I also watched
Channel 5s: When theme parks go horribly wrong tonight.
I’d heard about it on Twitter last night and it's seemingly divided opinion amongst enthusiasts. The negative critiques seemed to target the notion that the documentary title and content were painting theme parks and rollercoasters to be ‘unsafe’ or were trivialising fatal incidents at theme parks.
In general, I think the documentary had good moments but could have been cut into a smaller run time (it’s 90 minutes) and focused on the more light hearted elements of theme park clips that had gone ‘viral’ on social media, some of which were genuinely amusing. I found some of the more tragic elements of the footage hard to watch, especially when the editing cuts between funny moments and quite literal near death experiences.
Enjoyable to watch
- Gotham city escape getting stuck on the top hat and having to be pushed off by a guy with a stick in a cherry picker
- A small dragon coaster getting stuck and the operator pushing it back to the station while the parents are in hysterics
- A dad having to spider man style climb up a water side as his young daughters dingy is stuck
- Two friends going on Kingda Ka, one of whom is having full on face morph from the forces exerted by the ride
- A young lads reaction to his first ride on Minifigure Speedway - His face is an absolute picture
Lacklustre / Could have been cut from the program
- A family going on a dinosaur dark ride where all the animatronics are broken
- A visit to a Dubai park where there are zero other guests in attendance
- A animatronic catching fire at a Disney park
Distasteful / Shock value
- A fairground ride in the Philippines throwing multiple people out mid ride
- A swinging chair ride collapsing on top of people
- A slingshot ride snapping in mid air and a comical ‘BOING’ sound effect being added over the top as it snaps.
- A young woman dangling from a sky ride clearly distressed
It felt a little bit like you’ve been framed but for theme parks. I think some of the more serious accidents were framed in a way that felt slightly incentive or trivial, this was heightened by the sensationalist commentary and reactions by the journalists being interviewed.
I feel like the enthusiasts on the show came across better than the celebrities and journalists, their commentary seemed to come from a more knowledgeable place and the love for the rides and industry was evident, whereas the other people seem slightly randomly placed.
The Smiler incident segment
There is an attempt to make this section a more sombre and serious part of the documentary, but against the backdrop of the rest of the programmes shock value, it could be argued that it takes the serious element out. The guy reliving his experience of being in the queue as it happened does have a sensitivity to the situation and at recalling the memory from that day does appear to be quite moved by it. ‘We drove home 2 hours and nobody said a word’ is very poignant.
An interesting watch but jumps around a lot in terms of the editing and IMO does trivialise the more serious incidents. It justifies the safety standards with the ‘24million to 1’ chance of something going wrong but this may be too little too late for some of the general public after being bombarded with harrowing footage for 90 minutes!
