HAUNTED HIGHWAY - Darkman of Standing Rock; Blackstar Shadow Man

SyFy - Original Air Date:

In this new show, there are two teams: Jack Osborne (host) and his researcher Dana make up one, and Jael & Devin from Fact or Faked make up the other -- and their presence is the reason I'm even checking this show out.  My first impression from the clips is that this is another "people running around in the dark scaring themselves" show.  We'll see how that pans out as Devin & Jael head to North Dakota to find the Darkman, sometimes called the Grim Reaper or the Devil, the sighting of which portends bad things to come.  This show (supposedly) features no camera crews, just the hosts/researchers filming themselves.  Clearly a show for people who like shaky cameras; I am not one.  They collect stories from locals and try to pinpoint where to hunt this creature: Grey Ghost Butte.  Then it's running around in the dark scaring themselves.  Although they do catch a pair of "red eyes" on video.  Later, their fire "mysteriously" extinguishes itself and their horses run off. But, mostly this was like watching Blair Witch with people I know and like already from TV.

Second Jack/Dana part is looking for the Shadowmen, "malevolent spirits" you can only see out of the corner of your eye (in a canyon in California).  More witness stories, more blundering around in the dark scaring themselves.  And a video of a shadow (bug?) moving across Dana just before one of her freak-outs.  Like the first segment, the hosts are unwilling to declare anything supernatural was proved in all their tromping around, but...

Let's be serious: This is a mythology show.  I like mythology shows, mythology is one of my favorite subjects, but only when it's done in the spirit of education/anthropology.  This, on the other hand, is another in a series of shows trying for success by playing up to superstitious believers.  My son, who walked into the room while I was watching said, "If this were really science, the woman performing the experiment wouldn't know what the witnesses said they had previously experienced."  Exactly.  You go into a room where I say I've seen the shape of a dog on the wall, and by gum that's what you'll be looking for, and chances are you may find it.  I doubt that, despite my fondness for Jael & Devin, I'll be reviewing this show much more, because in the end, it really was just people running around in the dark scaring themselves.

Time to turn on the lights.