Day 3 was the day of sequels as all of the Shark Week offerings that evening were a continuation of previous sharky adventures. The first two shows of the night were sequels to last year’s new Shark Week offerings. And the third show of the night was the most recent installment in a series that has been going on for MANY years. All three shows are ones that I had enjoyed originally, and I certainly would not complain if we continued to get more sequels throughout the coming years. (Bonus: there was lots of Paul De Gelder – my favourite Shark Week regular.)
SharkWrecked: Crash Landing: Paul De Gelder and James Glancy are back in the second installment of SharkWrecked! Once again, this is a survival show in which these professionals find themselves stranded out in the open ocean and surrounded by sharks. But this wasn’t a simple survival mission. The men were attempting to recreate some of the conditions that WWII fighter pilots might have faced when they were gunned down over the ocean. And with Dr Greg Skomal supervising the mission, that meant there were opportunities to learn more about which sharks can be found in that area. I wouldn’t mind seeing more SharkWrecked sequels in the future, especially if the team is going to continue to seek inspiration from other historical survival stories. However, given the immense strain on the people involved, I would not at all be surprised if this is the last time we see SharkWrecked.
Laws of Jaws: Dangerous Waters: There’s always going to be a Shark Week show that shows you what to do to avoid getting attacked by a shark, and this is one of them. Mike Dornellas, Nick LeBeouf, Jamin Martinelli, and Paul De Gelder join forces to test situations in that could put people at risk of shark attacks. In an almost Mythbusters-style way of approaching some of these scenarios, the team recreates common sharky situations to see just how sharks react and how dangerous things could get for humans. This year, the experiments have been amped-up and there were certainly some tense moments. I wouldn’t mind seeing more of this show in the future as well. They don’t simply test how dangerous the scenarios are to humans, there is even shark science involved!
Air Jaws Strikes Back: Like all of the other Air Jaws installments, Chris Fallows and his team of regular Shark Week experts document the hunting behaviours of great white sharks. This year’s episode features a lot of interesting drone footage to watch young sharks from above as they hunt. The previous Air Jaws drew attention to the fact that there were fewer breaches from the great whites, and this year’s show follows closely on the heels of that story. So I was prepared for the fact that we wouldn’t see a lot of breaches, but I was still a little disappointed that there weren’t as many of those kinds of predatory attacks. (The cool drone footage made up for it though). Let’s be honest: although the science is interesting, people mainly watch this show for the shark-tastic aerial stunts.
