Extreme Paranormal...again...my shock and awe

Yes, that’s right, shock and awe.  But I’m sure you can guess that it’s not GOOD shock and awe.  Last night it occurred to me that the part two of the “special two night event” was on and I turned the channel to the show even though I had missed the first five minutes.  Since I knew that one of the two locations had something to do with Voodoo I was especially interested to see how this would turn out.  And…just…wow.I gave the sort of blow by blow of how their investigations go in my post about them last week so I really don’t need to get into it again because this episode followed the same format as the last one.  Silly instigation of spirits, putting themselves in potentially dangerous situations (both physical and spiritual) for the purpose of gathering evidence or creating some shock factor footage and just in general showing no respect for the spirits and locations being investigated.  However it’s the first segment, the one that deals with a Voodoo curse in Louisiana from 1915 when a supposed Voodoo Priestess named Julia Brown places a curse on the whole town.  A hurricane came several days after her own death killing just about everyone in the town.  And in come “Ghostman” and “Demon Hunter” to check out the validity to the hauntings that have been reported in the area since.They use a coffin as an altar, they invoke Papa Legba, Baron Samedi and Mama Brigitte (they invoke her with sparking water which I found interesting because I had always known that rum with hot pepper was appropriate to her).  There is suddenly a sound of drums from somewhere and two of the guys take off and start exploring the woods and leave the “Demon Hunter” behind to hang out at the coffin altar.  When they call to him to ask if he saw something that they saw and ran after they get no response so the come back and Nathan is laying on ground, mouth agape and eyes wide open looking paralyzed.  Wow…really?Here is the first part and I’ll include the second part as well but if you watch the first part you’ve seen all you really need to see.  Although if you watch the second part you can get to see them mark the the whiney guy with chicken blood and put him inside the coffin altar, bury him alive and try and provoke spirits while the guy is in the coffin.Honestly, I think that regardless of how ridiculous these guys are, this is just unbelievably disrespectful!  The whole episode pretty much opens up with Shaun saying “We’re gonna mess with Voodoo for the first time in 15 years of investigating.”  Keyword here being “mess”.  Maybe it’s just me but that’s where my shock and awe comes in, the disrespect.  It just doesn’t seem as though they're working with the practices in the rituals  from a place of respect or anything of that nature but more from a place of shock value.  It’s like a 15 year old that dyes their hair green, gets a tattoo and starts doing things to freak out their parents; they don’t know what they’re doing, they aren’t doing it for any real reason, they’re just trying to get a reaction.You know what the WORST part of all of this is?  I can’t tear myself away from watching this train wreck.  I’m sure if this does end up coming back on A&E as a regular show I wont watch more than an episode or two.  There are two things that would make me less annoyed with this show.  First, incorporating some ACTUAL experts in their investigations when they are going to do things like rituals.  So with this Voodoo ritual they should have brought a Voodoo Priestess with them rather than just going and talking to one.  Second, it would be great to see them do some research with their evidence after the investigations rather than just “hey we found some stuff let’s go home”.  Their “evidence” of EVPs and their heat sink evidence are pretty suspect without any sort of follow up.  When you see heat sink evidence of someone sitting somewhere when the three on camera personalities are in view of the shot that doesn’t automatically mean it’s a spirit, especially when you’re dealing with people that have a camera crew following them around.  So who’s to say who or what that is?Yup, cheat thrills.  The real shock and awe for me is how many people seem to be loving this show based on the comments that A&E is getting on their Facebook and Twitter pages.  It’s also surprised me greatly that there are people saying that this is what they would rather see other than shows like “Ghost Hunters”.  It just makes me realize that we’re still not really in a place for television shows about true paranormal work and experiences.  I guess in the meantime you can always check out the awesome team of Beckah and Katie Boyd and visit their site Supernatural Hotspots and watch their investigation videos and check out their stories.  Until we start demanding better of the media and these “reality” paranormal shows we’re going to continue to be nothing more than a Halloween freakshow all year round.