EVER since the lockdown, I have developed the habit of watching TV as I finish my breakfast. At 8 am, it is CNN International. Black Lives Matter, Trump, and the Covid-19 epidemic fill the wide screen in front of me. Each day is an update of what the US has to offer or negate. The remote control, of course, allows me to go to BBC and then to CNN Philippines and then back to CNN. I would have loved to follow Aljazeera but it disappeared from our cable. For some reason, the dumb responses of many Americans make me feel good about the dumb responses of our government to the pandemic.
Not misery but inutility somehow loves company.
When I have irritated myself to no end for the morning, I get ready for practically a whole day of TV-viewing (I write in the late afternoon until 2 or 3 in the morning).
From this daily habit, I have discovered engaging presentations. Let me list them down here. My choices may reflect who I have become as a media critic but they may also answer some of the readers’ questions about what I watch. Here they are in no particular order of significance:
1. American Pickers and Pawn Stars on History Channel. I put these two shows in one list because they are similar in that they deal with artefacts of yesterdays. Personally, I love antiques but I am no collector—I don’t have the moola for it. I love old things for what they represent, an age that has long been gone. The approach of Pickers is to bring us to where these old things are. It is like a fieldwork that does not have the stress of making a report afterwards. The tandem of Mike Wolfe and Frank Fritz scour the old towns of America to buy, recycle and sell again pieces of Americana. The fun part in this show is when they go around old barns and storage houses and find signage and ads that have stopped gracing highways. Pawn Stars, on the other hand, is about men and women who bring seemingly ordinary and worthless things to pawn. The surprise is when an old photo with signature or a pistol get more than what the owner ever imagined in terms of its value. Pawn Stars sources its charm also from the hosts, Rick Harrison, Corey Harrison and Chumlee. They play their parts so well, one will never know who bullies who.
2. I am scared of big waves but who does not enjoy scaring himself of the things that he is frightened of? Huge waves and an ocean beyond taming are just two of the factors that enable me to enjoy Wicked Tuna on the National Geographic Channel. This show follows the adventures of commercial tuna fishermen based in Gloucester, Massachusetts. They set out to catch the world-famous Atlantic Bluefin tuna found in the North Atlantic Ocean. Except for the use of sonars, the whole enterprise is done manually, including the spearing of caught fish and hauling it onto the boat. For us Filipinos, it is awesome to watch the team leaders of the boat follow US regulations, which determine the size limits and quotas for the season.
3. Who does not get excited with hidden treasures? It may sound childish but when a group of adults (or grown-up boys) spends a lifetime in search of lost treasures, one cannot/should not turn away from that adventure—popcorn optional. Two shows have intrigued me for days now since the lockdown: The Curse of the Oak Island and Lost Gold of the World War 2, both on History Channel.
The Curse of the Oak Island follows the team led by brothers Marty and Rick Lagina in their search for a notoriously popular treasure on Oak Island, in Nova Scotia, Canada. What is at stake are historical treasures linked to esoteric groups like the Rosicrucians and the Knight Templars, even jewelries from the Aztec empire. The unwavering intense interest of the team that meets in a “war room” fuels our very own gaze at this exciting journey.
Close to our thrilled hearts is Lost Gold of World War 2. It is, as you may have guessed, about the fabled Yamashita treasure buried somewhere in the mountains and jungles of the Philippines. Shot from a foreigner’s perspective, one is pushed to ask: Do we really still have those dense woodlands and mountains? What looks like an impossible quest is relieved by the log line: a treasure may have been found but carting it off is another matter.
4. With my health conditions, sugar is a no-no; and with the world afflicted, bingeing is a sin. But I can always relish the sight of pastries and cakes in their most decadent manifestations. This is the offering of Spring Baking Championship on The Food Network. It is a typical baking contest without the complications of sour intrigues and unwanted rivalries. The judges of this show are having fun and are not mean. Without spring in the country, the name of the show is really about being bright and full of hope. Bonus: You get to learn about the differences among types of cake—from torte to pound cake, from stack to sponge cake, from shortcake to savarin, from petit fours to petit gateau. And why not, naming what touches the tongue is always power.
The point of this exercise is that with all the bleakness and depression outside, no one is stopping us from bringing in sunshine to our living room.
What about the Philippines and its documentary? With due respect to the hardworking documentarians in the country’s free TV, I find them not engaging enough. It is typical of these documentaries to be overwhelmed by the persona of the documentarians whose profiles had to be developed by the network for ratings and popularity purposes.
What do I propose then? I am strongly recommending to the TV networks to go out there and try the many short and full-length documentaries being made by independent documentarians from the metropolis and the regions. These documentarians are looking into realities and phenomena with perspectives that are beautifully trenchant because they are not burdened by any corporate responsibilities huge networks impose on their talents. There is a whole original universe out there from which we could learn more about our country and its peoples and cultures.