Review: 'Ancient Aliens' surges on with Season 11
Posted Tuesday, September 25, 2018 at 9:55 AM Central
by John Couture
If Ancient Aliens was more like The X Files, the ultimate finale episode would conclude with series breakout star and instant meme maker Giorgio A. Tsoukalos revealing that he is indeed an ancient alien and he would take off on his spaceship. Alas despite having the same amount of truth as The X Files (perhaps even less?), Ancient Aliens takes itself very seriously and I have to admit that I'm beginning to see the draw.
The very successful History channel show just finished up its thirteenth season and the juggernaut shows no signs of slowing down. What started out as an interesting query that might (MIGHT) have been stretched into a single two-hour special has now created over 100 hours of content. And sure, while some of it might seem familiar, Ancient Aliens has proven that there's no shortage of tin-foil hat conspiracies out there.
I recently had the pleasure of binging the first ten seasons of the series for a review and I had to admit that Giorgio Tsoukalos' infectious personality started to endear me to him. Sadly though, it's becoming increasingly apparent that the walking meme is as human as you or I. When the series started and he was just discovering his memeness, he was just a sprite young lad.
Now, the ravage of time is catching up to poor Giorgio as it does for every mortal human.
As you can see, poor Giorgio is starting to lose the elasticity in his faux tanned skin and his motley spray of hair is noticeably thinner than when he was launching internet memes day and night. And yet, I still wouldn't be shocked if he turned out to be a real-life ancient alien.
If Ancient Aliens: Season 11, Volume 1 checks back in with Giorgio Tsoukalos and his fellow ancient astronaut theorists as they travel to a dozen countries in search of pivotal evidence to prove once and for all that we were visited by aliens.
What I like most about this collection of the first half of episodes from season 11 is that they make a concerted effort to break new ground for Ancient Aliens. From the first episode dealing with the pyramids of Antarctica to the episode on the Cosmic Egg, the producers are making a concerted effort to present new theories and not simply re-hash the same old ideas.
No one can argue about the show's popularity as it continues to be a real big ratings winner for History channel, but we have to wonder if there is an exit strategy in place. I mean, at some point they have to run out of crackpot theories, right? Of course with the proliferation of "fake news" and other questionable conspiracies, it would seem that we are ripe to continue with more Ancient Aliens ad nauseam.
Although it does beg the question, as the series gears up for a fourteenth season, did Ancient Aliens prime the audience for our new reality or was our new reality already in place and did Ancient Aliens simply feed off of it? In other words, what came first Ancient Aliens or the Cosmic Egg?
We may never know the answer to that, but it's safe to say we do know what Giorgio Tsoukalos thinks. It's always the aliens.
Ancient Aliens: Season 11, Volume 1 is now available on DVD.
