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The other night I was playing World of Warcraft, and while on a rather long flight, I decided to flip on the TV and see if I could find something suitable for background viewing. The selections on the movie channels were horrible, consisting mainly of things that should be left either on Spike of Lifetime. This prompted me to search for an alternative to a movie. While scrolling, I came across “Most Haunted” on the Travel Channel. I’m always in for a ghost story. Even though the Travel Channel shows are inexcusably cheesy, I still find them entertaining. And so I thought that “Most Haunted” would be along the same lines as some of their other shows that highlight “haunted” destinations and desribe their history.

What I saw, however, was an embarrassment to the human race. “Most Haunted” consists of a team of psychics who go to supposedly haunted to locations to try to prove the existence of ghosts. In the episode I saw (keep in mind that I couldn’t make it through even 20 minutes of the hour long program), they frequently used that creepy night camera that makes everything green and people’s eyes glow in a demon sort of way. That was more creepy to me than the “proof” they supposedly showed.

The group would congregate in rooms that were supposed to have a large “presence”. They would turn out the lights and try to communicate with the spirit. This consisted mainly of the super annoying blonde woman with the British accent constantly asking, “Did you hear that? Was that you? Did you bump into something? No, I think that was him. I think he’s here. Did you make that noise?” It was obviously someone simply shifting their weight, but this woman was constantly searching for some sort of other worldly reason. Some other idiot in the room started the, “It’s okay. You’re safe now. Cross over into the light” nonsense that made me want to vomit due to the cliche nature of it all.

There were two particularly stupid “sightings”. The first one focused on a mirror. The annoying blonde woman kept saying she saw a woman’s face in the bottom of the mirror, but looking at the footage, there’s nothing there but maybe some light reflection. After putting up with 5 minutes of “Do you see that? She’s wearing a bonnet! Don’t you see her? In the corner down there. No, I don’t think that’s a reflection. Don’t you see her? Oh my God, she winked at me.” All the while I saw nothing. Even when the helpful production team circled the area she was referring to…nothing. I thought the British would have more pride than this, but I guess I was wrong.

*Cut to the 3-D computerized model of the house to show where they’re going to congregate next* In the next segment they gathered in the basement to talk to some specter. The flamboyant psychic man who reminded me very much of the Stupendous Yappi rambled on and on about how he felt a presence, while the annoying blonde British chick spent most of her time once again asking who moved, where did the sound come from, and other such miscellaneous chatter that irritated me more and more with each passing second.

Finally, she asked the spirit for a sure sign that it could hear her. After something moved, she asked it to show them a sign if it didn’t want them there. They heard something else, and she yelped out loud. Then she asked out loud again, “If you don’t want us here, if you want us to leave, please show us a definite sign, and we’ll leave. We don’t fear you. We’re here to help you.” Another sound and she, of course, screams, and then proceeds to ask the, “did you do that? Did you hear that?” questions that at this point are beyond tiresome. She asks the “spirit” again, and another sound occurs. She finally asks one more time, saying that this is the last time she’ll ask. If it could perhaps jiggle a door handle or something more concrete, they’ll leave. At this point something happens that causes all of them to scream and run up the stairs like a group of frightened pack animals. Of course what happened was never explained, and they spent the next five minutes discussing how it was angry, and they didn’t want to go back down there.

I couldn’t stand any more, so I switched off the TV and focused back on something that actually makes sense: Killing monsters in a game. Where I know it’s A GAME and that ghosts and other such things don’t actually exist. SHAME ON YOU TRAVEL CHANNEL!!! For God’s sake, have some pride!!! Yank that show and gather together what little dignity you might have left.

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