Weird or What?

I try to catch Weird or What at every opportunity. Not only to I get to listen to the hypnotic voice of William Shatner, I get to hear some pretty far out stuff that may or may not be true but always makes for fascinating conversation at our dinner table.

If you like watching docs about Nostradamus, you'll love Weird or What? UFOers, Trekkers, and kids alike will enjoy it.

Lightweight, great interviews from scientists and quasi scientists alike who offer alternative explanations for out of the ordinary occurrences.

Don't expect hard science, temporarily suspend your belief and let your imagination rule the hour.

Some of Mr. Shatner's stick is so hilarious it's worth watching just to see it. The science is lite, something to think about without straining your brain. If NOVA is like eating, this show is like chewing gum. Topics are explored from several points of view. The science is real, but the topics are not covered in great depth. I feel the balance is good for an entertainment show. The deadpan delivery used to introduce weird topics like zombies or Mothman cracks me up. Some of the things that are explored are just silly, but it all seems to work. Mr. Shatner reminds me a little of "Elvira Mistress of The Dark" hosting movies.... except it is executed with that wonderful Shatner flair. It's all in good fun. Weird or What?.. I enjoy it!

to the person who says that plants knowing your thoughts is utter crap you are very, very wrong. read the book the 'secret life of plants' published in the early 1970's I think. I was 15 at the time. my late father, an electronic engineer of some renown and respect among those who knew him,read that book and thought it preposterous. he then set about devising an instrument that would expose the man to be a fraud. what he came up with was a board roughly 6" or 8" square with a large number of amplifiers and other things on it a ground probe for reference and a clothespin with conductive foam on it to attach to the leaves. this system was hooked to an oscilloscope to view the plants electrical activity. what he saw astounded him. he used a spear orchid for his tests. the most interesting incident of all was when my sister-in-law was watching holding her son on her hip. the infant suddenly made a lunging motion toward the plant and an excited baby noise and immediately the nice sign wave on the oscilloscope went flat. there was never again a reading taken from that spear orchid and two weeks later it was dead and gone. we wonder to this day what was on the mind of that child. this got my father going and he designed a device that turned the plants electrical activity into the ringing of wind chimes. what we found was that each plant type we hooked the units to had a characteristic ring for that type or species. within the type of plant each plant had it's own variation of the ring. ring meaning the way the plant made the wind chimes sound. when people came to sell us things while trying to start the business if they were telling us the truth the plants got very quiet. if someone was lying to us the plants made quite a commotion. it was really very interesting.

Back in the 1970s, Leonard Nimoy was the host of a pseudo-scientific show, "In Search of". It featured a lot of crackpot theories, crackpot experts and crackpot assumptions. Now, decades later, William Shatner has helmed a show that makes "In Search of" look like a film created by Nobel Prize winning scientists! Yes, it's THAT bad. Again and again, episodes feature a lot of nutty scientists, weirdos and rogues spouting all sorts of silly nonsense meant to scare the viewer and keep them watching. Intellectually, however, these 'theories' are meaningless claptrap and the arguments they present often bizarre and meaningless. And, again and again, these crazies present their 'evidence'--all followed by Shatner saying '....weird or what?!'. An embarrassment and surely Mr. Shatner can do better...as can the audience.

Usually I find that you come along a load of trife these days on the documentary channels. It's usually something like air-crash investigation this, or another mummy that or just a bunch of middle-aged men carrying out menial and boring jobs. It's nice to see a program that strays away from what all the other programmes are feeding you, and just learn about some weird things.

The best thing about the show is it typically presents quite absurd ideas. Then it just shows different people's opinions on them; with a good ratio between the more skeptical community and the more bonkers people who buy into it all. The contrast is fair and balanced; doing little to try and sway your opinion at all.

The show portrays it all in a fun context; much like mythbusters. It's nice to see something that actually shows you things that are weird in wonderful... rather than fat men running a pawn store or some guys fishing for.. well fish.