‘Extreme’ TV shows grab viewers’ bemused attention

TV PRODUCERS’ constant search for unique and far-out program formats to entice and excite viewers has pushed them to come up with “extreme” TV treats, which have become so numerous that they now have a category all their own.

“Extreme” programs currently on the tube are paced by “Totally Insane Guinness World Records,” a show that creates really far-out competitions for contestants to engage in.

On a recent telecast, for instance, the unique abilities up for idiosyncratic contention involved the most watermelons a player could open in a prescribed number of seconds, numbers of glass panels to run through and break, fastest time to pull an entire airplane for a distance of 100 feet—etc.!

Another program, “World’s Most Extreme,” offered no awards or titles, just far-out “monumental trivia”—like its recent focus on really weird bridges. The examples ranged from “logical” choices like the highest bridge and biggest pontoon structure spanning a river—to loopy and even dangerous choices like the remnants of a span that was verboten for people to cross—but still attracted daredevils with a death wish!

A third production, “What in the World,” is unique for its use of satellite images of parts of the planet Earth that have immense and inexplicable images, natural land and water configurations, or miles-long structures.

Theories

These images are visible only from space, so the show’s producers and “investigators” are all agog over them, and come up with all sorts of theories to “explain” their existence, including the usual “alien visitors from superior civilizations” variety.

Some of the satellite shots are truly spectacular—like a sizable part of ocean that glows at night, which the show’s investigator-speculators think is caused by the vestiges of a lost civilization. Or the giant image of an American Indian god “carved” into a mountain range that makes the presidents on Mt. Rushmore look positively picayune.

All sorts of theories are advanced to explain the existence of these and other gigantic mysteries and anomalies. Some of them turn out to be too far-out and fantastic to be taken seriously—so, the mystery remains!