The great thing about cable TV is that if one station sucks, you have 399 more to choose from. And they all seem to cater towards one demographic or another: music; country music; christian country music; children's cartoons; and so on. But there are many stations that vie for the title of "Manliest TV Station". And most of them fail. Spike TV is like that frat guy in college who worshiped/still worships Chuck Norris and uses lines at bars "as a joke". And CNN is too preachy. There is only one ultimate man station. Here is a formula to illustrate this point:
Discovery Channel α 1/(Oxygen + Lifetime)^tampons
Let's take a look at some of their more hardcore shows.
Survivorman
I know there's this rivalry between Survivorman and Man vs. Wild. The fact of the matter is, Les Stroud, this crazy, harmonica playing Canadian(?) can kick the living shit out of Bear Grylls' hotel sleeping, camera crew using, lying, British ponce ass. He's Bear minus the bullshit. It's just him dumped into some god-forsaken piece of land with a few cameras and told to survive for a week. The most remarkable thing about the show is that Les approaches life threatening challenges in the same manner as someone who is looking for the best, least cumbersome way into the city Friday night to go party. No bitching. Common. It fucking has "man" in the title.
Dirty Jobs
The legend of Mike Rowe is as such: One day in Baltimore after performing in an opera, he and his buddy were dressed as Vikings as they passed the local office for QVS. On a bet, Mike applied for, and received, a job as an announcer. Once he was fired for openly mocking the really really, fucking stupid products he was selling (http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=rChjMRfi40c) he eventually made his way onto the show Dirty Jobs. There are plenty of awful jobs he performs, all in the sake of demonstrating what must be done to make civilized life possible. Very admirable. Unfortunately for him and fortunately for we the viewers, this includes wading through shit in a sewer and castrating goats with his teeth. Oh my god, that last job. Pair after pair, he yanks out these bloody goat testicles with his teeth. I. Am. Not. Shitting. You.
Everything else seems to be science oriented, making you feel as dumb as when you watch Jeopardy yet entertaining you none the less. Show premises are like every single high conversation you've had with friends. "Hey, can you really build a bomb out of shit you find in the house?" Well I don't know lets find out! "Are Snow Leopards extinct yet?" Here's a video of two leopards making more leopards. That's because you're watching something either explode, burn, launch, fire, crush, die, fuck, slice, devour, fight, shatter, survive, or explode but differently than the first type of explosion. From robots to rockets, twisters to the science of sex, discovery channel has it all.
Except fiction.
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