Why The Failure Of Discovery Channel's TV Show Called 'Eaten Alive' Is A Good Thing

The book he published earlier this year,”Mother of God,” combines adrenaline-fueled stories about his adventures in the rainforest with an earnest call to preserve the natural world.

Reading through it, as Rosolie suggested his critics do, one’s struck by the passion he obviously felt for an ecosystem under threat, and particularly by the caution and respect with which he treated the anacondas he encountered there.

Almost all of that is missing from “Eaten Alive’s” trailer, which comes off, as Salon’s Joanna Rothkopf put it, as an attempt at entertainment that “crosses the line from bad taste to outright… animal abuse.”

salon.com

Paul Rosolie didn't look at all like something a giant anaconda might want to eat. Indeed, when the crew finally found the chosen snake, it really wasn't interested in trying to eat a human dressed up like the Tinman.

In fact, when Rosolie first made contact with the snake, it was afraid and tried to escape.

What to do when you've hyped up a show this much and the star isn't interested?

Rather than making the decision to call the whole thing off, Rosolie decided to provoke the animal instead.

Only then did the snake attack, biting and squeezing the armored intruder. However, it appears that Rosolie wasn't quite prepared for the reality of being constricted by an anaconda, and called in the crew to rescue him.

iflscience.com

The only way for Rosolie to have gotten out of the snake’s stomach would have been for the crew to kill the snake and cut him out.

Though this stunt was touted as a way to raise awareness about the Amazon and its biodiversity—including the anaconda—this wasn't scientific in nature at all, and didn't seek to benefit anyone except Discovery's bottom line and Rosolie's reputation.

iflscience.com