My local cable despot, Time Warner, recently added a slew of new high-definition channels to the cable package here in Brooklyn, which means that I’ve been spending more time than usual surfing the higher digits of my cable dial. Let me tell you: until you have watched The Weather Channel in high definition, my friend, you have not seen the weather.
Last night I was patrolling my new channels when I landed on a Discovery Channel marathon of Dirty Jobs, the sneakily addicting show profiling careers even grodier and less appetizing than TV critic. And naturally the first scene I should land on involves a man whose job is to inseminate cattle, his arm up to his elbow in a cow’s cervix. I’m not sure I want to see this in high definition. In fact, is there such a thing a low-definition TV?
I quickly switched the channel to Animal Planet HD where, on Maneaters, we had the much more pleasant spectacle of a re-enactment of a woman being attacked by a wolf. HD may not be flattering to certain humans—no offense, Alton Brown, but you’re a little, ah, craggy on Food Network HD’s Good Eats—but it’s been a great career development for animals, and predators in particular. For the HDTV owners out there, are there certain channels or shows you’ve suddenly started watching more often because they’re in high-def?