An anonymous leak from a Discovery Channel employee revealed that the network's popular Shark Week series would conclude with "An epic look at shark-based weather phenomena and their effects on human life in urban environments." When pressed for more details, the leaker confirmed everyone's worst fears and revealed that he was referring to Sharknado.
Sharknado is a Sci-Fi Channel TV Movie detailing what happens when Los Angeles is hit by a tornado of sharks. It first aired on July 11th, 2013, and was called by one critic "The most absurd thing on TV since whatever was directly before it on Fox News." Nevertheless, Sharknado became an internet sensation and was rebroadcast twice. The movie is scheduled to be in some 200 theaters across the country.
Shark Week, by contrast, has a slightly more sane reputation. The annual Discovery event began in 1987 to "raise awareness and respect for sharks"1. The event was also, like everything on Discovery, supposed to be at least vaguely educational. However, over the years, the content of Shark Week has gone from, "Look at the interesting shark!" to "OH MY GOD GIANT SCARY SHARK!!!" But the Week, and perhaps the network, reached new lows when Shark Week 2013 with a documentary about a team that discovers that Megalodon sharks are still alive (Megalogon being an enormous prehistoric shark that you should totally google). The documentary was convincing, entrancing, and according to the tiny text at the bottom of the screen at the end, completely fake. But really, John Oliver expresses the offensive bullshittiness of the situation better than I do.
According to the Discovery leak, the finale of Shark Week will be even more spectacular. Sharknado will be prefaced with a black screen bearing the message in large white text and voiced-over, "What you are about to witness is a dramatization of an event that top meteorologists say has a 90% chance of occuring in your lifetime.". (Our investigative reporters that "top meteorologists" meant an unemployed twentysomething who had watched Sharknado while drinking six beers. He was being paraphrased; his original words were, "Dude, this is totally gonna happen to me!") At the same time, this text will be at the bottom of the screen "This is not actually real. The events of Sharknado are in no way actually possible. Ha ha! Fooled ya!". Of course, the black text might not show up on the black screen, but, "That's the point."
1. Okay, I quoted Wikipedia, so sue me.
Note: Is
Sharknado possible? In short, no.
