Viewers of Discovery’s “Eaten Alive” Sunday night voiced their anger on Twitter after the show’s airing. They were upset that despite the name of the show, the conservationist Paul Rosolie aborted his mission before he could actually be eaten alive.
I knew about the program ahead of time, and I chose to DVR it for possibly viewing later on if I had heard that it was worth watching. With the show being two hours, I didn’t expect for the actual encounter to take place until the final 20 minutes (after having sat through the Nik Wallenda tightrope walker “pre-game” hype a month earlier while at the in-laws).
Discovery blatantly was deceptive in titling the program “Eaten Alive.” While I’m not sure when this was taped, Discovery knew Rosolie was not in fact eaten alive by the time they named the show. And while there are plenty of ways Discovery can honestly defend the decision to go with that title, no one should buy it.
And while it was a deceptive measure, I don’t feel bad for those who actually did sit through the entire two hours (the exception would be for animal rights activists or anyone from the scientific community). Anyone who is easily that sucked in by outrageous television hype really ought to know better by now how deceptive network heads are when promoting such type of shows.
On second thought, it takes a special kind of mentality to be easily suckered into such outrageous hype. I guess that explains why enough people fall for it every time.