Around the World
For years I've been lamenting the loss of Lonely Planet. Remembering the good old days as a teenager, sitting around watching Ian Wright (and others, but non as good a host as he) travel the globe, going to places I'd never even thought to go. I'd discussed this loss with friends and we'd all shed a little tear in remembering what an interesting and amusing show it was, wondering what the hell had happened.
When we first got our TiVo a few years ago, that was one of the first things I searched for. Surely TiVo could help me find the show. Most likely it was still on, but at some godforsaken hour which normally I would never have been awake to actually discover that it was still permeating the airwaves. Alas, no such luck. Then one evening a few months ago Shawn and I were watching something on the Travel Channel (most likely Most haunted which is complete BS and extremely annoying though for some reason we can't help but watch) and a commercial for a show came on. Granted, had we not been watching live TV, we would have fastforwarded right past the commercial (bless you TiVo) however on this fateful night we were left sitting without a "bedoop" to be had. Immediately I recognized the music and the voice on the commercial. "Ian Wright?" I asked curiously. "Lonely Planet??" I started getting a little more excited. Everything was falling into place that it was a commercial for Lonely Planet and the TV gods had heard my pleas and put it back on the air. It looked the same, it sounded the same, it was the same. Sortof.
Interestingly enough, it was Lonely Planet, but under the brand spankin new name of GlobeTrekker. My head almost exploded. How long had this been going on? Had I been missing this show all these years and it was still there? Why didn't I get the memo?
Needless to say our TiVo has been filled with fun and exciting episodes of the show as of late. Thankfully they're running a lot of the old episodes with Ian Wright and the other hosts from back in the day. I've seen a few episodes with new hosts (Zay Harding for example) and haven't been overly impressed with their personalities.
The only problem with watching all these travel shows, it makes me want to get up off my couch and go to these places (or at least some of them). Perhaps one day, but until then at least I can live vicariously through the hosts of the show.
