Yet another cable television show dedicated to examining the paranormal and the unexplained is set to debut next week with Joe Rogan Questions Everything on the channel that brought us Sharknado and Sharktopus, SyFy. Joe Rogan Questions Everything joins a showvalanche of shows about the unexplained on cable.
Rogan, a comedian, UFC commentator, podcaster, and former host of Fear Factor, intends to bring an element of comedy to his studies of fringe subjects where he not only seeks eye-witness accounts, but opinions from the scientific community. The show will tackle a different topic each week, and will feature guest appearances from Rogan’s comedian friends as they attempt to question everything.
Among the topics we know will be covered are Bigfoot, UFOs, and what amounts to cyborgs – and we’re not talking about the female MMA fighter Cris “Cyborg” Santos, who some would say is hard to explain in her own right.
Joe Rogan Questions Everything is scheduled to debut on SyFy, July 24, 10 EST/9C. Warning: There is some foul language in the following clip!
Click here to view the embedded video.
“I have always been fascinated by fringe subjects since I was a little boy; whether it’s UFOs, Bigfoot, ghosts, or just weird fringe subjects where there are believers and non-believers. I’m an open minded person, and although I’m fascinated by these things, I’m also very skeptical, but if I had to guess, I’d say most of it is bullshit,” Rogan said in a recent interview about the show.
Rogan’s show joins a roster of at least 20 other shows on similar subjects currently in production, or on between-season hiatus, on cable networks. SyFy alone now has seven current shows dealing with the paranormal, cryptozoology, or the unexplained.
Currently on SyFy and other basic cable networks:
Finding Bigfoot – Animal Planet (3 seasons, fourth season expected this fall)
My Ghost Story – Bio – (Fifth season ended in May)
Celebrity Ghost Stories – Bio (Currently in fifth Season)
Click here to view the embedded video.
Haunted Encounters – Bio (First Season Wrapped Dec. 28, 2012) No announcement yet on Season 2, but is still listed as a current show)
The Haunting of… – Bio (Currently in Season 2)
The Ghost Inside My Child - Bio (Scheduled to premiere Aug 4) There is currently an open casting call on the website
Mountain Monsters - Destination America (First season premiered June 22)
Monsters and Mysteries in America – Destination America (First season wrapped April 28, 2013)
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A Haunting - (First four seasons aired on Discovery, Fifth season aired on Destination America and wrapped in December 2012)
Ancient Aliens – History (Fifth season ended April 2013)
Long Island Medium – TLC (4 Seasons, a fifth season is expected)
Ghost Adventures – Travel (Eighth season starts Aug. 16, 2013)
The Dead Files – Travel (Currently in season 4)
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Paranormal Witness – SyFy (Currently in season 3)
Ghost Hunters – SyFy (Currently in season 9)
Destination Truth – SyFy (5 seasons in and still listed as current show on SyFy, no word on Season 6 though)
Haunted Collector – SyFy (Season 3 wrapped in June)
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Haunted Highway – SyFy (Season 2 begins Fall of 2013)
Deep South Paranormal - SyFy (Season 1 wrapped May 15, 2013)
Ghost Mine - SyFy (Season 2 set to debut September 2013)
While this list of currently-in-production shows on basic cable channels is long, I doubt it is comprehensive. There are so many shows about the unexplained on cable television, it’s hard to keep track. I didn’t even attempt to list the shows no longer in production whose episodes still air during the day in chunks of four to five episodes at a time on some channels. If I’ve missed a show where new episodes are expected, not shows doomed to a lifetime of repeats, please add it to the comments section below.
The popularity of shows about the unexplained was proven by Animal Planet earlier this year with their special Mermaids: New Evidence, which drew in 3.64 million viewers. The popularity of the shows currently running on cable channels, however, have never reached those heights, but apparently bring in enough consistent viewers to make them worth producing.
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For example, Travel Channel’s show Dead Files reportedly brought in 810,000 viewers for Friday, July 12, SyFy’s Ghost Hunters, 1.45 million, and SyFy’s Paranormal Witness, 951,000, on Wednesday, July 10. (Source TV By The Numbers)
While viewers do tune in, and cable channels still continue to produce new shows about the unexplained, over the past 52 weeks, not one of these shows managed to crack the Top 25 Cable Shows of the Week. It will be interesting to see if Joe Rogan’s show will benefit from his massive podcast audience, The Joe Rogan Experience is continually among the most downloaded podcasts on iTunes, and his UFC and Fear Factor celebrity to break into the Top 25 of the week when the show debuts July 24.
If that happens, July will be especially sweet for SyFy, who is still riding high from the social media explosion accompanying it’s broadcast of Sharknado, produced by The Asylum.
Sharknado whipped Twitter into a frenzy, and at one point was being tweeted about at a rate of 5,000 tweets per minute. Unfortunately, only 1.4 million people actually watched the first airing of the movie, which is about a million short of the numbers for Sharktopus in 2010 and Mega Python vs. Gatoroid in 2011.
My questions to you:
Are you going to watch Joe Rogan Questions Everything?
What are your favorite cable television shows about the unexplained?