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Fact or Faked: Season 2
The second season of a paranormal investigation television series.
Fact or Faked: Paranormal Files is a paranormal investigation television series produced by Base Productions that began airing July 15, 2010, on SyFy. The show follows a team of investigators, led by former FBI agent Ben Hansen, who review various photographs … see full wiki
1 review about Fact or Faked: Season 2
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Ding ding goes the BS detector
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Apr 21, 2011
- by jbeswick
- posted in Awesomeness
Rating:
We'll be interspersing this reviews with real comments from YouTube and Forums, so be prepared for some adult language.
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Well, we're almost at the end of the second season of Fact or Faked, brought to us by the same good friends at SyFy channel who canceled Caprica and replaced it with wrestling. Upon reflection, I think it's fair to say that this season has done for paranormal investigating what Glenn Beck has achieved for the sobriety movement.
You might recall my previous review of season 1 where I overlooked the shallowness of their investigations for the fact that they seem like the sort of people who you might have a beer with. A little too hipster and little too much like Yelp reviewers, sure, but still you've got to hand it to folk who want to go all X-Files on their careers. Unfortunately we've gone off the map in the second season and it's actually become a great show to watch if you have a predisposition for cursing at your TV or drinking games.
The gang of investigators are seriously questionable with titles like "Lead Scientist" and "Stunt Expert". I mean, really. Bill Murphy, the Lead Scientist, uses so little science that he's probably building teaching plans for schools in Florida. We're talking the zero hypothesis approach here with the "dinosaurs didn't exist" grade of pseudo-lab coat bullshit. Austin the Stunt Expert is like the guy in the group who always shows up for beers but nobody knows what he does for a living. Chi-Lan, Photography Expert, smiles a lot and is very enthusiastic - I think the nerds must have a crush.
I must share this week's episode with you, lest I splurt coffee over the screen again from laughing so hard. There were two cases.
Chupacabra in Texas
There's some police video of a dog/wolf hybrid thing running down a street which looks peculiarly like a small wild boar or potential mutt of some type. A local rancher also has the corpse of one of these things. Now if the researchers had researched beyond posting pictures on Facebook, they'd recognized this case as being in the status "Investigated to Death By TV Paranormal Shows".
Whereas a DNA test on the corpse (or watching one of the previous investigations) would pretty much wrap it up, Ben instead decides to make a small horse run down a road first "to see what it looks like". No surprise that Ben is no longer with the FBI. Chi-Lan is very excited again.
Or, as one YouTuber eloquantly summarized: "I think you can see the chupacabra is not a fucking horse. Your show is shit."
Nightly News Alien
So there's this video from Argentina and Syfy has some money left in the travel budget since canceling all the good shows so they send our intrepid team over the water. Argentina is a wickedly awesome country to visit, especially if you love wine and beef, so I don't blame them.
Bill the lead scientist attempts to recreate the video using a combination of wild conclusions and industrial equipment that looks nothing like the CG-animated guy in the video. At one point he actually builds a windsock for some reason. They then make a staggering conclusion which you can also reach from reading some of the YouTube comments on the video: the CG shadow doesn't match the sun shadow on the woman's face. Or as one of our YouTube buddies asks: "Are they stupid? that alien footage is obviously computer animation, just LOOK AT IT!" Indeed.
So they march off to the TV station that broadcast the footage where the editor proudly announces it was fake and shows off the character in a pretty slick Maya 3D-type modeling program. Austin gets agitated and looks like he wants to punch the guy out. But I tell you, Argentineans are pretty relaxed people, so kudos to the editor of a TV station for making this up - if Anderson Cooper pulled this kind of stunt, Fox wouldn't stop until his head was served on a plate to Bill O'Reilly for breakfast.
Anyway, not content with an admission of fakery, the team - lead by Bill the scientist - does a night investigation to seek out aliens. This is where the show officially lost cabin pressure and I literally had to pause because I was CRYING from laughing so hard. I haven't had a laugh like that in years. There's a lightning storm which causes some static on the "Paranormal Researching Listening Equipment" and here's Bill's conclusion - I shit you not:
"There's a lightning storm that's hit the city so that's why there are so many UFO sightings because they use it to recharge the ship".
Bill the Lead Scientist manages to use the proof of a fake CG video to conclude that aliens visit Argentina due to their thunderstorms because they're out of batteries. Better yet, in the wrap up, Chi-Lan enthusiastically congratulates him on a major discovery in the field of UFO research. No, seriously. Bill has a PhD in the field of utter bullshit and shouldn't be allowed to operate a toaster let alone tell the masses about electrical systems of alien spacecraft. I never thought I'd say this, but I will:Bill Murphy's science is so bad it makes the end of Independence Day looks absolutely plausible.
Naturally this show has been picked up for another season but if anyone at SyFy is listening (of course not) I'd highly recommend contacting the Mythbusters team for some advice. Actually, forget that - just ask the Mythbusters to check out some of this nonsense - Adam and Jamie will completely own the paranormal TV universe.
And one more time:
Needless to say, the debunking community had a riot over the "cemetery phantom" that turned out to be a spider in a web:
I could say it better that two Youtubers: "scientists...wow" - or, more directly, "for fuck sake its a spider haha, how dumb are they pretending to be". Genius!
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Butterfly1961
June 09, 2011
Another humorous review; I saw this show twice and hated it.
jbeswick
June 16, 2011
Thanks! It's pretty bad but no doubt I'll be back for another season because I'm just a sucker for this kind of thing.
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woopak_the_thrill
April 27, 2011
Jael is hot 'nuff said. She also appears on "Destination Truth" sometimes... :)
jbeswick
May 06, 2011
Lol, $10 says she'll appear on Ghosthunters in no time...
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djevoke
April 26, 2011
Great review! I had only seen the one with the Chupacabra and alien and wasn't really impressed with it. It is definitely amusing though ;p Thanks for sharing the clips, too, James!
jbeswick
April 26, 2011
Thanks! I discovered that Ben Hansen has a Twitter account (twitter.com/benhansen00) and he actually responds to being chewed out!
Expand 1 more response
djevoke
April 26, 2011
LOL...that's hilarious! What does he say back?
jbeswick
May 06, 2011
He's a little defensive sometimes!
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kfontenot
April 21, 2011
I agree with you 100% on Fact or Faked, yet I can't help but tune into it every week. It's a bad show, but Jael is hot! Great review.
jbeswick
April 21, 2011
Ha ha, me too! Last night's was just plain embarrassing though. They had a couple of good finds this season but they're really hit or miss. No doubt I'll be back for season 3. I think Jael has something of a fan club hence the dubious scientific need to put her in a mermaid suit :-)
kfontenot
April 21, 2011
Well if it's for science, it must be okay.
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