‘Shark Week’ Has Seized Me In Its Gaping Maw

Ah, August.

Hot.  Muggy.  Sluggish. School approaches; summer vacations are over or nearly so. The new television season is weeks away. And even in a good movie year  – which 2009 has decidedly not been – all the best blockbusters have come and gone by now.

What to do?  You could watch that stupid cat video on YouTube for the 1,000th time, or…you could watch a surfer get a major bite down from a giant man-eating fish.  Sweet!

Yes friends, The Discovery Channel has the answer for our late-summer, entertainment withdrawal doldrums. For twenty-two years now, Discovery has devoted an entire week of August or July programming to real life sea monsters: They called it Shark Week, and lo, it was good.

Shark Week is always fun, but this year’s installment has been especially tasty. ”Blood In The Water” kicked it off, a terrific two-hour documentary about the real-life happenings that inspired Peter Benchley’s Jaws – the 1916 New Jersey shark massacre. (more…)