Why People Hate "Alternate History" (See SPIKE-TV)

Mr_ Bondoc

Mr_ Bondoc

After watching the first episode of Alternate History (SPIKE-TV) you will understand, why people hate the genre very quickly. With their premiere episode "What if the Nazis win WWII?", they make the genre a laughing stock:

http://www.spike.com/full-episodes/zs5i6o/spike-specials-alternate-history-season-1-ep-100

The show is painfully bad, complete with Adolf Hitler pitching a baseball at Yankee Stadium in 1955! The entire episode makes Mega-Shark v. Giant Octopus look like it was written by marine biologists....
 

LittleSpeer

Monthly Donor
Why would the United States surrender in June of 45 when our Atomic program is almost ready and we could drop the test bomb on Germany in July with two more in August.
Who the Hell is coming up with this stuff?
 

BlackWave

People hate the AH genre? Uh...from what I understand it's more a case of simply being apathetic towards it. While this show isn't well thought out, it's not that much worse than your average depiction of AH in popular culture (e.g. Hitler dies and THE NAZIS HAVE GIANT ROBOTS).
 

gigalocus

Can't watch it because, well, I'm from a more civilised country ;), but I caught a review of it by some friendly German guy on Youtube, he pretty much sums up all the things thats wrong with it (I.E, everything).

I'm now going to thank God I couldn't watch it in Old Albion because it would have been twenty minutes I never would have gotten back.

Seriously, why do programs like this exist?
 
The Kiat

The Kiat

LittleSpeer said:
Why would the United States surrender in June of 45 when our Atomic program is almost ready and we could drop the test bomb on Germany in July with two more in August.
Who the Hell is coming up with this stuff?
Click to expand...

Do keep in mind which network produced it and their target audience. They could have picked a more interesting PoD, or at least not such a cliched one.
 

ZombieSlayer54

The Kiat said:
Do keep in mind which network produced it and their target audience. They could have picked a more interesting PoD, or at least not such a cliched one.
Click to expand...

Yes! They could have picked something like what if the South won the Civil War and annexed the United States and somehow had a presidential election in 2000...
 
The Kiat

The Kiat

Oy....

I just watched it. Talk about an oversimplification of matters. Yes, there was some designs for submarine launched missiles. And yes, some designed for jet fighters in 1942. I don't think the Nazis had the right alloys for decent jet engines (something about the 262 having to replace its engines periodically). Crickey, the SG-44 (Sturmgawheran?) would be far more useful than those jets at D-Day.

And isn't it forced labor instead of slave labor, since I'm not sure if any of the forced laborers in the Reich were actually owned by any of the companies who utilized them.

Oh, and Hitler and Baseball. Assuming he hasn't croaked by 1955, his pitch should be so shaky that it'd hit the first baseman instead of the catcher's mit.

<snort> Goebbol?

Internet-inspired revolution. If the rebels take a city, wouldn't the Nazis just nuke it?


Maybe SpikeTV should give me a 13 episode season of this so I can tell the tale of An Alternate History of the Netherlands. It'll have to be more believable than this.
 

ComradeTovarich

On the bright side, be thankful that they never showed the US being invaded by Nazi aerodreadnoughts and monstrosities like the Ratte and the Monster. It would have made the show a hell lot worse. I wonder how Spike is going to play off the other episodes. By the looks of it, the one about the South winning the Civil War may have a little TL-191 slant to it.

EDIT: Apparently, some moron/genius uploaded the entire show on Youtube. Watch at your own risk.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=5HzSFYVdGYs
 
oshron

oshron

yeah, its awful. just to see how bad, i tried watching the first episode, but it started having trouble loading so i gave up on it. thats probably for the best; i sincerely doubt that it will be "so bad that its good" like Lost Tapes :rolleyes:

in any case, though, i think i may well check out their apparent future episode in which the dinosaurs didnt die out both because i REALLY love that POD and have even tried to write something about that a while back and also just to see how badly they do that scenario. i predict cavemen and dinosaurs :rolleyes::D:eek::mad:;)
 

davroslives

Alt History?

Notice how not one alt history author was interviewed. It was embarrassingly poor - almost every 'fact' was wrong and the conclusions given were just as bad.
 

The Red

oshron said:
in any case, though, i think i may well check out their apparent future episode in which the dinosaurs didnt die out both because i REALLY love that POD and have even tried to write something about that a while back and also just to see how badly they do that scenario. i predict cavemen and dinosaurs :rolleyes::D:eek::mad:;)
Click to expand...

I'd be shocked if they didn't show humans with dinosaurs!
 
The Kiat

The Kiat

davroslives said:
Notice how not one alt history author was interviewed. It was embarrassingly poor - almost every 'fact' was wrong and the conclusions given were just as bad.
Click to expand...

Well there was a jet fighter in 1942, it just wasn't an ME-262, and I think it was too underpowered or a test platform or something. It was made by Heinkel.

Anyway, as was asked earlier: what about the Russians? Kids these days. Back when I was your age, we had this thing called the Soviet Union, and I don't recall hearing anyone complain.
 

xxmagex

Even ASBs are going, "Man, this is really bad, really bad."

We're talking a level of badness of the level from the book "The Divide."
 

jkarr

i just watched it to see how bad it was....

and im just like......theres no emoticon to show how bad it was...

this is why american tv shouldnt be allowed to make any form of alt history, without a dozen people sitting behind them, pordding at any stupidity they try to put in and telling them to yank it out
 
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