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Ghost Hunters 4.23: Fort Delaware Live Results Show |
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Thursday, 06 November 2008 |
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By John Keegan
Visit Critical Myth for an archive of John's TV Review archives, with more than 1100 entries.
| As usual, I’m going to combine my comments on the live Halloween investigation as well as the result show into one review. After all, one is just the spawn of the other, and I have the feeling that the results show itself is going to gloss over some of the parts that reflect badly on certain TAPS members.
The live investigations are really a hybrid of Sci-Fi Channel endless promotion, a sideshow, and an attempt at getting something that might be reasonably interesting to discuss. Let me first say that televised live investigations have virtually no chance of producing viable “evidence”. The location becomes saturated by RF signals, there are people everywhere, and every jerk on the planet knows exactly where you’re going to be and when you’re going to be there.
Jason and Grant are firmly aware of that, and for the most part, the team tries to do the best they can with the situation. Jason and Grant were solid when working with Steve Valentine, a guest who knew he could have cracked jokes the entire time, but refrained. Robb and Dustin (from “Ghost Hunters International”) did a very nice job working with Amanda Tapping, who displayed sincere interest. (Her time with Steve and Tango, unfortunately, was overshadowed by their antics.)
Steve and Tango occasionally strayed into goofing off, which is no surprise, but the absolute worst showing of any team was Kristyn and Joe with ECW “superstar” The Miz. It must be acknowledged that the network producers pushed Kristyn into bringing up wrestling in the course of the investigation. It should also be acknowledged, however, that the other groups were also given the same guidance, and they managed to fulfill that obligation while doing what they were ostensibly there to do.
I’ve often found Kristyn abrasive and, frankly, not very good as an investigator. Some of the apparent overreaction is no doubt editing, but her behavior during this event was not edited. It was live. By the time Jason and Grant were openly chiding and mocking her for dropping the ball on the investigation (such as investigating a loud banging noise), she should have gotten the message. (Joe, for his part, was woefully uninteresting and has yet to bring anything substantial to the table.)
Part of the problem, however, was The Miz himself. Apparently he was told to portray his wrestling persona during the event; I’m not so sure I believe that. After all, he was mocking Joe endlessly throughout the night, flirting and posturing for Kristyn (which she did in return, which must have been more of that editing), and bemoaning the fact that he could have been at a Playboy Mansion party instead of sitting around in the cold waiting for ghosts. He was such an irritant that I wouldn’t be shocked to hear that people tuned out until he was gone.
In terms of the “evidence”, I think it was relatively thin. One EVP was a huge stretch, considering how faint it was (and how many people were on site), and Jason and Grant have already admitted in other venues that the disembodied voice could have been from security personnel patrolling the waters around the island.
What has most people talking, of course, is Grant’s jacket. Not the jacket itself, sadly, but the claim that something pulled on it. In this case, we have direct video “evidence” that it happened, along with FLIR footage from the exact same moment. This one will be debated for a very long time, and there’s little doubt that the skeptics and naysayers are already claming that this is another example of Grant faking evidence. I’ve looked at the footage enough to be convinced that it’s another inconclusive moment; there’s no proof that it was faked, but there’s no proof that it wasn’t. We’re left, as always, to make our own judgments.
That said, if I had something like that actually happen to me, right in front of a running camera? I’d be damned happy.
Much like last season, the producers realized that the live event doesn’t provide much in terms of editing opportunities, and it doesn’t justify a full hour. So we had another investigation tacked onto the second half of the show. Frankly, this location was a lot more interesting than the live event!
On the face of it, this location seemed to have a mixture of inherent problems and possible object tossing. By inherent problems, I mean the tilt of the house as a hole, and how that would affect everything else. The closing door could have been a result of the pitch of the house; if it was bad enough, the imbalance could give a heavy door some nice momentum. And there’s something to be said about the psychological effect of living on a tilt.
Then there’s the flying hanger footage. It certainly doesn’t help that the hanger comes from a location that is off camera, and that only Jason is in frame when it hits the ground. Once again, this is something that skeptics will pin on Grant, since it comes from his general direction. And, like the first case, I’m not sure what to think of it. It doesn’t quite ring true for me, but I don’t see anything definitive to say that it’s not.
I’m just not sure that they left the client particularly pleased with the situation, because I believe she wanted them to explain everything away. A lot could be attributed to natural causes, but other items led them to a mixed conclusion. The theme of this episode, I suppose, was “questionable evidence”.
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