Reception
The program had 1.676 million viewers in late October 2010, 2.034 million viewers in mid-December (for the "Unexplained Structures" episode) and in late January 2011 it had 1.309 million viewers.
Some reviewers have characterized the show as "far-fetched", "hugely speculative", and "...expound wildly on theories suggesting that astronauts wandered the Earth freely in ancient times." Many of the ideas presented in the show are not accepted by the scientific community, and have been criticized as pseudoscience and pseudohistory. History professor Ronald H. Fritze observed that pseudoscience as offered by von Däniken and the Ancient Aliens program has a periodic popularity in America: "In a pop culture with a short memory and a voracious appetite, aliens and pyramids and lost civilizations are recycled like fashions."
Forbes.com contributor Brad Lockwood criticized Ancient Aliens as an example of the History Channel's addition of "programs devoted to monsters, aliens and conspiracies", commenting that, "Ancient Aliens defies all ability to suspend disbelief for the sake of entertainment." Forbes.com staff writer Alex Knapp also criticized the series and cited archaeologist Keith Fitzpatrick-Matthews rebuke of the History Channel for "treating (Ancient Aliens) nonsense as though it were fact."
Smithsonian.com science writer Brian Switek was extremely critical of the series, particularly an episode that suggested "aliens exterminated dinosaurs to make way for our species". He characterized the show as "some of the most noxious sludge in television’s bottomless chum bucket."
Read more about this topic: Ancient Aliens
Famous quotes containing the word reception:
“But in the reception of metaphysical formula, all depends, as regards their actual and ulterior result, on the pre-existent qualities of that soil of human nature into which they fall—the company they find already present there, on their admission into the house of thought.”
—Walter Pater (1839–1894)
“I gave a speech in Omaha. After the speech I went to a reception elsewhere in town. A sweet old lady came up to me, put her gloved hand in mine, and said, “I hear you spoke here tonight.” “Oh, it was nothing,” I replied modestly. “Yes,” the little old lady nodded, “that’s what I heard.””
—Gerald R. Ford (b. 1913)
“He’s leaving Germany by special request of the Nazi government. First he sends a dispatch about Danzig and how 10,000 German tourists are pouring into the city every day with butterfly nets in their hands and submachine guns in their knapsacks. They warn him right then. What does he do next? Goes to a reception at von Ribbentropf’s and keeps yelling for gefilte fish!”
—Billy Wilder (b. 1906)