Starting on
Discovery Channel in May, 2009:
Top TrumpsPremiered: Friday, 1 May 2009 at 21h00
Inspired by the card game, Top Trumps is a series that brings the card game and statistics surrounding it to life.
Hosted by British actor and presenter Robert Llewellyn and presenter Ashley Hames, each episode centres round a different theme, including fire engines, rescue rigs, super yachts, super jets, mammoth earthmovers and warships.
Each player competes by choosing two top fact categories and tries to outdo their competitor. The Top Trumps computer chooses a fifth mystery category and the players then reveal their statistics.
Sneak Peak WeekPremiered: Monday, 4 May 2009 at 16h30
Runs: Monday, 4 May 2009 to Friday, 8 May 2009 at 16h30
Sneak Peak Week is a new series that runs for the week that gives a teaser of upcoming Discovery Channel shows.
It features clips from the premiere episodes of various new shows including Black Gold, Industrial Junkie, Extreme Loggers, Extreme Explosions and My Shocking Story.
Hard TimePremiered: Monday, 4 May 2009 at 22h00
Hard Time explores the uncompromising reality of prison life. The show goes beyond the barbed wire and into the highest security level penitentiaries in the US.
From Spring Creek Correctional Centre, Alaska's toughest prison, to Pendleton Correctional Facility, a place which houses the most violent offenders in the state of Indiana, Hard Time captures a closed society where each day constitutes a fight for survival.
On the surface, prison life is built upon order and discipline; each shift runs like clockwork and every day is the same. Prison guards herd inmates back and forth from their cells to the food hall, but, as the show reveals, underneath this dull routine is a seedy underworld dominated by brutality and codes of honour.
Miami Ink 2Premiered: Thursday, 21 May 2009 at 13h45
Miami Ink returns to South Beach for the second season of Inked icons. The sseason resumes from the end of Season 1: Maimi Ink is now a fully-fledged success. The shop's brought Kat in full time to help handle the growing clientele and Yoji has graduated to tattooing on a regular basis.
Ami and Nunez have to step up to handle the responsibilities of a booming business and all of the artists are dealing with the idea of growing up: partying less, working more, taking care of their parents and having families.
My Shocking Story 4Premiere date: Thursday, 21 May 2009 at 22h00
A series that follows the journeys taken by people battling with extraordinary medical conditions and trying to lead normal lives.
This fourth season revisits Indonesia’s Dede Bin Ateng, aka 'Treeman', in ‘Treeman The Cure’. The show doucments the medical case, providing first-hand accounts from both Dede and his American doctor, Dr Anthony Gaspari.
Also in the spotlight: the work of Chinese face transplant surgeon Professor Guo Shuzhong as he attempts the world’s first face transplant to include bone, and the first Chinese full-face transplant.
And medical phenomenon Rudy Santos, who, with four arms and three legs, is now the world’s oldest surviving parasitic twin.
One Way OutPremiere date: Wednesday, 27 May 2009 at 21h00
The science of escape and the art of ingenuity get put to the test as escapologist Jonathan Goodwin attempts to break out of bizarre and dangerous homemade contraptions.
Whether he is tied to his kitchen table with a live scorpion trapped inside his mouth or locked inside a box on top of a shaking washing machine, his body covered in 200,000 agitated bees, Jonathan is always on the lookout for new and extreme ways to test the art and physics of escape and find One Way Out. He is joined by his best friend and chief collaborator Mikey Nelson and builder and engineer Terry Stroud.
For an exclusive interview with Jonathan see:
Discovering The Power Of Escape.