In 2014, Viceland replaced H2, the History Channel offshoot that aired later seasons of Ancient Aliens.
Thanks to Vice Media’s TV channel Viceland, I no longer have to rely on imagination. I’m a substance-free guy, so I can only imagine how it comes off if you move a few degrees from sober. I enjoy it, more than ironically and less than genuinely. While I can’t bring myself to believe any of the theories espoused by Ancient Aliens, I also can’t deny its watchability. There are entire threads and forums dedicated to debunking the show.
It’s not surprising critics have lambasted the series for shamelessly endowing pseudo-science with production values and an audience. Almost every statement is prefaced by “it’s possible”, or “it’s very possible”, a word that seems to have a different meaning for ancient alien theorists than for the rest of us. Another postulates that the engraved sarcophagus of a Mayan king depicts him operating a spaceship. The show fully embodies the conspiracy genre, trafficking in recurring symbols, secret societies, and unexplained ruins, while preaching a trail of shadowy information accompanied with dramatic music and increasingly tenuous reasoning.Īs per example, one episode suggests Washington, DC, arranged monuments to project the image of a pentagram into space.
There’s something glitch-like about Ancient Aliens, a mesmerizing sequence of image and sounds that ultimately conveys nothing. The show gives a hot mic to theorists who believe extraterrestrials engaged ancient human civilizations in contact, and guided mankind’s evolution and technological progress. The format is familiar to us it’s the content that makes Ancient Aliens so infamous. The show, which returned for season 11 this past May, functions like a typical documentary with talking heads, video footage and artist renderings, all rounded out with a commanding voiceover. That’s a direct quote from Ancient Aliens, the History Channel series that’s racked up over 100 episodes since it first aired in 2010.