I was surprised at the volume of negative feedback voiced on this blog regarding the premiere of A&E’s “Paranormal State” last week.
I knew the show was god-awful, but never realized how so many others out there agreed with me.
But should anyone will be watching, tonight’s latest adventure in ghostly melodrama features PRS assisting an exorcism – which as far as expertise goes, is like asking Ted Kaczynski to help supervise a controlled building demolition.
Oh, and don’t forget Ryan Buell is still being stalked by a demon. That’s important. We don’t want to miss anything about that.
PS: When it comes to ghost stories, this one looks far more intriguing – brought to us (in limited release on Dec 28) by Producer Guillermo Del Toro.
PPS: Against my better judgment, I watched last night’s bookended episodes of “Paranormal State” and saw no evidence of anything paranormal in either. Both subjects were struggling with domestic turmoil – one due to a floundering marriage, and the other from the sudden death of a loved one.
If PRS accomplished anything positive in either case, it was in (allegedly) helping each family find normalcy in their otherwise turbulent lives.
Maybe they should give Dr. Phil a run for his money?
PPPS: Here’s a short review of “Paranormal State” via the New York Times. “Go away, fly!” it says. In the meantime, I've scoped the net looking for a positive coverage of the show, and damned if that ain't harder than finding a bad review of "The Shawshank Redemption."
I don't think I've ever seen such a chorus of head-smacking incredulity aimed at a single TV show...well, with the exception of "Cop Rock" that is.
6 comments:
Oh, you bet...
http://podblack.wordpress.com/2007/12/15/my-favourite-review-of-paranormal-state/
This show is about the stupidest thing. Ever.
I can't disagree with you there, Paul.
That scene last night of the girl chanting in the rowboat literally made my cover my eyes in disbelief.
Thanks for the link, Pod. I likest thou blog.
Check out Ryan's post-mortem of the Dark Man episode here:
http://boards.aetv.com/thread.jspa?threadID=700011021
That's the official A&E board for the show where you will find a good amount of like-minded "haters". I commented (quite windedly) the post-mortem of the episode. The one for the Syracuse Devil can also be found at the paranormalinsider page.
Haven't gotten to see the two newest episodes yet but read the post-mortems and the Syracuse Devil episode brings the point home that most of these episodes have absolutely nothing paranormal about them but what they do have in common are emotionally if not psychologically disturbed people.
All four, count em four, episodes have taken place in the homes of such people.
The Timmy episode- not only was the young boy in question quite possibly suffering some sort of mental illness (which got chalked up to demons and easily solvable not with treatment but with generous doses of holy water- is this the middle ages?!) and a mother who is totally unable to deal. There were also marital problems in the home and shortly after the episode taping they divorced.
Episode 2- "The Name", contains absolutely no paranormal activity what-so-ever. Oh wait, was this the one with the perfectly audible footsteps at one point which sounded like they were done on a sound stage and the quick cut to a door opening and closing? Both of those incidents were suspicious and easily fakable. Beyond that it should be noted the first half of the episode was about the distraut emotional situation of the mother. When nothing paranormal is happening Ryan freaks out about some demon which is personally stalking him and the mere notion that the house is haunted by a demon is supplanted by his own alleged Belial devil. A good deal of the episode in a terribly sad/pathetic scene is the woman sobbing about how her second husband adopted her son, they got divorced, the biological father starts coming back into the picture and then he disappears as well leaving the son with no father figure. To be abandoned by not one but two fathers at the same time is terrible for the son but makes me wonder if the woman just has really terrible judgement in men or if the problem lies at least partially with herself.
Then there's the new episodes- the Syracuse Devil which from what I've read (until I see a rerun) seems to be a scene of domestic pandemonium made up of a combination of The Lord of the Flies and Children of the Corn.
The one before it has a distraught mother over her son's OD blaming it on a "Dark Man" and thinks the ghost made him OD somehow. What, did he mess with his stash or tamper it with rat poison? And then the actor-turned-psychic reassures her that indeed her son WAS killed by the Dark Man. I don't know what's worse, the stupidity of the show itself or the way it preys on obviously vulnerable disturbed people and misrepresents their trauma as demons. Not all demons are malevolent forces from hell but come from life issues and I think this show is completely made up of the latter.
I think what baffled me most about last night's show was the teaser running before it featuring "raves" about "PS" from various sources.
Did they see the same show we did?
Finally, I must admit I have a high tolerance for zaniness when it comes to shows like these because I understand they are produced as entertainment.
But "PS" is above & beyond anything I have seen as far as embarassing content goes.
Well, I was on the PRS forums in the last 24 hours and to prove how much of a joke they are. I literally got my posts deleted because I said that I heard from some unknown persons that the Washington, PA site (right down the road from me) were displeased with PRS...so since i said something negative I was deleted off the posts and told to shut up in nicer terms. Anyway we can figure out a way to get them to expose that they are seriously just screwing around with stuff and making it look like they know something?
if so contact me, we'll chat
darjmc8589@yahoo.com
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