‘Trafficked’ delves into dark places
Money, guns and indifference loom large in the series “Trafficked With Mariana van Zeller” (9 p.m., National Geographic, TV-14), now entering its third season.
Over the course of 10 episodes, the investigative journalist will invite viewers into dangerous corners of the world where criminals are making fortunes in shadowy black markets.
In tonight’s season opener, van Zeller explores the illicit trade in human organs, a gruesome underground economy said to be worth more than $1.5 billion. Shady brokers facilitate a tourist trade matching buyers from wealthy countries with sellers from the most desperately poor corners of the globe, eager to part with a kidney to ease their plight.
Next week’s installment (Jan. 25) enters the confusing world of LSD production and sale. While many have embraced “micro-dosing” as a reputable treatment for human ailments, the synthetic hallucinogen remains illegal, creating a lucrative black market for the chemists able to cook it up.
Other episodes explore the trade in untraceable “ghost guns” (Feb. 1); black-market oil sales that fund terrorist organizations (Feb. 8), MDMA (Feb. 15) and black-market babies (Feb. 22). The season concludes on March 22 with a look at illegal fight clubs.
Each of these dark demimondes might be the setting of a big-screen thriller or at least an episode of a CBS procedural.
› The History Channel continues its flight from the subject of history and toward a comfort zone for men of a certain age who can’t be bothered with the troubling aspects of examining the past.
Today’s example is the debut of “Dirty Old Cars” (10 p.m., TV-PG). The show revolves around the discovery or purchase of old cars without major mechanical problems that require only a good bath and some cosmetic work to be resold or “flipped.” Sounds like fun, but nothing to do with “history.”
Let’s face it, history has always been a burden for some. James Joyce’s celebrated character Stephen Dedalus famously observed that “History is a nightmare from which I am trying to awake.” Before darkening his reputation with mad conspiracy theories and dubious deeds, automobile pioneer Henry Ford dismissed the practicality of studying the past at all. “History,” he declared, “is more or less bunk.” He said that before opening his own museum, the Greenfield Village in Dearborn, Michigan, a site dedicated to preserving the memory (and myths) of small-town rural America.
The History Channel’s departure from its titular subject predated the political movement to literally outlaw the study of certain troubling subjects.
So you can see why the corporate snowflakes running the History Channel might want to reduce history to “Dirty Old Cars.” Let’s just rebrand the History Channel as the Guy Channel and be done with it.
› Of course, there are different ways of exploring and explaining history. “WildHeart” on “Nature” (8 p.m., PBS, TV-PG, check local listings) looks back at five centuries of Scottish history as witnessed by a 500-year-old Scots pine tree that has stood in the highlands since the time of Mary, Queen of Scots (1542-1587).
› The Roku Channel continues its expansion into original streaming programming with “The Cupcake Guys,” following three former NFL players who team up to open a sweetshop.