Put this one in the “great channels think alike category”: this coming Sunday, March 9th, National Geographic Channel premieres their new special AFTERMATH: POPULATION ZERO, which is exactly the same premise as History Channel’s excellent Life After People special from this past January. Not that there’s anything wrong with that, of course. It’s an irresistible notion -- what might happen to the Earth after all the people have disappeared -- and if Nat Geo’s offering is anything like LAP, it will be tremendously entertaining, educational and utterly fascinating television. Do expect to see some of the same things -- the Eiffel Tower crumbles, Lady Liberty tosses her torch -- but who's complaining?
Like the previous special, AFTERMATCH: POPULATION ZERO assumes that humanity has simply vanished. Poof! No decaying bodies left behind, no corpses for hungry animal survivors to dine on -- the people are just gone, ala the Rapture or some other entertaining fiction. It’s certainly an amusing way of dealing with the implications of a more probable wipe-out, such as plague or some other biological/environmental disaster that would likely affect other species as well. Not that it wouldn’t be a terrific premise in itself, but then you wouldn’t have all the exciting confrontations between newly-liberated wild animals and domestic pets who’ve toughened up to make it on their own, or eagles nesting in office buildings, or other similarly quixotic juxtapositions.
National Geographic has a pretty website for AFTERMATH: POPULATION ZERO, including a neat animated time-line with different points of interest that you might enjoy playing with. Be sure you click on "Experience the Aftermath" on the page. There are also samples of the show and other clips that you can explore. Not much text there, but plenty of video.
You know by now that The Flaming Nose is full of apocalyptic groupies, and I’m sure we’ll all be tuning in on Sunday night for our latest dose of doom! We couldn’t be more excited about it!
AFTERMATH: POPULATION ZERO premieres Sunday, March 9th at 8P et/pt, and repeats again at midnight, plus check the schedule for additional plays.
Like the previous special, AFTERMATCH: POPULATION ZERO assumes that humanity has simply vanished. Poof! No decaying bodies left behind, no corpses for hungry animal survivors to dine on -- the people are just gone, ala the Rapture or some other entertaining fiction. It’s certainly an amusing way of dealing with the implications of a more probable wipe-out, such as plague or some other biological/environmental disaster that would likely affect other species as well. Not that it wouldn’t be a terrific premise in itself, but then you wouldn’t have all the exciting confrontations between newly-liberated wild animals and domestic pets who’ve toughened up to make it on their own, or eagles nesting in office buildings, or other similarly quixotic juxtapositions.
National Geographic has a pretty website for AFTERMATH: POPULATION ZERO, including a neat animated time-line with different points of interest that you might enjoy playing with. Be sure you click on "Experience the Aftermath" on the page. There are also samples of the show and other clips that you can explore. Not much text there, but plenty of video.
You know by now that The Flaming Nose is full of apocalyptic groupies, and I’m sure we’ll all be tuning in on Sunday night for our latest dose of doom! We couldn’t be more excited about it!
AFTERMATH: POPULATION ZERO premieres Sunday, March 9th at 8P et/pt, and repeats again at midnight, plus check the schedule for additional plays.
It's a little disappointing that we won't see all the scattered human remains as a food source and contributor to burgeoning species. But for filmmakers, there must be way too many variables to consider. A plague would lead to a gradual die off, mucking up the timeline. An asteroid strike would wipe out most of the animal species and introduce new influences on the recovering planet. Better to just have us all sucked out off the planet and let the good times commence at once. I'm looking forward to this one. The History Channel piece was pretty damn tantalizing.
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