Ahh, Shark Week: nature porn at its finest and the best reason to watch the Discovery Channel apart from Bear Grylls. Shark Week kicked off their 20th consecutive year of death-cage footage, marred surfers and dramatic reenactments last night with the two-hour special about the sinking of the USS Indianapolis, Ocean of Fear: Worst Shark Attack Ever.

If you don’t remember the story of the Indianapolis from that eerie scene in Jaws, the special opens with a nice clip. It’s pretty much all down hill from there. Richard Dreyfus somewhat appropriately provides the narration, though the monologue was delivered by Robert Shaw in the film. But Shaw is neither famous nor among the living, so he was not given the honor.

Dreyfus kindly recaps the facts… 900 men got off the Indianapolis alive, and two thirds of them were dead by the time they were rescued. An unknown number of these deaths are attributed to sharks, but by the end of the two hours we know that it probably wasn’t many of them. We also learn that drinking salt water can have the same effect as the green smoke that made Willem Dafoe really strong and shithouse rat crazy in Spiderman.

Had Ocean of Fear served as the opening ceremony for “Salt Water Week” it may have been an appropriate choice; boring courthouse testimonials and shark-shaped CGI shadows are not what I’ve come to associate with this typically awesome time of year. Pass on Ocean of Fear and stick with repeat viewings of standards like Robo Shark and Air Jaws. They won’t do you wrong.