'Shark Week' Has Seized Me In Its Gaping Maw

Ah, August.

Hot. Muggy. Sluggish. School approaches; summer vacations are over or nearly so. The new television season is weeks away. And even in a good movie year – which 2009 has decidedly not been – all the best blockbusters have come and gone by now.

What to do? You could watch that stupid cat video on YouTube for the 1,000th time, or…you could watch a surfer get a major bite down from a giant man-eating fish. Sweet!

Yes friends, The Discovery Channel has the answer for our late-summer, entertainment withdrawal doldrums. For twenty-two years now, Discovery has devoted an entire week of August or July programming to real life sea monsters: They called it Shark Week, and lo, it was good.

Shark Week is always fun, but this year’s installment has been especially tasty. “Blood In The Water” kicked it off, a terrific two-hour documentary about the real-life happenings that inspired Peter Benchley’s Jaws – the 1916 New Jersey shark massacre.

In July of 1916 (a brutally hot summer all over the Northeastern United States), 5 people were attacked, and four killed, by sharks in New Jersey waters. Freakishly, some of the attacks occurred miles upstream in tiny Matawan Creek, a freshwater stream that empties in Raritan Bay just south of Staten Island. Scientists have been debating the identity of the culprit ever since, but a few days after the last attack, a large White Shark was caught in Raritan Bay. The shark’s stomach contained remains identified as human. Horrifying – but riveting television.

Other great shows on Discovery’s shark menu this year include another installment of “Air Jaws,” featuring astonishing footage of the White Sharks of South Africa who have a unique method of hunting: Having spotted a seal on the surface, they dive to deep waters, then launch themselves into a vertical attack that sends them flinging their entire massive bodies into the air as they snatch their prey. Why do they do this in South Africa, and no where else? Who knows. Who cares, as long as the cameras roll. Sometimes the sharks miss on their first strike, after which an astounding ballet ensues as the seal performs sea/aerial acrobatics to avoid being breakfast. The footage must be seen to be believed.

Also great: “Shark After Dark,” which is not some bizarre amalgam of Discovery and Playboy, but rather a fascinating study of night-time shark behavior. And “Great White Appetite” which tries to pass itself off as a serious study of Great White feeding habits, but is really just a couple of dudes throwing a bunch of shit into the water to see what and how much the shark will eat. Yes, it’s as cool as it sounds.

True, there’s some ‘message moments’ in Shark Week, talk about shark conservation, scientific research, yada yada. But it’s all just window dressing for the real red meat – watching sharks feed. Discovery, thankfully, knows this, and keeps the message to a tolerable minimum.

The most incredible thing to me about Shark Week has always been the interviews with shark attack survivors, most of whom voice some variation of the, “I don’t blame the shark, I blame myself for being in the water,” rubbish. Just once I would like to see a survivor go Ahab and say “You know what? That shark took my arm. I’m going to get that motherfucker if it’s the last thing I do.” Less Oprah, “My shark tried to eat me and I forgive him,” and more of The Onion, “Man vs. Nature: The Road to Victory.”

But these are minor quibbles. Shark Week is great fun, and certainly the best of August television. The fear of the looming water beast must be among our most ancient and deep-felt fears. Benchley and Spielberg certainly understood when they made their respective novel/film masterpieces – there is no invented monster more terrible than that which already lurks beneath the waves.