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News Mythbusters to return with new cast.

Turtletrekker

Turtletrekker

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Full article.
MythBusters will explode back on to Science Channel this fall with all-new episodes and an all new-team. Brian Louden and Jon Lung, who earned the right to be called MythBusters by displaying killer build skills and science smarts during MythBusters: The Search, will showcase their awesome talents by building and executing new experiments involving rocket powered swords, exploding gas tanks, airbag disasters and more. The new 14-episode season of MythBusters will debut on Wednesday, November 15 at 9 p.m. ET/PT. Here's what Marc Etkind, General Manager of Science Channel, had to say in a statement.
  • "As evidenced by their amazing work on MythBusters: The Search, Brian and Jon are clearly superstars with a knack for building and executing creative and mind-blowing experiments. We couldn't be more excited to bring the next generation of MythBusters to Science Channel."
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I guess the ratings are good enough to keep this re-visioning going. Or it's one of the highest-rated shows on the channel.
 
I'm a little surprised this is actually happening. The rewards promised to the winners in "reality" shows often fail to materialize in a meaningful way.

I wasn't crazy about Mythbusters: The Search because it was too much a "reality" show and not enough about the science and methodology. So I'm skeptical if this revival will live up to the original. I'll give it a chance, but I'm wary.
 
Christopher said:
I wasn't crazy about Mythbusters: The Search because it was too much a "reality" show and not enough about the science and methodology. So I'm skeptical if this revival will live up to the original. I'll give it a chance, but I'm wary.
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I haven't watched the show, but it's certainly possible that it was edited in such a way to make the drama stand out more while cutting out much of the science that an audience never got to see, but if that's the case, it's kind of an odd thing to do on a search for a show supposedly using science. For all we know, he could actually be quite good. It does feel a bit like mixed priorities though.
 
Owain Taggart said:
I haven't watched the show, but it's certainly possible that it was edited in such a way to make the drama stand out more while cutting out much of the science that an audience never got to see, but if that's the case, it's kind of an odd thing to do on a search for a show supposedly using science.
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It was more than that. It was the parameters they used for judging myths Busted/Plausible/Confirmed. Like the time where they got a result showing that something appeared to work 4 out of 7 times -- as close to a random 50/50 outcome as you can get with a sample of 7 -- and called it "barely Plausible" instead of "Busted." That's just failing math. Also, there was too much of an emphasis on "winning" against the other team, with a negative outcome being seen as a failure. Science is about learning, not winning. Whether your attempt succeeds or fails, you learn something from it, and that's what matters. A failure can be as instructive as a success -- if not more so.

Also, it wasn't very good training for future Mythbusters, because the show's host did all the B/P/C determinations instead of letting the candidates/contestants make the decision. Of course, I'm sure Adam, Jamie, and the rest had input from the producers and writers in making those calls, but I believe they were still part of the process.

For all we know, he could actually be quite good. It does feel a bit like mixed priorities though.
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Which "he" do you mean? There are two new hosts, and they both seem entirely qualified, though I don't think they were the most charismatic of the contestants. The problem wasn't with the candidates, it was with the format and approach. If you want to pick new Mythbusters, fine, but do it behind-the-scenes, so that it can be strictly about qualifications instead of being an artificial competition for entertainment purposes.
 
Christopher said:
Which "he" do you mean? There are two new hosts, and they both seem entirely qualified, though I don't think they were the most charismatic of the contestants.
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Sorry, I forgot about the other one. Overall, it does really seem like it was an awful reality show and that the format was unsuited for its purpose. Kind of ironic, really. I agree, they should have just bypassed the reality show altogether. But I suspect they did this mostly to gain interest in a next-gen version.
 
In a perfect world, the torch would have been passed to Kari, Grant and Tory, the rightful heirs. TPTB dumping them from the show prior to the final season was a huge mistake.
 
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Christopher said:
I wasn't crazy about Mythbusters: The Search because it was too much a "reality" show and not enough about the science and methodology.
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I haven't watched The Search so I don't know how comparable it is, but in the early seasons of the original Mythbusters there was an effort to ramp up the conflict that was apparently the doing of a producer who was deliberately provoking arguments on set to try and add drama. Fortunately the producer was removed and they dropped that aspect.
 
captainkirk said:
I haven't watched The Search so I don't know how comparable it is, but in the early seasons of the original Mythbusters there was an effort to ramp up the conflict that was apparently the doing of a producer who was deliberately provoking arguments on set to try and add drama. Fortunately the producer was removed and they dropped that aspect.
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Well, luckily The Search didn't play up the conflict too much -- not on a personal level, anyway, although there was sort of a designated Not a Team Player guy who kept going off and doing his own thing or coming up with wild ideas that didn't work. But there wasn't too much of that kind of contrivance. I just meant that the focus on the competition and the team-vs.-team approach detracted from a focus on the process and science. The most Mythbustery episode was the last one, where they were down to only a few contestants and had them all work as a single team rather than competing teams. So that episode was able to go into more detail on a single effort rather than splitting its attention between two or three parallel efforts and playing up the contrast between them.
 
Christopher said:
Well, luckily The Search didn't play up the conflict too much -- not on a personal level, anyway, although there was sort of a designated Not a Team Player guy who kept going off and doing his own thing or coming up with wild ideas that didn't work. But there wasn't too much of that kind of contrivance. I just meant that the focus on the competition and the team-vs.-team approach detracted from a focus on the process and science. The most Mythbustery episode was the last one, where they were down to only a few contestants and had them all work as a single team rather than competing teams. So that episode was able to go into more detail on a single effort rather than splitting its attention between two or three parallel efforts and playing up the contrast between them.
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Like I said, I haven't watched it so I can't comment on the specifics, but it having the presenters compete seems like the wrong approach because they're supposed to work together on a single project, rather than competing to see who's the best.
 
captainkirk said:
Like I said, I haven't watched it so I can't comment on the specifics, but it having the presenters compete seems like the wrong approach because they're supposed to work together on a single project, rather than competing to see who's the best.
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Well, they had competing teams, not individuals. And they were working pretty much separately in the planning and building phase, so it was only in the final testing phase that they were pitted directly against each other. That structure was really part of the problem. A test that went wrong was treated as a "loss" rather than just more data to be used in planning out the next test.

There was a rather nice bit in one episode where one of the two teams was so far ahead of schedule in completing its build that they actually went over and helped the other team catch up. So it's not like this was some nasty cutthroat thing; it was a friendly competition. It's just that the "reality competition" format had different demands than proper Mythbusting.

As I said, though, none of this should really affect the new show, since it's going to be just the new duo busting myths the usual way. I don't think they should be judged negatively just because of the problematical design of the "search." They both seem qualified enough, although I doubt they'll have the same odd-couple chemistry that made Adam and Jamie so much fun. And I do wish they'd picked more than two hosts and had a woman on the team.
 
captainkirk said:
So the complete opposite of "Failure is always an option"?
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I wouldn't go that far. After all, if both/all teams failed, then the myth was declared Busted. It's just that the competition format was less than ideal for Mythbusting. One other problem is that they had a strict time limit and so they often had to make do with rough or flawed designs.

Anyway, it's over now, so there's little point in continuing to dissect it. As I've said, the new season shouldn't have the same problems because it won't be a competition format anymore. (At least, no more than occasionally, as they sometimes did with Adam and Jamie.)
 
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