Despite thousands of years of evolution, the modern predator community has only one natural enemy: Chris Hansen. Forget aliens—for the past decade-plus, Hansen Vs. Predator has been the true blockbuster showdown in popular culture. And now, television has decided to throw in the towel on pretending we want anything but that, as Deadline reports Hansen is set to begin a new feature called, yes, “Hansen Vs . Predator.”
Actually, the segment will be one part of a revamped version of Crime Watch Daily, the Emmy-nominated syndicated series of which Hansen has just signed on as host, beginning with its season-two premiere on September 12. Crime Watch Daily With Chris Hansen, as it will now be known, still plans to utilize the Los Angeles-set newsroom, but Hansen will anchor the show from New York City—an odd choice, given predators’ history of invading L.A. and tussling with Danny Glover. Still, the new “Hansen Vs. Predator” section of the program will be an exciting new brand extension for Hansen, as it will push him outside of his comfort zone of confronting child predators. (When your comfort zone involves “confronting child predators,” it may be time to consider alternative lines of work.)
Hansen will now be confronting predators of all kinds: in addition to exploring all the many exciting ways child predators can exploit new forms of social media, he will also be targeting “predatory teachers, dirty politicians, financial scammers, and even celebrities.” Yes, celebrities, the biggest predators of all, who prey on the minds of those willing to be entertained by good-looking and charismatic people. Monsters, really. Hansen will still continue to host the ID series Killer Instinct while he takes over these new duties, because—as Hansen would be the first to admit—when you’ve been wedded to fighting predators for so long, you’ve got to experiment and mess around with other programs in the spirit of keeping things fresh. Otherwise, you end up in a predator rut, with both you and the predator complaining to your therapist that the spark is gone.