The Television of the Apocalypse

Watching films like "Deep Impact", where humanity is looking directly into the dark abyss of extinction, always makes me wonder.

Aside from solemn Presidential broadcasts telling us to keep our faith in God as humanity prepares to be squashed flat by an asteroid God himself could have stopped if He so chose, what is on television or the radio when the event occurs?

I'm sure plenty of people would just swarm out of their houses and choke the roads heading for the high ground while continuously screaming, but plenty of folk, perhaps the older ones without young familes facing immolation, would stay home. Surely caring, sharing governments (ha) with advance warning of the earth's destruction, would arrange for there to be media to entertain us in humanity's death throes?

No doubt, religious programming would take up a fair amount of scheduling; can you imagine the number of death bed conversions the various deities would be dealing with as firebrand preachers sounded their joy at the last trump being sounded at last?

Other programming would be more contemplative; gentle pastoral sounds on classical radio, scenes of cloud and sea on television, perhaps overlayed with a ticker of dedications to friends and families scrolling along the bottom, a veritable requiem of tweets as the St Matthew Passion gently poured from the speakers.

Perhaps some channels would just think "fuck it" and decide to broadcast the dirtiest pornography imaginable, figuring no-one would be bothered about hairy palmed deviant onanists as the sun set on life itself forever. No doubt ITV2 and BBC3 would broadcast the usual "100 Worst" type clips or rolling film of Del Boy Trotter falling through the bar to give mankind a smile on its face as it met icy cometary death from above.

Or, as is so common in our current age, would people decided to watch rolling news coverage of Armageddon? I'm thinking they would. Even in the darkest hours, there would be plenty of broadcasters willing set their egos above their families and the prospect of death, and see who could get the highest ratings - and who could go on the longest as the oceans boiled and lava sprayed from the fractured crust onto the sweet land of ours. And no doubt, folk would want to see how long they could go on watching. I know I would, if I was watching.

But I wouldn't be. I'd be outside, with a rum and coke and Radio 4, waiting with joy for the hammer blow from space. God bless it, and all it would bring.

Copyright Bloody Mulberry 10/08/2013