National Geographic Channel Archives - Page 10 of 13

NGC to reair “Inside North Korea” documentary

December 19, 2011 Jeff Pfeiffer

For a 2007 episode of its acclaimed documentary series Explorer called “Inside North Korea,” National Geographic Channel crossed into the secretive nation of North Korea and showed viewers an extremely rare glimpse of the country and its absolute dictator, Kim Jong Il, who passed away Saturday. Correspondent Lisa Ling crossed the border by traveling undercover with a Nepalese eye surgeon on a humanitarian mission. As Dr. Sanduk Ruit performed more than 1,000 surgeries in less than 10 days, the NGC camera crew posed as members of his medical team to document his work and offer unprecedented insight into the most […]

NGC’s “Knights of Mayhem” explores the world of full-contact jousting

November 14, 2011 Jeff Pfeiffer

By Jeff Pfeiffer You’re probably familiar with the medieval sport of jousting, either through watching movies or seeing Renaissance fair performances. But did you know that there are groups of people who are diehard, modern-day practitioners of that activity? One of them is Charlie Andrews (pictured), who leads the Knights of Mayhem — a group that is the subject of National Geographic Channel’s new reality series Knights of Mayhem, premiering Nov. 15 with two episodes at 9pm and 10pm ET/PT. Charlie and his “knights” are hoping to put jousting on the global map while competing in various tournaments across the […]

Tonight on “Rocket City Rednecks”: Listening in on spies and aliens

October 12, 2011 Lori Acken

By Lori Acken Follow @ChannelGuideLLA I’m still not completely recovered from last week’s watermelon trebuchet and drinking pee on Mars … but, happily, it’s time for two new episodes of NatGeo’s laugh-and-learn hit Rocket City Rednecks to teach me something new. And this time, we don’t want to go in search of life on other planets — we just want to talk.

“Rocket City Rednecks”: watermelon comets and conquering Mars

October 5, 2011 Lori Acken

By Lori Acken Follow @ChannelGuideLLA Make no mistake, boys and girls — science is fun. Tonight on Nat Geo’s Rocket City Rednecks, Travis finds himself pondering how to save the Earth from a planet-smashing comet. And, it turns out, a planet-smashing comet is a lot like a gargantuan watermelon.

Fall TV 2011 hits, misses and mehs: Week of October 3

October 3, 2011 Jeff Pfeiffer

By the Channel Guide staff Follow @ChannelGuide The 2011 Fall season continues its rollout this week, with the returns of such shows as Pop Up Video (after a 10-year hiatus); Brad Meltzer’s Decoded; The League; Sanctuary; and Rules of Engagement. Below we take a look at some of the new series and special debuting this week. For more comprehensive information on the new season, visit our Fall TV Preview website. HITS A Night at the Movies: The Horrors of Stephen King TCM Premieres: Oct. 3, 8pm ET What’s It All About? Horror master Stephen King discusses how he discovered terror […]

Nat Geo’s “Rocket City Rednecks” is backwoods brilliant

September 26, 2011 Lori Acken

Comedian Jeff Foxworthy once lamented that whenever anybody heard his down-home Southern accent, they’d automatically deduct 100 IQ points. Nat Geo’s new reality series Rocket City Rednecks, premiering Wednesday at 9pm, sets out to prove that tendency wrong, following second-generation Alabama rocket scientist Travis Taylor — who looks like actor Thomas Jane and sounds like Larry the Cable Guy — and his whiskey-loving band of buds and relatives as they combine their scientific know-how with good ol’ backwoods fun, sometimes creating genuinely useful stuff, sometimes not. Why is the show as addictively tasty as a platter full of Southern-fried chicken? What […]

TV specials mark the 10th anniversary of 9/11

August 17, 2011 Jeff Pfeiffer

Ten years after the terrorist attacks of Sept. 11, 2001, our country remains scarred, physically and psychically, as we continue to deal with the swirling negative feelings of anger, vengeance, fear and, in some cases, prejudice, that have lasted since that fateful day. But over the past decade, other feelings have begun to rise as steadily as the memorials to the victims — feelings of patriotism, reflection, remembrance, regained confidence and hope that we can start to move forward. All of these emotions, and probably many more, in varying degrees, will be found in abundance over the next few weeks […]

History and NGC jousting for position with latest reality trend

July 14, 2011 Jeff Pfeiffer

For too long, fans of the medieval sport of jousting have been greatly underserved by television. Aside from watching a film set in the Middle Ages, if you wanted to see people knocking each other off of horses with lances, you had to visit your local Renaissance Faire. If you wanted to participate in the action, one of your only options might have been to “bicycle joust,” or, if you were really desperate, to play the video game Joust. But soon, ye olde fans of this ancient sport will have thy patience rewarded when two jousting reality series hit the […]

Survivors search for superhuman explanations in NGC’s “Indestructibles”

July 8, 2011 Jeff Pfeiffer

By Athena Voulgaropoulos Follow @ChannelGuideAV A skydiver falls from almost three miles up. A helicopter splits in half above the busy streets of New York City. A pedestrian is crushed by a rolling SUV. When you see the footage, it is hard to believe anyone survived these catastrophes. But survive they did, and though some might call it miraculous, behind each disastrous incident is an unexpected scientific explanation. Premiering this Sunday, July 10, with back-to-back half-hour episodes, National Geographic Channel’s latest series The Indestructibles explores 10 real-life disasters, explaining how someone could survive the seemingly unsurvivable. Using actual footage, eyewitness […]

Preview: NGC’s “When Aliens Attack” and “Area 51 Declassified”

May 20, 2011 Jeff Pfeiffer

By Ryan Berenz You may escape the Rapture this weekend, but what about an alien invasion? The Martians have arrived, and they’re very, very angry in When Aliens Attack on National Geographic Channel May 22. This two-hour special dramatizes a timeline of hypothetical events before, during and after a planet-wide alien invasion, positing some ideas on how humanity’s battle against a technologically superior outer-space aggressor might be fought. Dr. Travis Taylor, a Defense Department engineer and co-author of An Introduction to Planetary Defense, is among those who don’t like our odds. “I war-gamed over 400 different scenarios to figure out […]