The new “24-hour green network” gets some much-needed constructive criticism.
We were there for the debut of Discovery Channel’s Planet Green network last week. By “there” we mean in front of our TV, while working on our laptops and sending the occasional Tweet and Tweet about the shows. Since we’re “in the green space” we gave Discovery and Treehugger the benefit of the doubt and didn’t let loose with a critical blog post. Despite a painful start, we’re rooting for their success. Slate, on the other hand, dishes out a healthy dose of tough love. And it’s entirely justified.
The most inane program in Planet Green’s initial lineup is, by a nose, Alter Eco, which, depressingly, finds Adrien Grenier behaving very much as he does in the role of Vincent Chase on Entourage. Verily, the show is promoted as a virtual hangout with Grenier’s “entourage of green activists, expert, and friends,” and it feels designed to provide you with lines to pick up chicks at the farmers market.
In one episode, Grenier chills with a dude—obviously a douche bag, just a biodegradable one—who is constructing an eco-friendly pleasure dome in the hills of Los Angeles, a Playboy Mansion with organic bunny feed. We’re told that the water from the showers will be treated and reused to water the garden, and also that the shower in the master bath will be spacious enough to accommodate 19 honeys. Elsewhere, some of the crew goes to an organic wine tasting, where they swill in a most obnoxious fashion. There are “great little tips” for exercising greenly, such as doing pull-ups on the limb of a tree. People seeking material gain are exhorted to “make that cheddar.” It’s impossible to say whether the show’s smug superiority is more grating than its anorexic thinness of content, but seeing them in combination may fill you with a kind of retributive rage. I for one want to go out and kill a dolphin.
It’s that bad. At one point, one of the main characters asks a restaurateur if she feels great about herself when she goes to bed at night because she composts. This is precisely the smugness Slate is getting at. The woman gives the guy a cross look and basically says, “No, I don’t compost so I can feel better than other people.”
Still, there is plenty of potential for a network dedicated to sustainability and improving quality of life. This isn’t completely lost on Slate.
To be fair, Planet Green isn’t always this stupid. What could be? Some of the home-improvement shows are engaging and impressive, and a forthcoming show called Greensburg, about the reconstruction of a tornado-ravaged town in Kansas, has promise. But until Planet Green quits its annoying mix of condescension and pandering, watching it will be an unforgivable waste of energy.
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