The state of modern network documentaries

My name is URL

*Fast n' Loud
*American Guns
**Swamp People
**Storage Wars
***Ancient Astronauts

The above things are on right now on Discovery*, History** and National Geographic*** channels.

What the fcuk is going on?!

The first four are reality TV shows at best.

I don't even know what to say about Ancient Astronauts! This **** is on Nat Geo!

I hate people.

I know the feeling.

Modern documentary channels, including Discovery, National Geographic and the History Channel, offer little more than sensationalist tripe that serves no other purpose than providing purely thoughtless, mind-numbing, drool-inducing entertainment. The programming provided is only documentary television on the most superficial level; in actuality it is reality television or CGI-for-the-sake-of-it eye-candy masquerading as informative, thought-provoking or profound television. I'd go so far as to say a person would emerge on the other side of one of these shows less informed than when they sat down to watch it.

It's a shame. Of what I remember from years ago, when in my youth, channels such as Discovery and National Geographic provided quality programming. Perhaps it's still the same now as it was then, but with age comes cynicism, and so such "documentaries" now appear as nothing more than pseudo-documentaries when once they seemed genuinely informative.

Having said that, there are still some good documentaries on such channels — though such documentaries are by far the exception — and there are some channels that provide quality documentaries, such as Al Jazeera.