sigh Hard to believe she’s really gone. Of course, as most of you know who have cable, the Discovery Wings channel was obliterated as of Monday to make room for the new military channel.
So far it looks like a whole lot of Bush pumping propaganda, and shows about “This is why we blew the crap out of Iraq. We’re not conquerors, we’re liberators! Semper Fi!!” Sheesh. Horrible production on what I’ve seen so far, and no end in sight.
End of an era? Who knows, but I for one already dearly miss the wings channel. She might not have always been the most accurate, but at least she was entertaining and did have some great shows on from time to time. I miss the ol’ gal.[:(]
I won’t comment on the political part, but only because a) we have a gentlemen’s (and women’s) agreement no to on this site and I’m sticking by it and a) I’m not in the mood this morning to get flamed by a bunch of people who consider the Bill of Rights something that should be hanging from a roll next to the toilet when it comes to any criticism of this administration. So I will merely agree with you that as much as I hated it, I miss Discovery Wings a lot compared to what I’ve seen so far of this ridiculous “Military Channel.” It is obviously aimed at a certain type of person, and that person is not one who is interested in any objective exploration of history. It seems to be programmed for bulletheads who sit laughing and slapping the arm of their Barcaloungers while human beings get vaporized. It’s ESPN for morons as far as I can tell. Maybe the channel as some genuine documentaries, but they haven’t shown them yet.
Why, oh, why, did the old Wings Channel have to be such a piece of junk? With all the hundreds of thousands of hours of documentary footage available from all of the world now, it could have been something good. As it turned out, it was something the Discovery Channel empire did on the cheap in order to claim to advertisers and cable subscribers that they had all this diverse programming that appealed to all tastes. As for the content, Discovery and the cable providers couldn’t have care less.
TOM
Does the current propaganda sorry prog content of most stations reek of 1984/starship troopers style news to anyone?
There was a 60 minutes style show on Irish tv last week about Fox News and how Republican biased it was (This was like Pol Pot doing an exposee on how big a b@$tard Idi Amin was - true irony).
Free press and unbiased tv is no longer a reality with different channels taking different sides.
The BBC was criticised yesterday for failing to report on the US Carrier involved in the Tsunami aid operation, the BBC only reported on the amount of money that the US put in the pot and criticised that.
It will get to the stage where satelite and cable stations will be showing their political affiliations in little icons on the screen
I really miss the shows “Wings” and “Wings of the Luftwaffe” way too much modern shows on now-I guess more footage is available. But I certainly miss the historical stuff.
Does anyone know why the old original “Wings” series from the 90s has disappeared from the airways? Is it a copyright or contractual thing, where the owners of this series find it more profitable to sell it strictly on DVD and tape? I’d love to see those old shows again (which, I suppose, aren’t all that old), where a different type was studied in depth each week on the Discovery Channel.
TOM
“Victory at Sea” and the Thames production of “The World at War” were two documentaries that are hard to beat. I am sure that there are others out there that I am not remembering. Even “The Right Stuff” had its moments. Oh, well…
I remember a one off called Beyond Trinity, which was a solid hour of nukes popping off.
It showed practically all of the US, UK and USSR tests , I think the french had the odd one too.
That was before the break up into the specialised channels.
I never saw the full hour , but would love to get it on dvd, having lived with so many of them ‘in my back yard’ for several years.
I second that opinion on the “World At War” series. It got me interested in WWII and not just the miliary side, but the human cost of war. Its out on DVD now, all 26 hours + a documentray on the making of - very interesting. Got it for Xmas from my wife. Highly recommended.
hey guy’s & gal’s
I think the History channel was taking the viewer from the Discovery Wings Channel’s pot with more other stuff that was more appealing then Wings Channel had and thus the mass migration away to History Channel, so Discovery Corp. decided to go with a some what mirror image of the History Channel with the MILITARY CHANNEL, and I felt the Wings Channel was playing some of the most UNINTRESTING PROGRAMS, now if they ran the old Wings Shows I’d be Fat, Dumb & Happy because they where really great shows, as for the political views of the media there like buttholes & opinions everyone has one and they both STINK
Count another vote for “World at War”. It’s the definitive series on WW II. In fact, it formed part of the required “reading” I had to do for a University course on the Second World War, so I guess someone in academia must of thought it had the right stuff.
I know this skips over a couple of responses, but …
In response to oggy4624’s post: “Beyond Trinity” is available on DVD now (and has been for at least a while), as I just picked it up for Christmas. It is available on Amazon.com for something like $22 or so. Just do a search for “Beyond Trinity: The Atomic Bomb Movie” and it should pop right up. It may be available elsewhere too, but I only looked on Amazon.com.
On the topic of the Wings series on the Discovery channels, I really miss all of the older shows which focused on an individual type of plane (rather than more of a “survey” of several aircraft). Those shows were the reason was I was very happy when my family FINALLY got cable when I was a teenager. I have a lot of them “archived” on VHS tapes–someday I hope to transfer them onto DVD, but given the time I have right now I don’t expect it to be any time soon! Of course, it would be great if the Discovery Channel came out with a complete DVD set of the series too!![:D]
You say this as if you assume that many of us here support your political stance. Well, we don’t. This type of rhetoric would be better-served at a site like DU or something; I can name a few similar sites for you if that’s your cup of tea.
Sharkskin said it pretty well in his reply, and while I enjoyed the Wings series myself, it had begun to get repetitive. I’m sure it will all be rotated back in due time, so sit tight. Meanwhile, I have actually had my cable service turned off, as much of the material presented is garbage. Adding insult to injury, we are actually expected to pay for it.
I do seem to remember seeing that the Wings series is available on DVD.
I agree with the political stuff. but i can’t say that here. I plan on getting the channel anyway. Maybe they will have some inter4esting tech shows sometime.
Add my vote to “The World at War.” If it had my complete attention through all six months of its weekly run at the age of 16, it must have been something special. And it was worth more than a year of studying the subject in college history courses. For one thing, it was made in the very early 1970s, and so many of those who saw it first hand, and more importantly, those who made the big decisions, were still alive and agreed to be interviewed for the series. More and more, as the combatants age and die, we are relying on second-hand information. That’s why oral history archives are critical if we are every to have a good record of our time on this planet. Just think how many questions would have been answered once and for all if the combatants on both sides in the American Revolution or the Norman Invasion could have say down in front of a video camera and been encouraged to tell their stories. It won’t be more than a decade or two before we start losing more and more people from the Vietnam era, and they need their stories told and archived in our nation’s repositories for such things.
Oh, and by the way. Someone missed my point. I didn’t say I disagreed with uillean. I simply pointed out that we had agreed to keep this site apolitical. Then I nearly crossed that line by further pointing out that it seems that too many people consider it “political” only when a view other than their own is being expressed. That’s what provoked my glib comment about people treating our Bill of Rights, which, for those who cut class that day (and there sure seems to be a lot of them), includes the First Amendment.
But forgive my stepping over the line. It was hypocritical of me and I still believe politics belongs on political sites. In-your-face type flag waving and bashing anyone who dares disagree with you or the president is political rhetoric, just as does disagreeing with the administration on this site.And name calling is definitely out. I hope that wasn’t too political of me to be pointing it out.
TOM.