You might think it ridiculous and even dangerous to put dogs behind the yoke of a plane and let them try to fly it, but that won’t stop some people from trying. Case in point, Dogs Might Fly, a new TV show from the UK that plans to train some dogs to fly a plane.

While the internet has plenty of videos of dogs driving cars, planes are an entirely different matter. The sheer number of things that could go wrong makes it sound like a foolhardy exercise, but it’s a risk the makers of the show are willing to take in a bid to demonstrate that dogs have “distinct personalities and incredible levels of intelligence.”

“People give up on them too easily and this series will show us why we shouldn’t,” presenter Jamie Theakston told The Telegraph. “They are just as deserving and just as intelligent. Even if a dog has been deprived of human contact or has been badly treated, it is just as able and motivated to initiate a new relationship with a human very quickly.”

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In a bid to get African youth interested in current affairs, Newz Beat, a Ugandan original news program features ‘rap-orters’ who rap headlines to hip hop beats.

Hip-hop is probably the last thing you’d expect to hear when listening to a news bulletin, which is exactly what makes Newz Beat so intriguing. Yahoo news reports that the show is quite relevant in Uganda, where the press faces lots of problems with censorship, and the youth aren’t too interested in what’s happening around them. A program that features ‘rap-orters’ instead of traditional anchors is actually quite refreshing.

The offbeat show consists of five-minute episodes aired every Saturday on NTV, just before the station’s traditional news bulletin. Each episode covers about four regional and international stories and is recorded in both English and the local language, Luganda. The show is broadcast on air, but since over 90% of Ugandan households don’t have electricity, Newz Beat is also distributed through video halls, where people can get together and watch it.

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A Czech TV show is making waves for its controversial format, depicting the brutal lives of ordinary people under Nazi rule. The reality show, titled ‘Holiday in the Protectorate’, features a modern family living in recreated conditions of the German occupation during the WWII. A prize money of 1 million Czech Krunas (over $40,000) awaits the family if they manage to survive the two-month ordeal.

The three-generation family was selected after rigorous auditions in which 200 other families participated. The show was recorded in the summer of 2014, and the 8 hour-long episodes will be airing from May 23 to June 13. Although the family participated in normal tasks typical of that time period, like harvesting crops or milking cows, they also went through wartime struggles like food rationing, frequent hunger, simulated air raids, intimidation by Nazi informants, and interrogations by the Gestapo.

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Spike TV recently announced it’s working on a reality series called “Last Family on Earth” which will feature survivalists competing to show how resourceful they can be in various extreme situations. The winning family will receive a bunker in an undisclosed location, to improve their chances of surviving Armageddon.

The calendar of the ancient Mayan civilization predicts the world will end in December of 2012, and with rumors of an impending zombie apocalypse and news stories about crazy cannibals spurring up in the last few weeks, some people are finding it hard not to succumb to the paranoia. So I guess the Spike television network couldn’t have picked a better time to announce their upcoming reality show, Last Family on Earth, in which several families of convinced survivalists will complete to win an actual underground bunker.

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A creepy show capturing the last moments of criminals on death row – that might sound like the worst kind of reality TV, but “Interviews Before Execution” has been hugely popular in China, where it was first aired on Henan Legal Channel on 18^th November, 2006. After over 5 years, the show ended last Friday.

As a part of the reality show, journalist Ding Yu would interview a person on death row every week in almost cruel detail. So yes, every person featured on the show was a hardened criminal, whose fate had already been sealed – in death. Sometimes, the criminals were recorded speaking just minutes before their execution, many describing the details of their crimes, displaying remorse and even begging for forgiveness at times. It sure does sound like an unnecessary exploitation of people who are about to die, but the creators of the show have a different perspective. Lu Pejin, the director of the Legal Channel says that the purpose of the show was to warn audiences. “If they are warned, tragedies might be averted. That is good for society.”

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It’s crazy what people will do on TV for ratings. Now , TV hosts on a Dutch channel are going to eat each other. Literally. Just to see what human flesh tastes like. This might just be the first time cannibalism is broadcast on Live TV.

Guinea Pigs is a show on the Dutch TV channel, BNN. Valerio Zeno and Dennis Storm, the hosts, are going to have their flesh extracted surgically from their sides and buttocks. And then the meat will be served to each of them. Gross! According to Valerio, ever since he saw a movie in which the survivors of a plane crash eat each other to stay alive, he’s always wondered how that would taste. Now he’s finally getting the opportunity to find out. Storm, however, says that he never wondered about this before, but now that he has his chance, he’s taking it. And he’ll always be able to tell people, in response to being asked about the scar on his butt cheek, that Valerio ate him. Read More »

Weg van Nederland is a televised game show that supposedly pits asylum seekers against each other for the chance to win a cash prize before being deported to their home countries.

Translated as “Leaving the Netherlands”, Weg van Nederland will air on the VPRO channel this Thursday, and while it sounds like a big joke, VPRO editor-n-chief Frank Wiering says contestants are real unsuccessful asylum seekers who have to leave the country in a month or two. They are offered the chance to compete for a $5600 cash prize to take with them when they get deported. Contestants have to answer questions about Dutch culture, history and language, to prove which of them learned most about the Netherlands during their stay in the country. Losers get consolation prizes like tulip bulbs and bulletproof vests.

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