Anyone been watching this on Channel 4?

So far they've traces the wiggling of the toes back to the brain deciding to do it and tonight they traced a speck of oxygen going into the body and coming out as co2.

it's quite disturbing to watch him carving up innocent folks but it's infinitely facinating to really and truly see close up how much of a miracle our bodies are. It's realy quite humbling to think that from two cells merging into one, we can become something as intricate and facinating as this.

Did Professor Scaryhat take off his scary hat at any point? I have a theory you see.

he never takkes off the hat...

I believe his brain is exposed underneath. And possibly plastinated.

It's been a very interesting show so far. I've also been wondering about the hat scenario though?

I went to his Body Worlds exhibition a few years back when it came to London, bizarre stuff.

It's interesting, but I just can't watch it - I'm too squeemish!

This show would be fine if Scaryhat didn't talk. He's a very scary man.

"anus"

I'm surprised how un-squeamish I am with this. All the bodies just look like bad horror movie props - what the hell does that say about me?!

It's fascinating, though. I had no idea the oesophagus was at the back of the throat, nor that you could take the skin off a person so easily, nor that the intestines were so damn long!

I have been utilising the 'look quickly, then look away again' method.

The people who donated their bodies, they must have relatives who know it's them being used, how bizarre and disturbing is that. Do they watch? I guess not.

Ive bee watching them and I think its brilliant! I seriously looked into being a surgeon during school so this has been great. didnt watch too much of last nights' (busy working after watching desparate housewives)

As for the Doctor, I think hes that badguy from Bananaman, Dr Gloom! (the one on the right)

LOL!

I wonder how he got into this.

I can imagine him as a small child many years ago, capturing rabbits & cats & taking them apart to see how they work.

I concur

Pfff!

I liked the *blamonge* experiment. He droped one on the floor saying
'It haz de same consistency as dis pudding'
*drop*-SPLAT
'dis is what vill happen iv you drop a brain

i'm the most squeamish person i know but morbid curiosity compelled me to turn over just as he was illustrating the 'dilation of the sphincter'.

i shan't be watching again.

NO NO NO NO NO NO NO NO!


As interesting as it is, last night was probably not a good night to start watching this programme. Seeing a German man running his finger along side a naked mans penis, just to make the mans ball retract!


I had to keep turning over when he start cutting up the bollock, and when he cut open the blader, I felt sick and turn it off altogether!

Mr Stella insisted I turn it off at the bollock-slicing point as he said it would "put him off his stride".

Erm, sorry. Was that too much information?

Did they do any slicing and dicing of the lady parts?

I didn't watch it that far. I don't think I'll be watching it again though as It makes me feel sick!

Yes, they pulled out the lady bits, much in the same way as the man's. The only bit I thought I wouldn't manage was the intestines being removed in order to slice round the uterus. I find it does help to think of it as not real.

So Stella, if your man was going to be 'put off his stride', does that mean you were watching this while you were at it? Strange choice of show if you were....

What kind of monster do you think I am, Jessop! We were watching it prior to an anticipated session of erm... striding but I don't find dissection a massive aphrodisiac, funnily enough, so we turned it off.

Now this is too much information.

I just wanted to make sure...

If it makes you feel any better (or your b/f), I won't even be *looking* at my penis for the rest of time.

The worst bit was the opened up bollock - it was all purple and shiny looking and looked like you could just go *squish* with your fingers.


Bucket, anyone?

Just reading that makes me feel pain in my balls!

I caught parts of this whilst channel hopping last night and was surprised I didn't find it all that gruesome (I think that was mainly because most of the parts looked like they had been made of cottage cheese . . . Hope that hasn't put anyone off their lunch!).

I did wince when they started slicing up the poor chaps todger though . . .

It also make me think, as they were cutting open the woman, what she would have thought about having her genitals taken apart on TV.

One things for certain though, I don't think I'll be having a keebab again for a while . . .

The professor looks like Judge Doom from Who Framed Roger Rabbit!

... And the Gestapo chappy from Raiders of the Lost Ark...

I wanna see! I wanna see! No one in my family can figure out why I like to watch operation programs & such. The only thing I have a problem with is knee operations and breast implants.

This isn't an operation. It's dissection, in front of an audience!

Yeah, but that's even better. I always regretted that I would never be able to dissect a human myself. I've done some animals on my own, I was suppossed to a Vet.

It was a lot easier to think of it as not real last night as the bodies were obviously less fresh and had been embalmed and had started to go a funny colour...

Black man bits and grey lady bits are not nice...

Just had a keebab - forgot I wasn't going too . . .

Ah, Beer . . .

What's next? Taking a cam corder to the next M42 pile up? Feck me......even in death you can have your 15 minutes of fame.


Or is that shame? It's all becoming too blurred.


JJM

the identities of the bodies are masked. in my mind its just a carcass, albeit a human one.

i think its a great programme. its good to learn about the functioning of our bodies. in my opinion, the more honest and open we are about our physicality the better.

when i first started watching the programme i was repulsed by it but as it progressed i was desensitised and enjoyed the programme.

To be fair to the program, from the bits I've seen of it, they were being as respectful as they could be given the circumstances.

The program was specifically about showing human anatomy and how we are put together - if they hadn't cut up corpses they wouldn't have been able to do that.

True, there was a sensationalist aspect to the programs but I think that was more born out of our everyday phobia of death rather than a desire to be shocking.

I agree Raven - the only reason the show seems reactionary to some people is, ironically, their own reaction to it. Despite the revulsion at certain elements of the dissection, I was glad to have been given the opportunity to see our inner-workings in this manner. Okay, so Doctor Spooky has a fairly dramatic persona, but his treatment of the subject was respectful and professional. I wonder if the Doctor's strong German accent triggers a response from us Brits, being as we were, brought up on dodgy stereotypes and German-bashing, so we see them as either objects of mockery as in 'Allo 'Allo, or villians to be hated outright, like in Raiders. Just a thought...

I personally find him spooky because of his Plastination stuff. What he must have had to do to develop the technique scares me. The fact that he appears to have devoted his life to cutting up dead folks scares me. The fact that he seems to enjoy it scares me. This particular show has educational value, sure, but there's no denying that this man has issues outside of that. And why won't he take the hat off?

I appreciate your response Raven, but I find televised post mortems and the term respect something of an oxymoron. The fact that it is on TV in the first place suggests an air of sensationalism that I find unpalatable. I have no issue with the interest in human anatomy. What I find somewhat disturbing is the multimedia approach to an ultra-human subject that ultimately creates a sense of inhumanity.

I understand that this is an immotive issue and you take from the box what you will. I just feel a little uneasy with all this. A carcass we all are....seemingly.

JJM

i don't understand why the presentation of this on television creates a sense of inhumanity. or why its such a ultra-human subject, all types of living things have a anatomy. would it be different, more appropriate for example, if they were cutting up an dead animal. if so, why?

its the first time this has been done on television and as its, in a sense, pushing boundaries i think this causes it to appear sensationalist.

My mums recorded this for me, i havent watched it yet though, but i know what to expect, i saw the same guy in another show, disecting, slicing etc dead people for art. So i may be slightly sickened, but im interested in that kinda stuff because i love biology (i know that sounds sad, hehe)

Watched the digestion one - I retched several times, while my flatmate revelled in the gore. Spent the rest of it watching tentatively from the doorway. It is interesting, but absolutely repulsive.

I don't know if I'm allowed to post this, but I heard that Doctor Frankenhat is the same doctor who participated in that assisted suicide in Germany, where that guy asked to be cut up. Just to clarify before I get half a dozen lawyers cluttering up my doorstep - it is just a rumour.

I may be wrong but I think you may be getting him mixed up with the German chap who killed and cut up his gay lover - or something like that . . . Not sure though - you could actually be quite correct!

I wouldn't agree to watching an animal being cut up for an audience to go 'wow' over either. It's a fine line between curoisity and ghoulishness. I don't have an issue with pushing boundaries. I do have an issue with what was once fodder for internet ghouls is now being peddled as educational science.

JJM

[QUOTE][quote=Jollyjaffaman,Jan 30 2005, 09:57 PM]
I wouldn't agree to watching an animal being cut up for an audience to go 'wow' over either. It's a fine line between curoisity and ghoulishness. I don't have an issue with pushing boundaries. I do have an issue with what was once fodder for internet ghouls is now being peddled as educational science.

JJM [/QUOTE]

I think the thing is here that in this age of CGI and knowledge of the human body, computer graphics could easily have been used. I'm not saying they should have been used, but the fact that they chose to use real bodies instead shows a certain amount of sensationalist intent.

What gets me about it is Dr Frankenhat's obvious pleasure in the dissections. It seems to me to go further than a scientific interest, and veers onto a gross kind of satisfaction. That is by far the most disturbing aspect out of many.

But a computer generated human body and a real one don't look all that similar, as the programme proved. We're much messier, denser and more complex than a simulation could ever show successfully and I think it's important that people know this. I didn't see it as sensationalist, only educational.

agreed.

Also, how do you think they would have perfected the CGI model.... by cutting up even MORE people to make sure it was perfect.

Te whole point of the show was not only to educate in the human body, but to show just how intricate and, as stella said messy it is, illustrating just how much of a miracle it is that we can grow from one cell into such a complex thing and for it to still work.

Yes, it was sensationalist, but not in the way of cutting up people, but sensationalist in showing us This is how we function every day... we don't even think about it but there are millions of processes going on in our bodies. It's amazing. It's sensational. Gunter Van scaryhat was just showing us, and came across to me like he was still genuinely fascinated by the way we work. the cadavers must have a greed, or they wouldn't have bolunteered for their bodies to be bestowed upon him.

Apparently, at Body worlds there wee forms lying around for volunteers, so the people concerned must have known that they would be somehow turned into art of some kind, weather that be on display for all eternity in plastinated form or wether it be disected on tv, they knew what they were getting into.

who, you might interested to learn, was also the Bishop of Bath and Wells in BLACKADDER II...