There are some television hosting decisions that just don’t make sense. For example, as much as we all loved Summer Sanders, why was an Olympic champion swimmer the face behind Nickelodeon’s Figure It Out, a show about kids with weird-as-hell skills? Being great at swimming wasn’t a weird skill, after all. So upon hearing that Megan Fox would be hosting a Travel Channel show — one about the world’s mysteries and myths — the assumption was that this would be another hosting decision that just didn’t make sense.
Since then, Megan Fox has made it clear that, actually, it does make sense. In fact, she’s kind of an archaeology nerd — she made that clear long before the show was announced — which already puts her a step ahead of Summer Sanders. As a result, Fox has gifted us all with a series that might be too late to put on your official end of the year TV list but certainly deserves an honorable mention: Legends of the Lost with Megan Fox.
Without revealing too much, the first episode of this four-episode docuseries, “Viking Women Warriors,” is an absolute rollercoaster of emotion. Even acknowledging Fox’s noted love of history, archaeology, and the mysteries of the universe, it’s still kind surreal to watch her go around with a walking stick in the Scandinavian woods and call upon her spirit guides during a Viking vision-quest in the middle of the night. Seriously — that actually happens, though it’s not as exciting as it may sound because eventually, you’re just watching a person you don’t know have a vision-quest in the middle of the night.
If you’re watching this series due to a bizarre fascination with what Megan Fox is even doing with a Travel Channel show — and whether you’re a fan of Fox or not, that’s probably why you’re watching — that’s understandable, and Legends of the Lost with Megan Fox has all the moments you expect. Yes, the first episode has her talking a lot about spirits and energies (there is, in fact, much ado about energies); yes, there’s the aforementioned walking stick and a shot of Fox with binoculars, as well as a moment on a cliff; yes, there are slow-mo shots of Megan Fox taking the majesty of these discoveries all in, which could honestly make up their own show; yes, there’s an impressive amount of time in a theoretically educational series spent on the idea that maybe magic is actually real. That last one is, of course, the selling point in combination with Megan Fox, because Megan Fox going on about the possibility of magic actually being real — whether the historical experts chime in in response or not — is how you get a show like this greenlit.
That all said, Legends of the Lost with Megan Fox isn’t quite the wacky conspiracy theory romp one would imagine or even hope for it to be, but whenever Megan Fox gets into the “alternative theories” aspects of these topics, you can tell that’s when the show really comes to play. Next week’s second episode is “Stonehenge: The Healing Stones,” and one can only imagine the reason it’s not the premiere is that a) it would both be too obvious and b) because the series/Travel Channel doesn’t want to come in too hot. In fact, all of the magic talk in “Viking Women Warriors” is somewhat understated, since it’s mostly in the context of Norse religion.
Still, you know those people who have to frame every possible thing through the context of Harry Potter and/or Lord of the Rings? Megan Fox can really be like that at times… which means now when you’re explaining to people that Megan Fox hosts a Travel Channel show, you can mention that she occasionally brings up Professor Snape in conversations with noted historians in the course of doing so. And during the opening titles voiceover Fox actually begins a sentence with the words “As an actress.” There’s not a long pause between those words and the rest of the sentence, but it almost feels like there is. You know where this is going to go, right? It’s going to justify that her being an actress makes her an archaeological and historical authority in some way, shape, or form. But then she, naturally, continues the sentence: “I’ve been lucky enough to peek behind the curtain at some of these ancient sites. And it’s ignited an insatiable curiosity in me to learn more about these lost worlds.”
Phew.
While it’s still hard to believe any of this is happening, almost immediately into Legends of the Lost with Megan Fox, Megan Fox acknowledges the immense amount of privilege she’s been granted in order to be able to do all of this and to be able to host a Travel Channel show. Imagine any other Transformers actor doing that. I mean, I can maybe imagine Rachael Taylor acknowledging her privilege, but do you think that Josh Duhamel would? Legends of the Lost with Megan Fox isn’t just the type of show anyone could host, so yeah, actually, everything about it makes perfect sense.
(For the record: I don’t imagine Shia LaBeouf would ever create or host his own Travel Channel show, but that’s mostly because it would be too normal of an option for him to choose.)
‘Legends of the Lost with Megan Fox’ debuts tonight (Tuesday, December 4), on the Travel Channel at 8 pm ET.
