Beast Legends - September 10, 2010
SyFy (formerly Sci-Fi) and I have
a love-hate relationship when it
comes to their original reality programming; either it’s terrible (WCG Ultimate Gamer, Ghost Hunters Academy), or it’s brilliant (Ghost Hunters/Ghost Hunters International, Destination Truth).
Beast Legends is one of those rare shows that falls somewhere in between; while entertaining, you can’t help but wonder, “What’s the point?”
a love-hate relationship when it
comes to their original reality programming; either it’s terrible (WCG Ultimate Gamer, Ghost Hunters Academy), or it’s brilliant (Ghost Hunters/Ghost Hunters International, Destination Truth).
Beast Legends is one of those rare shows that falls somewhere in between; while entertaining, you can’t help but wonder, “What’s the point?”
The pretense of the show involves taking a legendary creature (in the series premier’s case, the Kraken) and bringing it to life via computer generated graphics with the help of a biologist and a comic book artist, among others; unfortunately, this isn’t very compelling. In the end, it feels like the show should be called, “What We Did to Design This Monster” (which would actually be a catchier title), and we don’t learn much more than we could have seen on a Discovery or National Geographic special (or a Wikipedia article for that matter).
While somewhat investigative (in the vein of Destination Truth), as we get to see snippets of the cast traveling to different locations around the world to interview witnesses and research different aspects of the legend, these clips sometimes feel too brief when they’re entertaining or informative, and overlong when they’re… not.
Steve O’Shea’s (an expert on squid) clips are a perfect example; while they could have shown more of his interviews, they opted to instead show 3 minutes of Francis Manapul‘s battle against his fear of heights to climb the mast of a ship, and while he’s a very talented artist (seeing his artwork is definitely a positive aspect of the show), it was a poor choice, and only done to add some sense of suspense and drama to an otherwise safe show.
I will give the episode one thing: it features a gorgeously animated clip involving the Kraken taking down an 18th century vessel amidst a storm. We can only hope future episodes will feature similarly animated pieces.
The Good:
The animated piece mentioned above is entertaining and well produced
Biologist Scott Edwards’ putout reactions to the other crew members’ desire to make the creature more “mean” looking and less realistic is quite humorous
We get to see Steve O’Shea
The Bad:
The show just isn’t that compelling
Emphasis is placed on the less interesting segments
The final product (a Kraken eating a sperm whale, then a whale-watching ship) is slow paced and looks like a teaser for a rejected SyFy original movie
In closing, Beast Legends is worth a watch if you’re interested in legendary creatures such as the Kraken or dragons and such, but if you’ve watched any shows about them in the past on Discovery or National Geographic, don’t expect to see or learn anything you didn’t already know. While the CG graphics are subpar, even by SyFy standards, and the cast are hit or miss at times, these aspects are fairly easy to get around, especially if you‘re a veteran SyFy viewer. Hopefully future episodes will do a better job keeping my attention. For now, it gets…
6.5/10
Beast Legends airs on SyFy on Thursday nights at 10/9c.
While somewhat investigative (in the vein of Destination Truth), as we get to see snippets of the cast traveling to different locations around the world to interview witnesses and research different aspects of the legend, these clips sometimes feel too brief when they’re entertaining or informative, and overlong when they’re… not.
Steve O’Shea’s (an expert on squid) clips are a perfect example; while they could have shown more of his interviews, they opted to instead show 3 minutes of Francis Manapul‘s battle against his fear of heights to climb the mast of a ship, and while he’s a very talented artist (seeing his artwork is definitely a positive aspect of the show), it was a poor choice, and only done to add some sense of suspense and drama to an otherwise safe show.
I will give the episode one thing: it features a gorgeously animated clip involving the Kraken taking down an 18th century vessel amidst a storm. We can only hope future episodes will feature similarly animated pieces.
The Good:
The animated piece mentioned above is entertaining and well produced
Biologist Scott Edwards’ putout reactions to the other crew members’ desire to make the creature more “mean” looking and less realistic is quite humorous
We get to see Steve O’Shea
The Bad:
The show just isn’t that compelling
Emphasis is placed on the less interesting segments
The final product (a Kraken eating a sperm whale, then a whale-watching ship) is slow paced and looks like a teaser for a rejected SyFy original movie
In closing, Beast Legends is worth a watch if you’re interested in legendary creatures such as the Kraken or dragons and such, but if you’ve watched any shows about them in the past on Discovery or National Geographic, don’t expect to see or learn anything you didn’t already know. While the CG graphics are subpar, even by SyFy standards, and the cast are hit or miss at times, these aspects are fairly easy to get around, especially if you‘re a veteran SyFy viewer. Hopefully future episodes will do a better job keeping my attention. For now, it gets…
6.5/10
Beast Legends airs on SyFy on Thursday nights at 10/9c.
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