Being British, the weather rarely fails to intrigue me. Over the years there’s been various weather-related shows pop up on BBC 4, Discovery and National Geographic. One particular show which caught my intrigue is Storm Chasers, on Discovery. The show follows various groups of scientists and chasers in the famous Tornado Alley in America, following tornadoes.
The first two seasons mostly followed Dr Josh Wurman’s team of scientists, who were chasing storms to try and study them more closely. They were also accompanied by Sean Casey, a film maker who was trying to capture film of a tornado from the inside with an IMAX camera. Dr Wurman’s team would direct Casey’s team towards ‘safe’ tornados so they could place their specially adapted road vehicle (called the Tornado Intercept Vehicle, or ‘TIV’) in the path and capture film of it passing over.
During the second season we also saw the introduction of Reed Timmer’s team from Tornadovideos.net. They would chase partly for fun, but also to study and document tornados, eventually selling the film they recorded onto local news outlets for the inevitable reports they would produce post storm.
The third season saw less of Dr Wurman’s team as he had joined a much larger government-funded project, but introduced Tim Samaras’s TWISTEX team to the show. Timmer’s team had taken the lead on the show now. The fourth season has continued this, and has seen Dr Wurman’s team disappear altogether.
Throughout the seasons, a noticeable change has happened. In the first couple of seasons, Dr Wurman and Casey would regularly butt heads over decisions over which storm to chase, and a healthy rivalry existed between all the teams. Ultimately they all were in it for the same reasons, so despite the odd little bit of sniping, it was relatively friendly.
The show has steadily grown in popularity, and Discovery has – in the UK at least – moved it from random late-night times, to being part of the Prime Time lineup, and giving the show great deals of promotion. Since this has happened, the whole tone of the show has changed, and for the worse.
The show originally made use of a voiceover (localised to the UK, but a US-based VO was also used; Discovery UK occasionally would show the original HD version with US voiceover, yet the SD version had a UK VO). The VO would explain things going on, and give explanations of how the storms formed and grew.
During the filming of the show the various people we would see would respond to questions from producers about what they were doing, and what was going on. Occasionally the odd gripe about the other teams would creep in, but nothing major. It was all good, and informational.
Each episode would usually concentrate on a couple of good storms, and the chase and aftermath of those storms, as well as how the teams would interact and chase. It was a great format which informed, but also entertained. During the episodes I’d often find myself getting quite involved in the narrative, and really rooting for the teams.
As the show has climbed in ratings, it seems the producers behind the show (or possibly Discovery) decided that the show needed a little shakeup. Season four has lost the original feel of the show, and now focuses far more on the conflict and relationships between the teams. It started to creep in during Season three, where a whole storyline of Reed Timmer and his driver Joel Taylor fall out of favour with each other. Given it happened mid-season, it was relevant to the show, so it was fair to include it.
Season four has also dropped the VO, and instead relies on the various faces in the show doing ‘faux interview’ segments which are obviously scripted where they explain what happened. The people in the show aren’t actors, and so they are wooden and forced, and do nothing to help the narrative of the show. The ‘interview’ segments are quite liberally peppered throughout the show, and as a consequence in Season four I’ve seen three episodes, and only seen a couple of tornadoes – briefly.
Storm Chasers has gone from a scientific entertainment show, to becoming a show basically about the teams and their infighting. More emphasis is put on the rivalries between the teams; the TWISTEX team is quite highly regarded all round, so they barely feature, other than when they are making negative comments about storms Timmer has decided to chase.
The whole premise of the show now seems to centre around false jeopardy, and conflict. Not the storms suggested in the title.
Unfortunately for me, I think Storm Chasers has jumped the shark. I’m willing to give it the benefit of the doubt. I hope it picks up, but I somehow don’t think it’s likely. A real shame.
