jcarton said:

I saw this the other day. It is actually American Paranormal revamped with two actresses, a film editor, an FBI agent who is also an actor and 2 other people. This Jael person was on Destination Truth. I had said before American Paranormal was never going to be a series on NatGeo. You can read about some of the actors who are going to be on the show from this siteI found. http://uk.imdb.com/news/ni1824312/  These actors are supposed to be using the latest technology and investigative techniques and carry out scientific experiments? Thats a joke and Syfy will never let them cross GH or any show on their channel.

Milk the Ghost Show craze udder till it's raw, dry and sore, is the tactic I'm seeing here. 

From what I've been able to gather….American Paranormal (which I liked quite a lot), and Paranatural, which _seemed_ to be a followup to the AP duo of episodes, are alll part of a larger umbrella/series on NatGeo, called "Mysterious Science", I think.     I noticed this while digging around on NatGeo's rather infuriatingly designed website.    Even if this doesn't quite constitute a devotedly skeptical/real science-based, long running program, I still have to praise NatGeo for going against the grain and perhaps being the forerunner of what is sure to be a very harsh backlash against the ghost show plague that's afflicted cable television.

Anyway, real science and skepticism doesn't mix with Syfy…they tried it once before with some show, I can't remember the name, but it had a bunch of whiny louts, some skeptics, some believers…investigating/looking into the dumb new age crap of the week…and giving their opinion about it.  It didn't last long.

Honestly, since they cancelled Farscape and MST3K, I've found little reason to pay any attention to that shriveled shell of a network.   I refuse to even use it for watching GH and its spinoffs, lest I encourage the bad behavior.  I watch it all on youtube.

There was a change of leadership with the network in the early 2000s, and it's been a downward spiral ever since.  The "new" ceo, a woman who looks like a stripe of beef jerky wearing a marilyn monroe wig, essentially showed up and ruined everything.  Cancelled all their best shows, brought in ECW…. I didn't even like BSG, to be honest, though I know there are many who will site that as a counterargument.  

It was a good show, but not good enough to make up for friggin ECW.

Yay for aimlessly tangentizing rants. Sorry folks, but its too late for me to backspace now..I'm going down with the ship. : )

Somehow I'm glad I turned off my cable, having read that, alii.  : )

"Molecular Gastronomist"?   You're not being facetious here, are you? 

A wikipedia search later…and wow.  I guess this is a real term.  They weren't satisfied with being a chemist….or being a cook….or event with being a "cook who knows chem-foo"….  is there anything science can't make pompous and self-important? : )

As for this witness thing….I suspect I'm stating the obvious, but I'll go ahead and say it: Unsolved Mysteries and Sightings kinda beat them to the punch on this one almost 20 years ago…and it wasn't even the gimmick of the show.   Before the Ghost Hunters' Spawn plague, this is what paranormal shows _were_. 

That said….it could be interesting and fun to watch.  Dramatizations of this stuff are always much more fun to watch than their actual documentation (for obvious reasons), and…for me, really what makes this stuff fun.  Science and skepticism have no place around the campfire, or in that sleeping bag you instinctively cower into when you hear a weird sound in the darkness–this is where this stuff belongs. 

Hopefully whoever's making the show knows this too…and knows to punch it up a bit.   I doubt they'll beat Unsolved Mysteries or Sightings at this game, though.

Random tangent: Is it just me, or are the intro themes/sequences for these para-shows getting crappier over time?  UM and Sightings (and even Arthur C. Clarke's Mysterious World) just seem to have had so much more haunting and memorable intros….