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I find it ironic how despite existing on a planet where pretty much every living thing originated in the ocean, one of humanity’s most widespread fears is thalassophobia – the fear of the deep ocean. Whether it’s some form of genetic memory that continues to haunt our species or a natural reaction to witnessing one of the deadliest ecosystems in the world, it’s no surprise storytellers have been taking advantage of this fear for millennia.

And while Jaws obviously dominates the conversation when it comes to underwater horror in film, there are still some intrepid filmmakers that dare to explore other kinds of sea-borne thrills. For example, Deep Blue Sea director Renny Harlin’s upcoming Deep Water looks like it’s going to take us on another roller-coaster ride directly into shark-infested waters. However, since there’s still no official release date, we’ve decided to come up...

London, England. Something horrible has happened on TV Stage 2 at London's Pinewood Studios. Trails of sticky blood lead to and from the stage. Lurid, red fingerprints spot the doors. On the actual stage itself, the source of the carnage evident. A tyrannosaurus rex rests prone on a shiny metal platform, chest open. A sluice tray holds a stomach, curling innards and still more blood. A pair of drenched white rubber boots sits gory and ensanguinated, vacated by their owner. Science! *** *** When a network known for fact-based programming ventures into the realm of the speculative, the slope is a slippery one.  It will be years before Animal Planet and Discovery Channel recover from "Mermaids: The Body Found" and it will also probably be years before the competition stops twisting that particular knife. It's mid-April at Pinewood Studios outside of London. It's a location most associated with a fictional British spy with a license to kill,...

Disappointed that the Discovery special Eaten Alive over-promised and under-delivered? You weren't alone.

The new president of the Discovery Channel, Rich Ross, told reporters Thursday that he, too, found the special starring naturalist Paul Rosolie "misleading."

On Dec. 7, Discovery aired a special that teased how Rosolie would be swallowed by a mammoth snake in the Amazon. But the man – or his helmet-covered head, rather – never even made it past the anaconda's teeth, much less throat.

"The way I look at it was it was the right intention with a packaging that was misleading," the executive said about the December special...

Brand-new to his role as president of the Discovery Channel, Rich Ross met with reporters at the Television Critics Association press tour in Pasadena on Thursday to offer some nascent thoughts on how he’ll approach the gig.

Short answer: He’s looking for authenticity, and to add more scripted programming to the channel’s roster.

And no, there probably won’t be a sequel to “Eaten Alive.”

Also Read: Discovery Announces Chris Hansen, Tom Brokaw Shows

“I would say I have priorities in mind,” Ross said, when asked what changes he might be mulling. Saying that “authenticity” is the key word relating to Discovery,...

Animal Planet’s first plunge into the B-horror-movie genre with Blood Lake: Attack Of The Killer Lampreys, from the producers of Syfy’s Sharknado, premiered with fewer viewers – 1.2 million on Sunday to Sharknado’s opening 1.37 million back in July of ‘13 – and not nearly the same buzz. More to the point, Killer Lampreys fell far short of the 3.6 million viewers who’d watched Animal Planet’s second mermaid faux-docu, Mermaids: The New Evidence, on comparable Sunday one year earlier. That was Animal Planet’s biggest audience. Ever. New Evidence was a follow-up to the previous year’s mermaid faux-docu, Mermaids: The Body Found which netted 3.4 million viewers and was, until it got trumped by its sequel, Animal Planet’s biggest draw since its September 2006 memorial to on-air talent Steve Irwin (2.7 million viewers), who died after being pierced in the chest by a stingray barb while filming an underwater documentary. An Animal Planet...

Last year, Animal Planet aired a pair of very bizarre specials devoted to the apparent discovery of the mythical sea creatures we know as mermaids... or something very much like them. Photo: Animal Planet The first program, Mermaids: The Body Found, included the following clip from a manned submersible vessel near the coast of Greenland, whose two-man crew is shocked to spot a fast-moving humanoid with webbed hands brushing past their ship: The strangest part of this story isn't the clip itself, but the fact that the show-runners never let on until the end credits that the video is really a CG-enhanced dramatization and the “scientists” are paid actors – so we're basically watching a short found-footage horror film masquerading as a documentary. It's not the first time the network has depicted bogus monsters (popular series like Lost Tapes and Freak Encounters involve dramatizations of monster sightings and urban legends), but...

This all probably started in 2005, when Animal Planet aired a special entitled “Dragon’s World: A Fantasy Made Real”. Unlike most of their regular programs, which seemed to mainly be focused on various law enforcement professionals specializing in animal control problems, “Dragon’s World” took the idea of the dragon as a real, scientifically plausible creature and made a documentary complete with a mummified dragon corpse being unearthed in Romania.

Neil Gaiman served as a consultant on the program. When it aired, there was a mix of CGI animation, “experts” being interviewed, and footage of the dragon being excavated and preserved. Gaiman himself did a couple of blog posts about the work and it was a fun little exercise in idle speculation. It wasn’t anything spectacularly new, after all, similar ground had been covered in the excellent book “Flight of Dragons” by Peter Dickinson and Wayne Anderson concerning scientifically...

The monstrous outrage over Shark Week’s opening-night fake documentary does not appear to have taken a bite out of the franchise’s performance. Wednesday, Great White Serial Killer clocked an average of 3.2 million viewers at 10 Pm, to become Shark Week’s most-watched Wednesday program in the franchise’s 26 years. (Top Ten Sharkdown delivered 2.78 million viewers at 9.) Interestingly, Wednesday’s Serial Killer netted a bigger crowd than either of Shark Week’s Tuesday programs: I Escaped Jaws (2.71 million) and Spawn of Jaws (2.77 million). Discovery’s Shark Week Facebook page was swamped Monday with self-described longtime viewers who raged against Megalodon: The Monster Shark Lives – the opening-night premiere, in which actors playing scientists bloviated about the “return” of a monster shark that became extinct 1.5 million years ago. It appears that Shark Week fans are not regular viewers of Discovery’s Animal Planet channel, or they’d be wise to the whole...

A Discovery Channel special that speculated about whether a giant prehistoric shark could still exist today has drawn a passionate response from viewers — both good and bad.

The program, Megalodon: The Monster Shark Lives, opened Discovery’s annual Shark Week this weekend. With an estimated 4.8 million viewers, it had the largest audience of any show in the 26 years that Discovery has made Shark Week a part of its summer programming.

Yet it drew a heated response online from viewers who said airing a “mockumentary” that talks seriously about the existence of a creature known only from its fossils compromises the network’s reputation.

Megalodon sharks have been extinct for more than a million years. At least, that's the current scientific belief. But could they be out there? Discovery Channel kicked off Shark Week with a special looking into the beasts that can grown up to 67 feet in length. "Megalodon: The Monster Shark Lives" chronicled a group of researchers hoping to tag the legendary beast.

The researchers submerged themselves in a shark cage in hopes of seeing the massive shark. "I saw a big shadow behind me, and the cage started shaking like crazy. So, I aimed the spear-gun and shot," said one of the researchers. "Couldn’t see anything. It was pitch black. And next thing after that, the cage gets hit. And I mean, gets slammed. We are upside down. We are cartwheeling through the water.”

While they didn't get a good look at the creature, they were able to tag it.

Discovery Communications has promoted the guy behind Animal Planet’s controversial mermaid documentaries to oversee a newly created Original Content Group for the whole company of networks. As Evp, Charlie Foley will create, write and exec produce scripted content and nonfiction series and formats for all Discovery networks in this country and internationally. He will report to Marjorie Kaplan, group president and General Manager of Animal Planet, Science Channel, and Velocity. Foley’s the guy behind Animal Planet’s highest-rated program ever: Mermaids: The New Evidence, which averaged 3.7 million viewers in its premiere. That was a sequel to the network’s Mermaids: The Body Found, which was no slouch either in the ratings department, averaging 3.6 million viewers in its premiere. The first mermaid “documentary” resulted in so many inquiries to the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration that the department decided to post something on its websites stating: “No evidence of...

Animal Planet's mockumentary about mermaids sounds silly, but it absolutely shattered the networks ratings records on Sunday with 3.6 million viewers. Let us start this off by reminding everyone that this Animal Planet special, Mermaids: The New Evidence, was fake, even though it played out like a very serious documentary, with scientists and footage and everything! To put this in terms animal lovers can all appreciate: Mermaids: The New Evidence beat out the ratings of this year's Puppy Bowl. Mind. Blown. The New Evidence was a follow-up "documentary" to last year's first hoax special, Mermaids: The Body Found. With these ratings, we are no doubt going to get a trilogy from Animal Planet....

What's the new evidence about mermaids? People can't get enough of them -- even if it's a hoax! Animal Planet premiered their special Mermaids: The New Evidence on Sunday, May 26, and the staged documentary set a ratings record for the network. Animal Planet managed to hook 3.6 million viewers with the special that speculates about the real-life existence of mermaids using actors, according to ABC News. The special is a sequel to 2012's "documentary," Mermaids: The Body Found. "We wanted people to approach the story with a [...]...

How does the sequel to a hoax provoke over 3 million viewers to tune in? If you don’t know, you’re apparently one of the few who don’t. The show in question is Mermaids: The New Evidence and it is now officially listed as Animal Planet’s most-watched telecast in the channel’s history. Yes, you read that right. The special is about mermaids.

The “documentary” – read our thoughts on it – aired on Sunday on Animal Planet to 3.6 million viewers, creating a new ratings record for the network. Yes, this surpasses the numbers for even the Puppy Bowl, in case you were in doubt.

Mermaids: The Body Found was the original program, also a hoax, and this year’s sequel has become huge. And yes, believe it or not, some viewers are fooled, thinking these shows are factual.

If you’re familiar with Alien Autopsy videos of the past,...

This past weekend, 32 million people tuned into Animal Planet’s Mermaids: The New Evidence and discovered that mermaids might just be real. (Note: They're not real.) It's the second time the network has dipped into these waters: Mermaids: The Body Found aired on Animal Planet just last year. So even if mermaids aren't real (note: they're not), that doesn't mean they can't be interesting dramatically. Vampires are over, sexy wolf-dudes had their time, and it doesn't seem that angel prediction is going to stick. It’s peak time for mermaids to shine. Here are six reasons why: 1. Mermaids are sexy.They are! Waist up, this is obvious. Traditionally dressed (or undressed?) with a permanent shell-bra, the mermaid style fits perfectly into the crop-top trend of today — bellybuttons bared with no sign of a piercing. (That wouldn’t really fly anyway, what with all the swimming around and possible catching of...

Animal Planet‘s recently concluded Monster Week 2013, its second annual Monster Week, proved to be a ratings beast for the network as the programming stunt scored Animal Planet’s most-watched week ever in prime, with 1.1 million P2+ viewers, and in both prime and total day among other major demos, including Hh (743,000; 428,000) and M25-54 (295,000; 154,000). Monster Week 2013 was buoyed by the premiere of Mermaids: The New Evidence on May 26. Mermaids: The New Evidence was the follow-up to last year’s Animal Planet hit Mermaids: The Body Found, and purported to reveal new evidence of mermaids that has [...]

The post Animal Planet’s Monster Week 2013 and new “Mermaids” special deliver monster ratings appeared first on Channel Guide Magazine.

The most-watched telecast in Animal Planet’s history is about mermaids.

Sunday’s “documentary” Mermaids: The New Evidence delivered 3.6 million viewers, shattering the network’s ratings record. Yup, even bigger than the Puppy Bowl. The program is not only a hoax, but a sequel to a hoax — to last year’s rather effortlessly debunked Mermaids: The Body Found, which fooled more viewers than you’d think.

Mermaids might not be -- Ok, let's face it, definitely aren't -- real. However, the mythical creatures of the sea delivered a very real ratings victory for Animal Planet on Sunday. "Mermaids: The New Evidence" -- Animal Planet's follow-up to last May's "Mermaids: The Body Found" -- premiered as the most-watched telecast in the network's history, drawing 3.6 million total viewers with its 10 p.m. airing. Also read: Animal Planet Documentary Confirms That Heidi Fleiss Is Still a Crazy Parrot Lady Animal Planet's previous most-watched telecast, 2005's "Dragons: A Fantasy Made Real," scored...

The most-watched telecast in Animal Planet’s history is about mermaids.

Sunday’s “documentary” Mermaids: The New Evidence delivered 3.6 million viewers, shattering the network’s ratings record. Yup, even bigger than the Puppy Bowl. The program is not only a hoax, but a sequel to a hoax — to last year’s rather effortlessly debunked Mermaids: The Body Found, which fooled more viewers than you’d think.

The straight-faced Mermaids specials (trailer below) basically play like Alien Autopsy for a new generation, though at least the infamous Fox special had “Fact or Fiction?” as a nudge-nudge subtitle. Both Animal Planet specials...

If you don't have travel plans for Memorial Day weekend, get cozy on the couch (and set your DVR) because there are plenty of fun marathons happening.

Need to catch up on Season 1 of "Longmire" before the Season 2 premiere Monday, May 27? Want to re-live "Veronica Mars" Season 1? How about watching the entire series of "Arrested Development" (and reading our re-watch posts) before the new season is out on Netflix?

Here is all your Memorial Day weekend programming, all times Eastern.

Friday, May 24

A&E: "Storage Wars" marathon, 3 p.m. to 4 a.m. the next day

Animal: "Finding Bigfoot" marathon, 9 a.m. to 7 p.m., "Invasion" premiere and new episode, 7 p.m. to 9 p.m.

Bravo: "The Real Housewives of New Jersey" marathon, 9 a.m. to 7 p.m., "Millionaire Matchmaker" marathon, 7 p.m. to 4 a.m. the next day

Chiller: "The Twilight Zone" marathon, 9 a.m. to 5 p.m.

Discovery: "Sons of Guns" marathon,...

Animal Planet will again be airing Monster Week, an annual look at legendary and mysterious creatures through a weeklong broadcast of new episodes of popular series, as well as premiere specials. Monster Week 2013 will air May 20-27 on Animal Planet, and will feature 24 premiere hours of new specials, including a follow-up special to last year’s hit Mermaids: The Body Found, called Mermaids: The New Evidence. Mermaids: The New Evidence premieres on Animal Planet May 26 at 10pm Et/Pt (following a two-hour airing of Mermaids: The Body Found The Extended Cut at 8pm Et/Pt). In Mermaids: The New Evidence, [...]

The post Animal Planet’s Monster Week 2013 includes a new “Mermaids” special appeared first on Channel Guide Magazine.

Tune in alert for Monster Week on Animal Planet. Beginning Monday, May 20, at 8 Pm (Et/Pt), Animal Planet.s Monster Week is back with all-new stories about the world.s most legendary and mysterious creatures. Monster Week, a week so big it lasts eight days, digs deep into our fascination with the unknown and proves that there are still real monsters out there. From Animal Planet Perhaps the most haunting, lingering imagery from last year.s event is the physical evidence linked to the existence of mermaids. In Mermaids: The Body Found, Animal Planet stunned viewers with captivating footage and an in-depth investigation of these fantastical creatures. Toward the tail-end of this year.s Monster Week, Animal Planet revisits...

And you thought mermaids were all smiley, singing redheads. Nope, according to Charlie Foley's speculative documentary "Mermaids: The Body Found," which aired Memorial Day weekend on Animal Planet, "real" mermaids are more like those scary merfolk from "Harry Potter" than the Disney version.

"Mermaids" suggests that a group of human ancestors evolved to become sea creatures -- some researchers actually subscribe to this theory known as the aquatic ape hypothesis. The movie goes on to "reveal" that when a real mermaid was found alive on a beach (see the creepy clip below), a government cover-up followed to hide the sea creature's existence.

The film is obviously not the real-deal, but people are taking it super-seriously -- even pointing to the fact that the website listed in the trailer, BelieveInMermaids.com, has been seized by the Department of Homeland Security. Yeah, we call shenanigans on that one. It's more likely...

Like Ariel, are mermaids just longing to be part of our world?

If you believe filmmaker Charlie Foley, whose “documentary” Mermaids: The Body Found aired this past weekend on Animal Planet as part of “Monster Week,” then yes.

The speculative documentary (a.k.a. not real. A mermaid is not going to attack you while you nap on the beach, okay?) explored the myth of the underwater princess — but she’s not the sweet-singing Disney version. The CGI mermaids from the film were dead ringers for the scary merpeople from Harry Potter and the Goblet of Fire, or rejects from the set of Avatar.

The idea of mermaids has tantalized seafarers for millenia, and as part of Monster Week Animal Planet aired Charlie Foley's "speculative documentary" on the watery beasts.

Could mermaids actually exist?

"Mermaids: The Body Found" (Sun., 9 p.m. Et on Animal Planet) posed questions like, what would mermaids look like (let's just say, these CGI mermaids weren't wearing bikini tops made out of sea shells) and how would they reproduce?

The film contained never previously aired footage of what was purported to be a mermaid washed up on a beach in Washington State. Not only was the creature alive, it was far removed from the hair-combing fairytale mermaids of yore, and it seemed pretty pissed.

Check out Charlie Foley's interview with The Huffington Post in which he says the mermaid myth could be rooted in science.

TV Replay scours the vast television landscape to find the most interesting, amusing,...

The idea of mermaids has tantalized seafarers for millenia, and as part of Monster Week on Animal Planet, the network aired Charlie Foley's "speculative documentary" on the aquatic creatures.

Could mermaids actually exist?

"Mermaids: The Body Found" (Sun., 9 p.m. Et on Animal Planet) posed questions like, what would mermaids look like (let's just say, these CGI mermaids weren't wearing bikini tops made out of sea shells) and how would they reproduce?

The film contained never before seen footage of what was purported to be a mermaid washed up on a beach in Washington State. Not only was the creature alive, it was far removed from the hair-combing fairytale mermaids of yore, and it seemed pretty pissed.

Check out Charlie Foley's interview with The Huffington Post in which he says the mermaid myth could be rooted in science.

TV Replay scours the vast television landscape to find the most interesting,...

I have to admit, there’s something about the notion of science entertainment that rubs me the wrong way. Maybe it’s not the entertainment itself, but the venue in which it’s presented. A while back, Animal Planet presented Charlie Foley’s project Dragons: A Fantasy Made Real, and did very well with it. Now Foley and his team are back with a follow-up. Mermaids: The Body Found (premiering Sunday, May 27 at 9pm Et/Pt) is an engrossing two-hour film supposing that a radical, unknown species of marine life bearing human-like attributes had been found in the stomach of a shark, and in [...]...