The Proof Is Out There Season 4 Episodes 16 & 17 Review
Over the past two weeks audiences have seen a lot on the latest two episodes of ‘The Proof Is Out There’ with UFOs, underwater and sea shenanigans, crazy time travel and more. These two episodes surprisingly demonstrate both the best and worst qualities of ‘The Proof Is Out There’, with some segments either being educative and conspiracies shutdown with speed, yet other segments the conspiracies run wild. It’s slightly frustrating, though certainly not the worst this season has come up with.
The high seas are large areas of expanse, uninhabited by humans both above and below the water. It’s no surprise there are no shortage of seemingly unexplained events that go on. Episodes 16 & 17 do a thorough job of capturing several different events at sea that seem to defy explanation. All of them are well presented and explained, giving informative explanations that teach audiences about everything from shark-eating giant isopods to discussing whale anatomy. What’s also welcome is that the puns have been dialed back, something immediately noticeable on the section on whale anatomy.
It’s these sections that make these episodes worth watching for anyone interested in marine and nautical life, giving audiences some fun knowledge. This educative aspect is lost above the surface however. Both episodes continue the trope of resuscitating old video footage from decades past in order to try and squeeze some conspiracy and hype around what’s being shown, only for the conclusion at the end to be non-conclusive. It’s frustrating, and is fundamentally bad journalism. Something is only noteworthy about these videos if they can be definitively proved one way or the other, not just left open to audience interpretation.
These nothing segments are frustrating to watch, especially as Harris and his team always er on the side of the supernatural rather than give the verdict that further proof is required. For example, in episode 16, there is a bit focusing on a supposed miracle occuring with blood turning from liquid to solid. But no scientist has ever been allowed to test the blood, preventing any rigorious analysis from being done. Yet instead of saying it’s impossible to prove any claims either way before this is done, the show ers on the side of the supernatural, because it would make for a more exiciting conclusion than the truth.
Something else that can be bad journalism is giving airtime to harmful theories and speculation. While outlandish conclusions are usually couched in language such as “possible” and other ways that avoid committing, the very fact these are given airtime at all is ridiculous. Examples include the insane time travel theories in episode 17 that physicist Matthew Szydagis has to waste effort correcting, and in the final segment.
Episode 17 other moments like this. During a segment on a poor dead bird, the theory of avian creatures being government drones gets brought up. In a vain and farcial attempt to legitimise this theory, Harris claims it’s got a lot of traction on social media. This is a ridiculous notion to try and make reasonable people take notice of a crackpot (if hiliarious) idea. just because something has got a lot of traction on social media doesn’t mean it’s true, all sorts of nonsense is wildly shared, it doesn’t make it real. Harris probably shouldn’t believe everything he believes on social media and the internet. Maybe Harris ought to have a quick explainer on the fact that any nutjob and post anything on social media and have it become viral.
These two episodes are frustrating as mentioned earlier, they both have educative and interesting aspects to them that are worth watching. Sadly, these elements are sandwiched in with the crazy elements that audiences should stay away from. As this is the case, these episodes are overall middling, while they have some fantastic segments, they also veer too far into insane theories that plainly aren’t true.
