I’m on the road again, but don’t forget, as Craig mentions, to watch “Sci Fi Investigates: Bigfoot” tonight, October 18.
The New York Daily News has an overview here.
There’s one fragment they have as a sentence in their review that says it all:
Smirking, most of the time, when he’s not laughing out loud at the absurd earnestness of his less skeptical expedition mates.
I may agree with “Boston Rob” on his choice of a baseball team, but I don’t have to like the under-theme of ridicule in his show, as expressed most often non-verbally by Mr. Marino.
Yeah, Natalie from Animal X…excellent…
Boston Rob…how the hell does HE get a gig like this?
It’s healthy to have a GOOD skeptic. Simply smirking and ridiculing others’ beliefs is not being a skeptic; I call that being a jerk.
I might watch it once just to see for myself, but if there is any of that condescending bull, I’ll watch baseball too.
Watched it. Horrible. It’s tragic that a network that can put out something as impressively engaging as the new Battlestar Galactica and the sketchy but still above average Ghost Hunters still has to wallow in substandard mediocrity with this sad excuse for a paranormal program. And for the record, Autumn should have put her foot in that archaeologist’s a$$ for pulling that “har-larious” fake Bigfoot scream prank on the trail. Ding. Dang. Dumb.
Boston Rob has got to go. I just finished watching the sci-fi investigate bigfoot episode. The only thing that I got from it is that Autumn should have her own show. The investigators on the show were o.k. for the most part, but damn, Boston Rob is a total idiot. He made himself look like a jackass in that bigfoot outfit, he insulted Oregonians and wouldn’t accept any evidence presented to him at all.
SCI FI Investigates: Bigfoot
SCI FI Channel air date Wednesday Oct 18, 2006
Review by Robert A. Goerman
The biggest disappointment here was Autumn Williams. Her “field surveillance and research techniques” expertise included pathetic attempts at calling-in Bigfoot as if she were dealing with a spring gobbler and luring it with a tempting smorgasbord of bacon, rabbit, and liver as if her quarry was a half-starved coyote. A tiny plot of ground, not much larger than a backyard flowerbed, was cleared and the soil loosened up in the high hopes that this elusive creature with its impressive stride would tiptoe precisely across.
Rob Mariano placed a crude sign, “BIGFOOT STEP HERE.”
My thoughts exactly!
When these tried-and-true “field surveillance and research techniques” failed, Autumn Williams had Rob Mariano bloody his hands by repeatedly bludgeoning a tree with a wooden baseball bat. Other members of the SCI FI Investigates team were encouraged to whoop and hoot at the surrounding darkness.
Where was this intrepid Bigfoot researcher’s video and photographic evidence? Her state-of-the-art equipment “captured” squirrels and deer in the dead of night with impunity. Why not Bigfoot?
Where was this researcher’s Bigfoot hair samples and DNA analysis?
How many casts of footprints can Autumn Williams show us that were collected on different dates and in different locations that belong to the same specimen in this area she has chosen because of countless reports, signs, smells, et cetera?
What about three-toed Big Hairy Smellies?
Is Autumn Williams typical of what the Bigfoot research community has to offer?
What truly makes SCI FI Investigates enjoyable is the humor and chemistry between the team members: “Boston Rob” Mariano (skeptic), Deborah Dobrydney (Crime Scene Investigator), Rich Dolan (paranormal investigator), and Dr. Bill Doleman (archaeologist).
Mariano’s attempts at hoaxing his own Bigfoot video end in hilarious failure.
That scene alone was worth the price of admission!
No one-hour (less commercials) paranormal investigative show is ever going to solve any enigma. People have always encountered unexplained lights, objects, creatures and entities. Closure is too much to hope for. The only exception would be a television show that zeroes in on a single event such as the so-called “Philadelphia Experiment” and proves within all reasonable doubt that the whole thing was a hoax.
I will be watching SCI FI Investigates: Mothman on October 25th.
Count on it.
—Robert A. Goerman