For all of the shark fans out there, Shark Week 2011 has officially started. Well, it technically started a couple of days ago on July 31st, but who’s counting. The week long series will cover a variety of different shark related programs and an interesting “Shark Week Live” feature has been added for mobile viewers. While we are typically quite excited for Shark Week on the Discovery Channel, year after year the stories never seem to change and it’s really starting to wear thin, at least on me. Looking at the scheduled lineup of shows, we see only episodes dedicated to the Great White Shark or shark attacks, and at least six of the shows are being replayed from previous years. Seeing as how many different shark species there are, can we please focus on something other than the great white? It’s definitely the most famous of all shark species, but how many times do we need to see shark breaching in South Africa? Additionally, as a show and television station that tries to get the point across that sharks are not mindless eating machines, couldn’t we have limited the number of shark attack related shows or done away with them altogether? I realize people want to see blood and gore, but the Discovery Channel is casting such a negative light on these animals that all the efforts seem counterproductive.
