Viceland's Abandoned "Detroit"

**Not In MI** · November-05-16, 07:34 PM

For those of you who get the new network Viceland there is an excellent show called "Abandoned" hosted by Canadian pro skateboarder Rick McKrank. Its not ruin porn but about communities, etc that have lost their population, etc for various reasons. Dead malls in Ohio, Newfoundland fishing villages, Route 66, old dirt tracks in NC. Last night's episode was about Detroit.

Here is a link:

https://www.viceland.com/en_us/video...18b8303f829519

**EGrant** · November-05-16, 10:46 PM

Love this series, and I thought this was a fantastic and fair episode. It covered the obvious abandoned sites, but did try to tell a story that went deeper than the surface-level ruin porn stuff coupled with Campus Martius glam shots we're used to seeing. And the cinematography was great.

However, why on earth did they spend so much time on that rent-a-cop, wannabe Batman, who cared more about dorky code names and the branding of his Ford Fusions than anything else? Made no sense at all, especially when compared to the stories of the other people they interviewed.

**Bigb23** · November-09-16, 07:04 AM

Rick McKrank

You could not make up that name if you tried.

I guess he didn't go with Dick McKrank.

**Bigb23** · November-09-16, 07:13 AM

Thumbs down on that channel - I guess I'm just old.

**canuck** · November-09-16, 08:36 AM

Originally Posted by Bigb23

You could not make up that name if you tried.

Evil Kneivelish, isn't it?

**Lowell** · November-09-16, 11:03 AM

I am quite enjoying the new VICELAND network with its coterie of millennial -age-only reporters. I love the youth and energy. It makes for some sophomoric stupidities here and there but overall it is very good quality.

Regarding the "Two Detroits" it featured a number of interesting positive under-the-radar activities, like the composting group Detroit Dirt.

It suffers, as does the entire ABANDONED series, from it centering around the host, a renowned professional skateboarder who's chief interest seems to be to find exotic ruin sites to skate around. So they have to skate Packard of course. Yet this leads to meet ups with interesting people sometimes, like the native American Apache Skateboarders in AZ in the Route 66 segment.

**yupislyr** · November-09-16, 01:44 PM

Caught this on TV over the weekend and enjoyed the first half but the gf and I were left shaking our heads at the second half. It started well but lost it's way.

**K-slice** · November-12-16, 05:48 PM

It's stated at the start that they don't want to just show a bunch of ruin porn. Then they proceed to basically show nothing but during their interviews. There are also a few too many regressive ideas in this for me, such as complaining about how she "doesn't recognize" downtown anymore. Would they rather it go back to how it was with empty streets and abandoned storefronts?