Folks, it's time to give this show the rating it truly deserves.

Out of respect for the better reality shows, in its genre, it's time to give this the rating it truly deserves: 3-4/10

Otherwise: "the high rating for this show is inspired by documented paranormal encounters"

C'mon folks, it's a discredit to the infinitely better reality based supernatural series such as 'A Haunting' and 'Paranormal Witness', that this completely fabricated show, masquerading as something vaguely realistic, is currently displaying a (must watch!) 7.5/10 rating. Just check out that suspicious opener:

"The stories are inspired by documented paranormal encounters"

Let's take another look at that statement:

The stories = completely made up

inspired by = completely made up.

documented paranormal encounters = simply means that something was, once upon a time, interpreted by a completely unknown someone who simply, somehow and for whatever reason - wrote it down somewhere - according to how he interpreted events.

That is to say... The village idiot writes, on the back of some chewing gum wrapper: 'turn right at Long Lane, to find the local public toilets" and all of a sudden we have documented evidence, should we need the bathroom in this village, that we need only turn right at some road called 'Long Lane'. Completely untrue of course, but it is, nonetheless, documented evidence from which the statement that such and such was documented could, at least, stand. Nonsense of course. But we still can fall for the above statement, because it looks suspiciously like it could somehow be true. When it obviously isn't. 'Documented paranormal encounters' does not equal, nor mean, incontestable fact.

By the way, turn right at Long Lane and you're at the local rubbish dump - where the village idiot loves to sleep at night.

In other words, we simply don't at all know (nor are we told) *if* the 'documented' encounters were documented by someone who was mentally unstable, out of their mind or otherwise abnormal. Fact is we know nothing about the person who allegedly wrote down these alleged events, from which these stories are ultimately derived. So, the first problem with any 'documented events' is documented by 'whom'!? Because, for all we viewers know, the alleged paranormal encounters underlying this are just as made up as everything else!

Still not convinced that 'documented paranormal encounters' could mean literally anything? Well, consider this: Today, it's the morning, and imagine that I take out my paper bound diary and for the entry under August the 11, 2014, I write this:

"Today a poltergeist leapt out from a car window, knocked over a pram, clearly making the baby inside cry, then proceeded into the local library, howling at every moment, to make everyone inside quiver with fear. One by one, people stopped browsing and borrowing books until eventually the local library was soon completely emptied of people, who were clearly too fearful to be in a building where that poltergeist had taken up residence. So, being reasonably brave, while noting this from a bench across the street from the library's entrance, I took it upon myself to be the 'brave man'(!?) who entered that troubled library and 'intellectually wrestled' with the poltergeist's conscience to move on, and after several minutes of trying to scare me too, it eventually gave up and moved on to some other destination - for all we know in the ethereal realm."

So imagine that I leave that in my diary, under the date of August the 11th 2014, and many decades pass. Far into the future, An estate sale takes place. It's the morning of the 5th June 2077, and a certain TV producer happens to be attending this sale, and of course, buys my diary for a penny (because no one else wanted it of course). As he flicks thought its (by then) dusty and stained pages, he stumbles upon a (...cough) 'documented event' from 2014, about a poltergeist in the local library, and thinks to himself "great, now I can produce a horror reality show based on these documented events from the past!

My case, I nearly rest. But... just before I conclude...


Think about it: which is more likely to have any reality behind it?

"based on a true story"

or

"inspired by documented events"

*If* there were any substantive degree of truth backing up any of the stories depicted in this series, they could then write the far more convincing "based upon a true story". But, because all the stories are completely fabricated, and even each episode's narrator is acting out lines, they can't. In other words, this series is, most unquestionably, absolute 'schmaltz' - masquerading as something better.


My case, I now rest: Give this show the rating it deserves which is far south of its current one.



-
Sandwiched between The Principle of Mediocrity & Rare Earth Theory, you should see The Fermi Paradox