Atlas of Cursed Places

Well !! It is quite eponymous with my review title. A tatooed, cool, muscle guy trying to seem edgy-sciency by spewing meaningless words like rational, plausaible, mundane, human mind playing tricks, mass hypnosis, myths. Oh and of course Occam's Razor, because nobody can be the edgy-sciency guy without uttering it. As another reviewer has said half of the show is slow motion shots of the presenter babbling those nonsense; "In fact the series over all is more interested in Sam than the actual content he's meant to be investigating, as he poses in the dark in set piece rooms." Someone just described RationalWiki as "Rationality is their flag, not their method." This show trying to emulate it is just the caricature of a caricature. It is absolute disaster.

Host Sam Sheridan is no Josh Gates (not setting the bar very high here), but where Josh makes bad jokes that are sometimes funny, this show relies more on the incorrect usage of big words: "Apocryphal" in a context clearly indicating that "Apocalyptic" is probably what he meant, "Hydrocarbon" rather than "Radiocarbon" dating, etc.

Interestingly, and possibly tellingly, there are (at least at the time of this review) no writing credits for this show. Is Sam just winging it without a script? Net Geo describes him as an "author and adventurer", which for me makes his poor word choices even funnier. But hey -- he must be tough and cool, because he has tattoos! Plus, he uses mild profanity, too -- what a rebel!

Ragging on the host, while fun, isn't the entire point of my review. If you are entertained by unintentional comedy, you may find this show worth watching.

I did have to dock it one star for the inclusion (in at least one episode) of Michael Schermer, "professional skeptic"; this guy's such an arrogant tool that he brings down any show in which he appears. Also annoying is how the host acts like an enthusiast of the episode's topic, only to "turn skeptic" himself at the very end. Skepticism is fine, but be consistent -- poke holes along the way, don't just say "there's probably nothing to it" after spending 40 minutes (of air time, not to mention travel and production time) chasing down inconclusive (in either direction) leads. If Schermer becomes a regular guest, I won't be sticking around; otherwise it's mostly harmless, silly fun.

Watched the Bermuda Triangle episode. They would have been better off with a narrator and someone interviewing the experts off camera. This comes across like someones diary entry.

BTW the PBS show NOVA (Season 3, Episode 20 The Case of the Bermuda Triangle) debunked the Bermuda Triangle "mysteries" back in 1976.

Very entertaining and gives some extra information about places that I have watched on shows before but he finds some interesting extra tidbit of information. Episode 4 on the swamps of LA was very interesting and on point with the fact that we humans really screwed the pooch on how we treated the area. I am looking forward to more of them.

Just awful, as soon as the world's most annoying voice over started my heart sank. This series pretends to be a scientific look at superstitions and paranormal myths but is filmed more like a fiction. The viewer is drowned in slow motion shots of the presenter doing not terribly much while he narrates very little of consequence. In fact the series over all is more interested in Sam than the actual content he's meant to be investigating, as he poses in the dark in set piece rooms. Is this how we make data crunching look edgy now rather than showing what actual hard work looks like? Or is it just over compensating for the fact that clearly a team of researchers has already cribbed the data for him? When people are interviewed who have actual facts to expound they're either overlaid with over the top music or we're left struggling to focus on their data thanks to wobbly camera angles. Moreover, the information that does get brought in is scanty and spread out over multiple advert breaks. Very, very little is achieved in the time slot compared to other programs tackling the same subject. The longer I watched this the angrier I began to feel that this is how Nat Geo is treating its viewers now. Remember when Nat Geo used to be respected for it's well researched and well presented content? Yes, I'm struggling too, as it seems like such a long time ago now. Seriously, decide what you are and do it properly NG, you're either a documentary or you're a fiction, make your mind up and respect your content as well as the intelligence of your audience.