Hype and all that jazz

Sooooo got home Halloween night after a weekend with the grandkids. I managed to miss trick or treats twice. Des Moines, being obdurate and hindbound, insists on having trick or treat on All Hallow's Eve Eve--October 30. I wasn't home that night, so I missed the little beggars. We left Chicago Halloween afternoon before the right thinking people of Illinois start to trick or treat. Wow. Couldn't have planned it better.

We left earlier than planned and got home in time for Ghost Hunters live. I enjoy Jay and Grant and the things that go bump in the night. One live outing on Halloween was at the Stanley hotel, the inspiration for Stephen King's The Shining. It really was fun and spooky and featured all the regular TAPS guys. This one was at a train station in Buffalo. I'm not really familiar with it, but they have been there before. The original plan for our weekend would have gotten us home almost as the program was ending. So this was an unexpected bonus.

And what a disappointment! The entire show was a thinly veiled promotion for every other show on the Syfy channel. So in a half hour time you might get 6 minutes of the ghost hunters and 24 minutes of ads and hype for other shows. I can see promoting the other ghost hunter shows--international and academy. I can even see the other two paranormally kind of shows. But wrestling? On Syfy? Seriously? Unless they wrestle ghosts or on a spaceship, what is up with that?

And by promoting, I would mean that they are the commercials in the show. I do not mean that they are the show as they were last night. And I just have to ask, is Josh Gates some executive's brother-in-law? nephew? son? The man is ubiquitous. And is grating on my last nerve. I think Jay and Grant should get a percentage of his earnings as his agent, since he is the constant third wheel at their events. Wouldn't watch a show starring him if it were the last thing on tv. And so very unhappy to see him as presenter last night.

And frankly, if the people who were on were supposed to encourage me to watch their shows, they failed miserably. The wrestler and whoever the chick was stood around looking disengaged and cold. They might as well have worn sandwich boards that read "My agent told me to show up here. I have no clue whatsoever." Is it that difficult to pretend ghosts scare you?

The end result was that I turned it over to Dirty Jobs that was a repeat because one more commercial for wrestling would have sent me over the edge. Syfy, you did a rotten job with this, so I'm watching something else next year. I used to enjoy these, but this sucked. I apologize to Jay and Grant, knowing these decisions are not made by them. Syfy, get a clue.