New discovery channel smear show

[IW17]

Eaten Alive : Discovery Channel Wow. What a wonderful way to put a negative spin on snakes, constrictors especially. As if snakes in general need anymore ignorant publicity. I've never actually contacted a network before but this is too much. I've sent an email and hopefully others will follow suit.

[Georgia]

Absolutely lunacy

[Akuma223]

What a bunch of crap, the comments on reddit are hilarious though...

[sharthun]

They should combine this with finding bigfoot!

[kiiarah]

I read some about this last night and it seems to be the general consensus that there is no way this will work for a few reasons.

1. Animal cruelty laws are strict when it comes to television. There is virtually no way they would be able to get away with doing something like this for entertainment.

2. The logistics of it. What are the odds the snake is actually going to see this guy as prey? Even if it did, will the suit protect against suffocation? Just because it would prevent digestion by stomach acid doesn't mean the guy would be safe. Anacondas are incredibly strong constrictors so he would have to have a very strong frame on the suit. That alone would likely prevent the snake from even trying to swallow him. I have also read that the muscle movements that allow a snake to swallow depend on the the prey not being crushed, but at least being maleable. Even if it did swallow him, aren't they proposing this as means of seeing digestion in progress? Is he going to remain in the snake for the days on end it would take for the process to complete? What exactly would they be observing provided that the snake suit would be digestion proof, its not like anything would be happening.

3. They are going to be hard pressed to find a snake large enough to comfortably swallow a human. There may be an isolated case of this happening here and there (I haven't researched that part) but the odds are greatly against it happening. As OP pointed out, these are not viscious killers when it comes to their interaction with humans. Keep in mind, it never says explicitly that he will wear the suit, it is only implied. There have been lots of trailers/updates pulled an made private already and Discovery is offering very little information on the show. They may well already be having second thoughts about even airing it.

At this point people are speculating that they will either go through all the drama of him preparing to get eaten, have something come up last minute that ruins their plans, and be forced to pursue plan b (perhaps a mini cam strapped to natural prey, or at least something more scientific) or send him into an already deceased animal. Discovery has become much more sensational and much less scientific recently. They are likely just hoping to draw in viewers based on the title alone.

Personally I would find it very amusing if people flock to watch the terrifying man eating anaconda swallow this guy whole, only to find that the animal is too docile and just wants to avoid him. May be eye-opening for all the right reasons. I think there are lots of people out there who could stand to see how reluctant even a huge snake is to eat people. That being said, I think to even propose this as an ethical or sensible idea is irresponsible. You would think a channel that proposes to be educational would realize that animals are not cheap entertainment. Still, I just don't see this happening. At worst it will be a bait and switch, they will use the dramatic theme to get viewers and at the last minute will find a way to beg off because something "went wrong", something broke, some unforeseen issue popped up, etc.

[bigsnakegirl785]

Although there's obvious reasons why it wouldn't work physically, it's very possible they'll just end up using CGI.

I don't see why just inserting a camera isn't sufficient enough, it can only be because they just want sensationalism and views honestly.