Saturday 12 October 2013

Friday on TV: Sharknado is so bad it's good


Sharknado, one of the wackiest TV events in recent memory - a made-for-TV movie so out-there it makes Sleepy Hollow look like PBS Frontline - gets a fresh airing Friday, on the specialty channel Space. When Sharknado first aired on the U.S. Syfy Channel, on July 11, 2013 - a date that will live in TV infamy - the Twitterverse lit up like an exploding sun.


Cory Monteith, in one of his last tweets before he died, wrote, 'What the crap is Sharknado,' then, moments later, added: 'Oh. It's a SHARK TORNADO.' The ratings that first night were no more than they are for any other of Syfy's D-list exploitation movies, but Twitter was another matter.


Syfy, startled that so many had so much to say about such a lousy movie, repeated


Sharknado a week later. Once again, Sharknado - forgive the pun - shredded accepted TV conventions.


'You cannot be serious,' Syfy executives must have thought to themselves, so they repeated Sharknado a second time, two weeks later, on July 27. This time Sharknado set a ratings record for the channel. (9 p.m. & 1:30 a.m., Space)


■ It's too easy to dismiss Shark Tank as being lame after Sharknado, but there it is. In Friday's Shark Tank, Kevin O'Leary, Robert Herjavec, Mark Cuban and the others listen in rapt attention as recording artist Brian Mc-Knight tries to sell them on the idea of a syndicated radio show that specializes in lovesong dedications. (9 p.m., ABC, CTV Two)


■ On a more serious note, The Fifth Estate journeys to Bangladesh where correspondent


■ Mark Kelley asks, rhetorically, who made the shirt you're wearing, and then exposes some of the dirty secrets of the trade. (9 p.m., CBC)


Keeping it real, Bill Maher's guests Friday on Real Time include Chris Matthews, MSNBC pundit and author of Tip and the Gipper: When Politics Worked; radio host Carol Roth; Jim Glassman and Oscar-winning filmmaker Oliver Stone. (10 p.m., HBO)


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