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June 19, 2013

Life After People makes me want to kill you all ... not really

by Jason Hughes, posted May 26th 2009 7:02PM

Life After PeopleIn The History Channel's Life After People (Tuesdays at 10pm Eastern), it's not looking at the world after a nuclear explosion, a war or any other disaster that wipes out humanity. It's far simpler than that. Humanity simply vanishes without a trace. And what's left is an exploration of our legacy, our buildings, everything we would leave behind, and how Mother Earth would reclaim what was once hers before we started carving it up.

The series is a spin-off of the documentary of the same name that became The History Channel's most watched program ever with 5.4 million viewers. While the sixth of ten episodes premieres tonight, as with many cable channels, the prior five are being shown pretty regularly. I just stumbled on it this week and have already caught each of them. Every episode focuses on a different thing we've left behind and moves us forward decades and even centuries, as we see how time and nature will slowly destroy everything we've built.

Life After People has some of the most stunning computer animated visuals, showing buildings collapse and plant life taking over. It makes me want to live in this world after people. "Welcome to Earth ... Population: Me." Yeah, I could go for that. I'd invite you all to stop by, but it kind of goes against the whole premise.

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mark neddeau

this is absolutely, beyond doubt, the most stupid, vapid, useless, annoying, ridiculous, pathetic attempt to spend some greenpeace loving, earthgirl hugging, eco-freak money that I have ever seen. WHO CARES WHAT HAPPENS WHEN THERE ARE NO PEOPLE? WHO CARES? THERE WILL BE NO PEOPLE TO CARE.....get a life history channel please.

June 28 2009 at 10:48 PM Report abuse rate up rate down Reply
dan

Hey "Life after People" People,

Check out my 2 minute parody of this History Channel show at: http://www.funnyordie.com/videos/52b5d34851/the-past-channel-presents-life-after-humans

You'll learn how we simply "vanished". :-)

June 18 2009 at 9:50 AM Report abuse rate up rate down Reply
DarthPaul

Well, I liked the UK version of it. What's with all that noise ^^^

May 27 2009 at 12:40 PM Report abuse rate up rate down Reply
mdk

Yet another crap show for the mouth-breathers from Anything-But-History Channel. Really, how many hour-long episodes can you have of a series that is basically about nothing else but buildings falling down?

May 27 2009 at 9:53 AM Report abuse rate up rate down Reply
Joe stalin

Mother nature is a real bi*ch. Lets take her out before she gets us!
Seriously none of that could ever happen cause we elected the most merciful the messiah lord Barry. We have nothing to fear but government itself.

May 27 2009 at 9:24 AM Report abuse rate up rate down Reply
KIrsch

There was also a similar special that aired on National Geographic channel a few weeks after the History channel special and there is a book about this too I am guessing that is what the two specials are based on and subsequent spin-off into a tv show

May 27 2009 at 5:59 AM Report abuse rate up rate down Reply
Picviewer

I can sum this series up as who cares? The title says it all Life After People. Who will be around to validate these theories? I mean I could produce something and say all the animals will look around one day and go "Hey come out the humans are finally gone" and get back to their lives. Thats' about as valid as this series is.

May 26 2009 at 11:54 PM Report abuse rate up rate down Reply
Jo Anne

I KNOW that something is wrong with me, because I watched the episode about L.A. and Washington D.C. and when Lincoln was finally destroyed I got physically ill and
had to stop watching, I could not make myself mentally
understand that THIS WAS "Life After People.

May 26 2009 at 11:43 PM Report abuse rate up rate down Reply
Argent

i wasn't a big fan of that whole original wave of 'apocalypse: soon' programming that the history channel did and didn't bother watching the original special until months later, but i find the series to be fascinating.

the computer imagery is one thing, but what i find most interesting each week is the segment where they spolight an area already abandoned by humanity. the bit on gary, IN from the second episode was just mind-blowing, imo.

imo, it's one of the better shows the history channel has put out in recent memory (unlike all their reality-show crap.)

May 26 2009 at 11:34 PM Report abuse rate up rate down Reply
1 reply to Argent's comment
Dan

I gotta agree, the channel has abandoned actual history, but at least this program has a lot of interesting real-life situations to show the impact of their simulations. Gary, Indiana is a scary place (drove through), as is a lot of that part of the country.

I just wish History would actually show history programs.
There's plenty they could do historical programs:
Simon Bolivar and José de San Martín.
Liberia
The Magyar People
The Migration of the Aborigine people
Scandanavian history after the middle ages
Angkor Civilization
History of all the Eastern Religions
A series on each Caribbean nation's struggle for independence and an individual identity.
History of various sports
History of various technologies, like showing how we went from primitive communication techniques to the mobile phone and internet.

Basically, anything that isn't WWII, Vietnam, Civil War or Bible based would be great. And they should all be historical and not speculative. They could always have a "Speculative History Channel" and a "What-If History Channel", those would still be interesting.

May 27 2009 at 12:58 PM Report abuse rate up rate down Reply
Carissa

Well, crap. I loved the first special and I thought it was just replaying when I saw it in the guide. Of course, it doesn't have online versions, and no earlier eps are showing in my guide now. Booooooo.

May 26 2009 at 10:09 PM Report abuse rate up rate down Reply

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