Volcanoes scary, scientists good

Only a little writing got done yesterday. And rather than writing Sunday night, I found myself totally sucked in by the Supervolcano disaster movie on the Discovery Channel.

A joint BBC/Discovery Channel production, it was an odd combination of American style disaster movie with British reserve. I kept waiting for the obligatory scenes of small children in peril who would be rescued by the hero, or a subplot involving estranged lovers who are reunited by the disaster. Instead there was reasoned scientific discussion, and a fair amount of facts underlying the wild speculation. Mixed in with human interest stories, of course, but of the reserved British variety.

For example, if this had been an American movie, the scientist's pregnant wife and son would have been stranded in an area of maximum danger, requiring the scientist to abandon his reseach post to heroically rescue them in a physically impossible feat (like flying a helicopter through the ash cloud, or commandeering a Humvee and outrunning a pyroclastic explosion). Instead he rather sensibly sends them to visit her mother in England, so that when the worst does happen, he knows they are safe.

This is not to say that it was a good movie. Indeed I kept watching it just to watch the special effects of the volcanoes erupting. (Mmmm. Pyroclastic flows. Cool).

I did manage to shut the TV off when the movie ended and Tom Brokaw began the scientific discussion part of the presentation.

But still, I think I'll chalk this up to Power of TV: 1, Functioning Brain Cells: 0.