Political Fatigue And A Glimpse Of Planet In Peril 2

Hi everybody. Is it just me, or is anyone else kinda wishing that both presidential candidates (and Hillary Clinton!) would just, like, disappear for a week or so? I mean no harm or anything, I just, you know, want them to shut up. Just for a week. Because I've got political fatigue something awful and I'm beginning to feel like a little kid sitting in the back of the media's car, whining, "is it November yet?" And the thing is, nothing is even happening. Nothing important, anyway. Okay, granted, we did just have that whole history making thing where an African American clinched the Democratic nomination, but that was so last week.

Yeah, I'm joking, but think about it: how many hours and hours of 360 have we watched that have been nothing but political speculation or surrogate arguing? It's kind of ridiculous. And all the stories on demographics. My God, the demographics! What does Obama have to do to get the white working class vote? Is Clinton losing the black vote? Who will be able to woo the bilingual taxidermists who teach Sunday School? I mean, oh my God, stop. Just please, stop. If there's nothing more substantial to talk about then, hey, maybe try a whole other subject.

And 360 did just that tonight by talking about our planet and its current state of peril. Okay, I'm kinda being generous here because basically all we got was Anderson Cooper from Rwanda previewing what the PIP 2 team will be up to this next week. I'm not going to knock the brevity of the report though because I can sympathize with the conundrum 360 finds themselves facing. How do you keep the fans and viewers happy when your much sought after anchor is not able to be on the air that much due to all the time it takes to travel to remote places? I certainly don't know the answer to that, but I do know they'll no doubt get "why isn't Anderson on the air" type emails. Patience is a virtue, people. Although with the election ratings they're raking in, this whole issue might be moot this year.

I see 360 is trying a different approach from last year. Last time we got Anderson and Jeff Corwin live from some of the locations, but it seems like they're just going for taped segments this time. A logistical thing perhaps or maybe they actually took some of last year's criticism from around the Internets to heart. Of course back then viewers weren't quite sure what was going on. We were being promised environmental reporting, yet being shown what was essentially Anderson and Jeff's Jungle Adventures. Fun to watch, no doubt, but much more shallow content than expected. Now we know all the substantive stuff is being saved for the special. Oh and while I'm on the subject of shallow versus substantive, about two months ago I stumbled upon their new Planet in Peril website and asked this:

Apparently they're going to do a special again, but it's unclear if any of the three musketeers will participate on location. And if so, we're left hanging on the most important question of all: will there be more tight black t-shirts? Well, will there? Inquiring minds and all. Heh.

Tonight we got our answer. Yes, yes there will! Okay, the shirt Anderson was donning was grey and not black, but, you know, I can be flexible. And yes, shallowness is abounding right now. C'mon, I am only human, people. Anyhoo, I love Lisa Ling, but I'm a bit bummed that Jeff Corwin is apparently sitting this one out. I have such a crush on his enthusiasm. After the first PIP aired I used to record Animal Planet sometimes and watch it when I was feeling blah. But that's our little secret. Seriously though, that guy is like a shot of adrenaline sometimes. I'm going to miss him torturing Anderson. I suspect that Anderson . . . will not.

One bit of advice for 360 as they go down the Planet in Peril track once more: please don't let people talk about things that are then never shown. Because it's annoying. That happened a lot last year. Anderson or whoever would talk about doing something and then we'd never see it. In fact, I think some of the footage that was mentioned ended up not making it into the special and therefore we never saw it at all. And I could be remembering wrong, but I seem to recall them even teasing a piece once or twice that then wasn't shown. So . . . on that note, I want to see the footage Neil Hallsworth filmed of everyone pushing the vehicle out of the mud. Are they going to use that for the special? Doubtful. So c'mon, 360, give it up. No, it's not because I want to see Anderson and Charlie Moore all muddy and pushing a car; I'm just really interested in African infrastructure, thank you very much. Ahem.

Oh man, I better stop before things get any more shallow. See what happens when you're recovering from almost dying AND you're brain is fried on politics. It's not pretty, people. One more thing: I know everyone has their preferences on who subs for Anderson and opinions on Campbell Brown. Just remember, anchors have feelings too. I'm looking at you, random 360 blog posters.