 The annual Shark Week television marathon puts many marine biologists and shark enthusiasts on edge. We love that it draws attention to sharks and that it sometimes includes some real science and conservation. We hate the way it's done: maximum menace and blood, a two-note soundtrack and, occasionally, a gross indifference to facts. 
 
 The Discovery Channel, which bills itself as the "#1 nonfiction media company" opened this year's Shark Week with a fictional "documentary". Confused? Apparently, the producers were, too. They opened the documentary these words: 
 
 None of the institutions or agencies that appear in the film are affiliated with it in any way, nor have approved its contents. Though certain events and characters in this film have been dramatized, sightings of "'Submarine' continue to this day. Megalodon was a real shark. Legends of giant sharks persist all over the world. There is still a debate about what they may be. 
 
 If that reads like drivel, it's because it is (though I suspect it's true that no one with any sense approved of this film). It's also true that megalodon existed, but the film's title, Megalodon: The Monster Shark Lives, doesn't exactly point out that the animal has been extinct for two million years. 
 
 This was merely the latest example in Discovery's long trend of sensationalizing sharks and dumbing down science. Wil Wheaton put it well: 
 
 Remember when #SharkWeek was about science and biology and learning? — Wil Wheaton (@wilw) August 5, 2013 
 
 Christie Wilcox, who has long made this point, cut Discovery down to size for "peddling lies and faking stories for ratings". SyFy at least peddles nonsense honestly with its recent hit Sharknado. 
 
 Discovery's own bipolar programming illustrates why many feel ambivalent about Shark Week. A third of their primetime specials have Jaws in the title, an association that hasn't served sharks well. Others include the words "alien", "voodoo" and "serial killer", or feature awkward portmanteaus in the Sharknado style, such as "Sharkpocalypse". Marketing is one thing, but these tactics approach the ahistorical conspiracy mongering of shows like Ancient Aliens. 
 
 For every conversation with an expert, there is an interview with Tara Reid or a shrimp fisherman named Blimp. For every program that actually explores how sharks live, socialize, and evolved, there's Top Five Eaten Alive and Shark Rebellion. Many of these programs pay lip service to conservation efforts, but we've yet to see anything like the 2009 documentary The Cove's brutal exposé of dolphin fishing. Sharks do need help, and Discovery should use its clout to help them by telling the real stories. 
 
 Shark attacks on people are extremely rare, yet they get plenty of screen time. Survivors' stories can be inspirational, but Discovery often plays them for fear, airing "dramatic reenactments" and using the same camera tricks that made Steven Spielberg's monster movie famous. This mimicry of horror tropes doesn't tell us anything about sharks except – wrongly – to fear them. 
 
 What happened? Shark Week has been an institution for over 20 years, and it's undoubtedly helped raise awareness, dispel myths, and make people interested in sharks. Perhaps success went to the executives' heads; one insists about megalodon: "The stories have been out there for years and with 95% of the ocean unexplored, who really knows?"" This is the talk of a very cynical man or a true believer in the lost tribe of the yeti. 
 
 But this isn't Yeti Week, it's Shark Week, and Discovery needs to remember that. Shark Week needs more sharks. I don't mean more footage of great whites breaching, which, although spectacular, can only be repeated so many times. Sharks are too diverse and strange to limit to top 10 lists and slow motion HD. Show us the rest of cast. 
 
 How about threshers tail-whipping sardines? Or angels lunging out of the mud, wobbegongs hiding in caves, and cookiecutters glowing. 
 
 Porbeagles merit some air time, too. Warm-blooded and hyperactive, like their bigger, more famous relative the great white, the young sharks roll in kelp and chase each other around. If these were sea lions or dolphins, there'd be no question that the animals were at play. 
 
 And great whites, who've gotten all the press, haven't had their full story told, either. They sometimes move in "clans", have splash fights, and seem to have complex social lives, despite their solitary hunting habits. They fear killer whales; after an orca dispatched a great white, the entire region's population of sharks vanished, including a tracked shark who dove 500m and then swam to Hawaii to escape. 
 
 Discovery made its name as a champion for science, but it's been abandoning that mission for years. Shark Week was once a paean to marine biology. It's been reduced to a monster movie disguised as documentary. Wheaton has called for an apology, saying that the channel "betrayed its audience". He's right, and if Discovery wants Shark Week to remain beloved, it needs to right its ship. 
 
 If it doesn't, Shark Week may not survive – at least not in any recognizable form. Sensation may sell in the short term, but it's going to keep irking viewers until only a few remain. Worse, it misrepresents sharks as mindless killers, rather than the important, diverse animals they are. Discovery owes its annual success and fans' loyalty to them. It would be doing right by the fish, the viewers, and us to get back to them.
– The Discovery Channel's Shark Week is under way again, but it can't end soon enough for Alan Yuhas at the Guardian. Discovery now prefers schlock to science, as evidenced by the fictional documentary Megalodon: The Monster Shark Lives that kicked off this year's festivities. When it began 20-plus years ago, Shark Week actually served a useful purpose in educating people about sharks and marine biology. Now, it's a joke. "Discovery made its name as a champion for science, but it's been abandoning that mission for years," complains Yuhas. The network is reinforcing the myth that sharks are mindless man-eaters instead of "the important, diverse animals they are." Can't we talk about real sharks? After all, Discovery owes its success to them. "It would be doing right by the fish" and the viewers to do so. Click for his full column. Need a dissenting view? Let's not forget that Discovery is a "for-profit business," writes Marc E. Babej at Forbes, who notes that Megalodon was a huge ratings success. "Anyone who relies on Discovery’s Shark Week for their education about sharks isn’t too serious about scholarship to begin with," he adds. Critics should lighten up and enjoy. Click for his full column.