steak he’s about to prepare on the grill and heading for Japan to taste a Kobe steak that’ll set him back around $700.

Life’s a Trip is the latest Travel Channel newcomer, airing Mondays at 11 p.m. EDT. Each hour features two adventures, each starting with Anthony deciding there’s something he must do.

Japan might not have been the best choice for an opener, since anyone who’s watched the Travel Channel a little bit won’t be surprised by maid cafes, beer and liquor vending machines, karaoke, or sumo wrestling. It’s too fast an overview in half an hour, and Anthony’s above-it-all attitude makes it feel rather distant. When Anthony gets to the Kobe beef himself, he manages to slip in enough foodie info with the snarky narration to pull off this last segment.

The second half of the opener finds Anthony in New Zealand to learn about Maori culture and dance. It’s more focused than the Japan trip, and Anthony seems more interested and involved. He’s also more foolhardy, bungee jumping off a tall building in a single terrified bound to make a building into a symbol of his “personal inner strength.” Still, it’s hard to get involved in Anthony’s adventures.

Life may be a trip, but I’d like more of a feeling of being along for the ride. It won’t make you change the channel in disgust, but Life’s a Trip won’t have you setting the TiVo.

Just watched the first episode of another new Travel Channel show, America The Wright Way. If you’ve watched the Travel Channel in the past week or so, you’ve seen the ads that tout Brit host Ian Wright’s bad-boy attitude. As you’d expect, he’s not that bad. During his tour of Chicago, he stays out of the way and lets the natives do the talking enough to provide some real information. The most inspired parts were his call for Chicagoans at a Hyde Park-like public speaking op to keep a “stiff upper lip” and his overview tour of the city (literally) on the El. Wright can be hyper, as viewers might know from Lonely Planet (also known as Globe Trekker), but not so much as to be aggravating. It’s not a must-see, but worth checking out anytime there’s nothing better on. New episodes debut Monday nights at 8 p.m. EST (with reruns at midnight EST).

With Lost lost for the time being, I’ve just realized that’s the last episode of a habit show until sometime in April. I’ll be watching a little TV–the NCAA tourney, Weather Channel forecasts, and way too many reruns of Anthony Bourdain: No Reservations and Samantha Brown’s Passport To …, but should my local teams (Pitt and West Virginia) drop out, there’s nothing I’m looking forward to on the tube for a while. This is healthy, isn’t it?

By royal decree, Monaco has free cable TV for everyone. I heard that little tidbit on Samantha Brown’s Passport to Europe. I advise anyone who’s considering emigrating to find out whether they have free HBO first.

After seeing the TV listing crawl at the bottom of the screen on the Travel Channel and noticing that another Anthony Bourdain rerun was running in the time slot of Michael Palin’s New Europe, I went to the Travel Channel’s site to track down New Europe… It seems Michael Palin’s on Thursdays at 7 and 11 p.m. now. They plopped Palin on the schedule with little advance word, and now they’ve moved him, presumably for low ratings? Bourdain’s No Reservations is a great show, probably the most rerunnable show on TV, but it would be nice if the Travel Channel occasionally made room for another show once in a while.