Wednesday, November 24, 2010

The Ghost Hunters




Since the beginning of the semester television hasn’t caught much of my attention. Today, first day back at on break I realized maybe it is a good thing TV lost most my interest. Stumbling through the channels on TV, I did not find anything worth watching for more than five minutes. I finally begin to watch Ghost Hunters on the Syfy channel, mostly for the wrong reasons. A few people I know take that show seriously. Even though it was my first time watching it I could not help but laugh at the cast members and what came out of their mouths. The episode took place at the Norwich Sate Hospital. As a fan of horror and ghost stories, it thought to myself this could be quite the entertainment since the abandoned hospital building is believed to be haunted. The show Ghost Hunters quickly turned this eerie place into a humorous showing.           
            The Norwich State Hospital was opened in 1904 in Norwich, Connecticut in an isolated space looking over the Thames River. The hospital remained opened until the late 1990s; today the entire building remains abandoned.  The hospital was a mental health facility for the mentally ill as well as those sentenced guilty by law due to insanity.  The hospital started off with one single building, over the years expanding into numerous facilities. Most the facilities are connected by underground tunnels, which were used to transport the patients from one place to another. Many believe those tunnels were also used to torture patients who became uncontrollable. The place was reported haunted by members of the staff. They believe the reason for haunting is due to the speculated tortures.
            The Ghost Hunters team consisted of four main members and the camera crew. At the beginning of their arrival to the abandoned hospital they took time setting up cameras and voice recording systems in different facilities and underground tunnels. The show consisted of a good twenty minutes of exploration of the empty buildings by two teams. One team was two men, the other two women. In my opinion, the team of the two young women is set for entertainment as well as their attractive appearance. As both teams explored the dark hallways and room, the scenery and commentary seemed very repetitive without much expected excitement. The supposed sightings of figures and recordings the “moaning, footsteps, and crying voices,” never were showed to the viewer, only talked about by the cast. As I found myself following the episode, the two women with done up hair and dressed as if they did not belong in such an environment searched for unfamiliar presences. “Are you lonely, is there anywhere you would like to go, we have a car upfront. You’re not in trouble. You don’t have to be afraid of us. We are not nurses or doctors,” said one of the women trying to talk to the ghosts. At that point, I could nor help but laugh at the words that came out of her mouth.
            I’m not much of a critique, but I think television has reached a point of no turn around. As millions of people follow the ridiculous airings on TV, there is no possible way changing the networks. It is the most ridiculous reality shows or the “make-belief” dramatic series that catch the viewer’s attention while making the producers billons of dollars. I can’t imagine what the shows will entail in a few years, as only a few intelligent and worth watching shows are still intact at the moment.  

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