TV is the New Reading

History Channel’s ‘Ax Men’ makes for bad television

Don’t get me wrong. I love my desk. And my home, and the furniture in it, and all of the wood products I encounter on a daily basis. I have enormous respect for the guys involved in getting all of that timber felled and off to the sawmills and extended markets – especially since wise-use and conservation laws have made logging a little more complicated from the clear-cut deforestation of the past.

All that being said, I don’t think the timber industry makes for especially good television.

“Ax Men” airs Tuesdays at 9 p.m. on the History Channel and they still have to bleep out an awful lot of it. But that’s not the issue I’ve got with the show. When you’ve got a bunch of guys felling trees in the Pacific Northwest, you’re going to encounter some language and I’m guessing most viewers anticipate that.

The biggest problem I’ve got with this reality show, apart from how clearly fake some of it is, is that it’s just bad television. It’s boring. I don’t know how much mileage the producers thought they could get from logs being dragged up hills, but clearly they think it's endlessly fascinating. Then there’s the sheer human drama of equipment failure leading to half a day’s work lost and guys sitting around complaining to each other about having to work overtime.

Oh, wait. That’s actually not even a little bit interesting.

Or the guy climbing a tree to make the repair and having to wait until the ground crew was ready, complaining about how long he’s had to hang around at the top of the tree and how uncomfortable it was. Well, who told him he had to wait at the top of the tree?

Fake

Don’t misunderstand me. The guys are real and the work they’re doing is real. The fake portion of the show is added in the editing room.

For one glaring example, a camera caught a stump hurtling out of control down a hillside. The problem was, none of the crew were in the way. So Team Camera got close-ups of guys sprinting out of shot and intercut those images with footage of the – as I now recall, suspiciously finished-looking stump segment – bouncing downhill. Add in some ominous cellos and grim narration and the entire logging crew narrowly missed being crushed by an avalanche.

Seriously, how dangerous is it if there’s a camera crew running about – especially if they’re getting the guys to set up fake scenes? Not that there wasn’t time. Despite the obvious pressures of the job and the amount of work they clearly manage to complete in any given day, there’s a lot of unavoidable downtime while trees are being dragged up hills. Enough time, in fact, to cook fresh salmon on an engine manifold and for one of the guys to open up about his abandonment issues, which actually made me feel a little intrusive as a viewer.

I’m not clear who the target audience for this show is. If they spent more time on the big trucks and the whipping about of felled trees I’d imagine it was a show for pre-adolescent males. As it is, they talk about the business of logging and depressed markets enough that even pre-adolescent males would switch over to anime.

Probably someone’s enjoying it. And for those who do, may I also recommend the dryer cycle.

Features Editor Terry J. Aman compiles the Best Bets for The Minot Daily News.

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