Today I decided to re-watch an episode of AFO, "Gorilla vs. Leopard". In this episode, the two combatants actually face-off in the wild on occassion and by 'wild' I mean the jungles of Africa, where both the leopard and the gorilla dwell. In this particular instance the gorilla got the better of the leopard, but more about that in a bit.

Now, this episode had put 'specialist' into special. Both gorilla and leopard were shown to be specialist fighters, unlike, say, a tiger and a lion from one of the previous episodes. Yes, the bite force of both the leopard and the gorilla was tested, but on a very unusual material - bamboo! This is a sticky point, since leopards' jaws don't deal with bamboo very well - they don't eat it - but it is no more unfair than if the gorilla-sub bit meat: unlike chimps, gorillas are not carnivores (omnivores) and don't eat small animals, not intentionally.

The bite force aside, however, most of this episode's testing had been devoted to special moves of the animals: the gorilla's great strength in its arms, the leopard's choking bite and dragging power, and the differences in their vision: in twilight, the leopard had clear advantage, BTW. This was done in place, for example, of leopard's claw power, as it was done with tiger, lion and brown bear. AFO and its participants did try to have fun (maybe) and to be entertaining as well as educational to their audience. It's a pity that this show got cancelled after just one season for no official reason: it could probably be good for at least one season more.

So where does AFO stand with its' all-human version, DW? Take, for example, "U.S. Rangers vs. NKSOF" episode. Just like "Gorilla vs. Leopard", this is a specialist-based episode. Just as in case of leopard and gorilla, the final outcome is debatable. More precisely, in real life leopards tend to kill and eat gorillas, even big male silverbacks, but they do it from ambush, not a face-on collision a gorilla probably has advantage over a leopard.

Thus, gorilla's victory over leopard may be controversial (the fact that the final blow came in a weird, matrix-like style didn't help matters either), but it is also reasonably fair (odds are that gorillas fight off or kill leopards in real life are reasonably high), as opposed to Rangers' victory over NKSOF. Undoubtedly, only a weapons or military specialist can honestly say if SR-25 is really better than PSL or AKM better than M4, but it was clearly obvious that the claymore was far better than the anti-personnel box mine, which made the show's scenario prejudiced. Politically prejudiced.

Now, political prejudice is a very serious affair alltogether. On one hand, being an American show, DW must be prejudiced in favour of USA as opposed to Canada, say, or France. On the other, DW is not supposed to be political, but only about weapons, not morale or political orientation. Sadly, it failed at that, and in case of rangers vs. NKSOF very blatantly so: Rangers won by HALF A PERCENT! As I wrote in my earlier review of that episode, couldn't it been a tie instead? It could've even been pictured as the ranger capuring his opponent for interrogation or something. But instead the show opted to have the rangers win by clear favorism, AND didn't even hide it. If you're going to let "your man" win you might as well go whole hog and fudge the numbers rather than clearly show the show's favoritism for the rangers, pardon the pun.

On top of this clumsy favoritism, one should add the embarrassment that arose after DW's new host, Robert Daly, claimed to be a green beret while in reality he wasn't one at all, and it's no wonder that according to latest rumors DW is over and gone, at least for this year (according to Geoff Desmoulin, so it is probably over for good). Just like with any choice, if you're going to be a propaganda tool, you got to be a GOOD propaganda tool or not at all, as DW has showed.

Finally, what about JFC? How does it fit into the whole AFO vs. DW situation? Dinosaur George, unlike DW in its last season, was not politically prejudiced, nor did he had various dinosaurs tested to see their strengths (and weaknesses) as BBC's "Truth about Killer Dinosaurs" has done. That said, Dinosaur George still ran JFC as a cleaner ship than DW; it was his ship, he ran it as he wanted it to run - a controversial move, but fair. DW, conversely, tried to avoid political controversy and chose to be PC over interesting (and respectful?) towards its audience and paid the price. JFC and AFO may or may not return to the screen, but I doubt that it will happen to DW.

Morale: don't try to BADLY (blatantly obvious) suck up politically to prolong your survival - if you fail, you're extinct all the same!