Tonight I watched a really dumb show, Perfect Disaster, on the Discovery Channel. This episode was about an unprecedented supertornado obliterating downtown Dallas during rush hour. Which, weather-porn fetish aside, is an idea I find is not without its merits. But this show was lame. A pastiche of clumsy CGI, ominous voiceovers, poorly acted vignettes, and real-life interviews with bored bureaucrats made it clear that Dallas is doomed! doomed! by this completely hypothetical scenario.
The only good part was when the fictional team at the emergency operations center learned that "Dallas Stadium," filled to capacity with spectators watching a generic event (a Metroplex Ranchhands game?), was destroyed by an F-5. One woman's eyes crossed as she started to cry, while the rest of the actors stood around woodenly, trying very hard to look somber and frightened.
If they'd bothered to do an animation of Reunion Tower getting tossed like a spear, ball down, across downtown into the middle of Central Expressway, I'd have given it an A++, but as it is, I can only in good conscience give it a C-. Really, if you're going to do a fear-baiting show on chaos and destruction in our cities, you should do it right.