MYTHBUSTERS 2015 Season Thread

[Christopher]

Mythbusters is back this Saturday with its new season, pared down to just Adam and Jamie as the sole hosts, and reportedly with a back-to-basics approach. However, the first few episodes have been announced, and it looks like themed "specials" are the trend this year.

This Saturday's episode is a Simpsons special, testing whether a cherry bomb in the toilet could create a geyser-like effect and whether a person's body could block a wrecking ball from destroying a house. I gather they created a replica of the Simpsons' house and an accurately proportioned Homer surrogate for the test.

The next episode after that is "The Busters of the Lost Myths," which is an Indiana Jones-themed episode, a clip from which has already been seen (at the end of this interview). Following that are an A-Team episode, a video games episode, and a Transformers episode, of all things. So every announced episode this season is a mass-media tie-in, which seems to be a narrowing of the show's focus. It's probably a response to the success of their Star Wars special, but I hope this isn't the only thing they do from now on.

 

[Forbin]

That sounds... awful. :/

 

[Admiral2]

What the hell could they do with Transformers? Aren't giant alien sentient robots that transform into vehicles automatically a busted myth?

 

[Christopher]

They've done a lot of episodes based on fantasy franchises, just choosing to focus on a specific aspect. For instance, the Star Wars special investigated whether Luke and Leia's chasm swing would work, whether an armored vehicle could be crushed between a pair of logs, and whether being inside a tauntaun could keep Luke from freezing -- all of which were confirmed or proven plausible, as it happens. So I assume the same is true of the upcoming episodes. The Transformers episode description on Wikipedia says they'll be testing whether a car can turn into a motorcycle. That's not about alien robots, just about the sheer geometry and mechanics of the supposed transformation.

 

[Trekker4747]

Honestly, if the Transformer episode deals with Jamie and Adam building a machine that transforms from car to bipedal robot, then I am okay with that.

Tie-in episodes don't bother me so long as it's interesting in form and presentation and isn't too self serving for the network, like when they did the storm-chasers episode; or too pandering to promoting something. The Breaking Bad and Green Hornet episodes were weak, but all of the listed episodes sound like they could be interesting and it's doing it to older properties as opposed to current ones.

 

[Christopher]

Yeah... I pray they don't do any more tie-ins to other Discovery shows.

 

[Trekker4747]

Some parts of the Deadliest Catch episode was interesting but I think it could have been done without the tie-in and guest cast.

 

[intrinsical]

Personally, I can't wait for the A-Team episode. Adam Savage has said they won't be mythbusting The A-Team. Instead, its going to be like the Alcatraz episode where Jamie and Adam are going to be locked in a garage filled with power tools and a pile of junk. And like a typical A-Team episode, their goal is to try to bust out armed with custom built weapons.

 

[Takeru]

I'm not really interested, the last few years I liked the build team much more, with them gone I'm out.

 

[TheSeeker]

Has anyone seen the new opening credits yet? I just watched it, and while I like the visuals, the revamped theme song is even worse than the last one they did. I wish they would just stick with the original theme.

 

[Owain Taggart]

Honestly, if the Transformer episode deals with Jamie and Adam building a machine that transforms from car to bipedal robot, then I am okay with that.

It's all about ingenuity and how they approach it. I've already seen some people do it on Discovery Canada's Daily Planet show, including a really cool one just a few days ago. Some genius had built a working transformable vehicle that looked pretty good to boot. Been trying to find that clip online but no luck so far.

 

[Christopher]

Promising news: Discovery has a new executive who's distancing himself from the fraudulent, sensationalist sorts of programs that have been on the network recently and saying he plans to get rid of them.

http://insidetv.ew.com/2015/01/08/discovery-anaconda-sharks/

He's mainly talking about the fictitious Megalodon shark special and some recent controversial thing about a guy being eaten (or not) by an anaconda, but hopefully this also means an end to stuff like that Moonshiners thing that the Mythbusters did a crossover with, and that Amish Mafia thing -- blatantly fictional shows passing themselves off as documentaries. It's not as emphatic a statement as I'd prefer, with some hedging (like how if shows in that vein were already commissioned, they'd go ahead and air them), but hopefully we'll get a shift away from that sensationalist crap and back toward the kind of science and nature shows that Discovery is supposed to feature.

The new guy also says he plans to broaden the network's appeal to families and not just men, which could also be good. I feel like Mythbusters was sometimes under too much pressure to be like all those testosterone-laden motorcycle-building and blowing-stuff-up shows on Discovery. I mean, I like the focus on building and invention in the show, but I like it for the science content and the creative problem-solving, which isn't so much a feature of the other such shows I've glimpsed on the network in recent years.

And hopefully this bodes well for Tory, Grant, and Kari getting a show that's science-oriented and non-sensationalistic.

 

[Trekker4747]

Yeah, I mean a second Mythbusters show with the Jr. Mythbusters wouldn't be bad to have. Then we could potentially have two hours of these kinds of experiments and tests rather than trying to compress two experiments into one single hour.

 

[Marc]

For Canadians, Discovery Canada has caught up with the 21st Century and no big wait for the new season. According to my PVR new eps start on Monday Jan 19th.

 

[Owain Taggart]

That's good news, Christopher. Thanks for that. Good stuff to look forward to, I hope!

 

[Christopher]

Has anyone seen the new opening credits yet? I just watched it, and while I like the visuals, the revamped theme song is even worse than the last one they did. I wish they would just stick with the original theme.

I don't have a problem with the new theme. I do kind of miss the old title format, though I guess by this point it's no longer necessary to define "Who are the Mythbusters?"

As for the new format, I like the greater attention to procedural detail and science. The onscreen infotext popups are a nice touch, although they go by a little too fast for me. I do miss the contrast of going back and forth from Adam and Jamie to Kari, Grant, and Tory. Having just the same two hosts throughout the whole hour is a little... monotonous in comparison. I guess I can readjust, though.

As for the actual myths:

The cherry bomb myth was actually quite interesting and informative. Some interesting physics going on. The bit about a gunpowder fuse being able to burn underwater was intriguing. And the power of water to transmit explosive force is really kind of scary.

I have to wonder, though, if putting a cherry bomb in a toilet is so destructive and dangerous, where did the episode writers get the idea for Bart to do it? Was it an exaggeration of a prank involving firecrackers?

As for the wrecking-ball myth, Jamie's hemispherical auger and hole-digging method to cast the wrecking ball were ingenious. Really impressive stuff. The Homer build was a bit more disappointing, because I was expecting a full-on ballistics-gel-and-fake-skeleton human analog that just happened to be proportioned like Homer Simpson, but instead they just went with foam latex. I mean, I didn't just want to see whether the house would survive, I wanted to see whether Homer would survive. It looked to me like he probably would've broken all his ribs and his pelvis with that impact.


I liked the Simpsons clips interspersed through the episode. A nice reminder of the early years when the show was actually good. And they included my favorite line, "In this house we obey the laws of thermodynamics!"

 

[Trekker4747]

I'm assuming they went without the ballistics gel and some-form-of skeleton for testing whether Homer would survive because I think it's pretty obvious he would not. Being between a solid brick wall (well, chimney) and a moving 5,000 lb ball isn't conducive to a long life.

The cherry bomb test was sort of interesting particularly in the recreation of actual plumbing but I have the same questions Christopher does in regards to the cherry bomb. I assume they used an amount of explosive similar to a cherry bomb but then that does beg the question on where the idea of doing such a thing comes from if doing it is so damaging to the the plumbing and toilets.

Given all of the explosives and other illegal materials and things they've done on this show I'm surprised they couldn't get permission to use a real cherry bomb.

It's also a bit odd to me they couldn't get the proper equipment or gear to be more effective with the wrecking ball. (It's similarly odd to me that a 5,000 wrecking ball, even moving, is enough to potentially tip over a crane that weighs vastly more than that.) I also wonder if the houses' lack of four walls and a roof had impact on how they absorbed, er, the impact. Seems to me with just the one wall, the center wall, and some bracing the "house" wasn't as rigid as a real one would be. Though, I guess as tested it more or less proved the idea.

The small-scale and plumbing tests were more interesting to me in this episode.

On the new format:

I didn't too much care for the opening segue into the week's focus. It just seemed odd. There were a few episodes in the previous season where they did intros like this that played fairly well but this one's just sort of felt off. Maybe because Jamie and Adam were playing too much of characters rather than "themselves."

Although I miss the Jr. team, I'm okay with the show focusing more on Jamie and Adam and their building and testing of their methods. The "tool tip" pop-ups were interesting and liked the more discussion on the physics and stuff of what is going on. (Which IIRC, is closer to what Jamie originally planned for the show they but couldn't do at first and it became the blueprint sequences.)

I miss the opening theme but, meh. Whatever.

The "vibe" of the show felt somewhat off. It didn't seem to have quite the same "energy" to it It might just be adjusting to the new soundtrack and overall format but it just didn't seem to spark as much.

I know the first few episodes are more-or-less centered around other properties (A-Team, Indiana Jones) which is fine but I hope after that they break out into doing tests and "myths" that aren't tied to a property.

I just can't help but feel something was overlooked in the toilet tests. Like the plumbing being secured or encased in something below the floor. In a real situation the plumbing just isn't hanging there it's either encased in the concrete of the floor or in a maintenance room/garage where it's bracketed and/or bolted to walls and the ceiling. It's not just "floating" there. I also wonder if in the full-scale of different severity of a clog, no clog, or different placement of the bomb would have gotten better results. Seems like, maybe, they should have ramped up the full-scale test from least-likely to most-likely in a similar fashion instead of going balls-to-the-wall right away.

Still, good to see the show back and I'm sure the new format and "feel" of the show will settle in sooner or later.

 

[Christopher]

Given all of the explosives and other illegal materials and things they've done on this show I'm surprised they couldn't get permission to use a real cherry bomb.

Well, they did, once they were on the bomb range under proper supervision. A cherry bomb is just a core of flash powder or black powder inside a hardened sawdust sphere embedded with a fuse. That's what they apparently used in the test to see if the fuse would burn underwater. For the final tests, they swapped out the fuse for an electric detonator for controllability, but I assume the explosive was the same.

(It's similarly odd to me that a 5,000 wrecking ball, even moving, is enough to potentially tip over a crane that weighs vastly more than that.)

It's about leverage. It's pretty far out from the crane's center of mass to start with.

The "tool tip" pop-ups were interesting and liked the more discussion on the physics and stuff of what is going on. (Which IIRC, is closer to what Jamie originally planned for the show they but couldn't do at first and it became the blueprint sequences.)

It does feel like a return to form in terms of the content, with an updated presentation.

I just can't help but feel something was overlooked in the toilet tests. Like the plumbing being secured or encased in something below the floor. In a real situation the plumbing just isn't hanging there it's either encased in the concrete of the floor or in a maintenance room/garage where it's bracketed and/or bolted to walls and the ceiling. It's not just "floating" there. I also wonder if in the full-scale of different severity of a clog, no clog, or different placement of the bomb would have gotten better results. Seems like, maybe, they should have ramped up the full-scale test from least-likely to most-likely in a similar fashion instead of going balls-to-the-wall right away.

I don't see how the status of the pipes under the floor would've made any difference. The dealbreaker was the narrowness of the water channels inside the toilets themselves. They just didn't have the capacity to handle that much water at once, so it was as if the water hit a wall. That's why it blew out the sides. I don't think embedding or bolting the pipes would've absorbed enough force from the water to prevent that effect; on the contrary, I think it would've had the opposite result, absorbing less force, because there'd be less flexibility in the pipes to absorb kinetic energy through deformation. So it would probably have been slightly worse under those conditions.

 

[drychlick]

I Love it the mythbusters are back ! Better than ever! ! I will miss Karl but it like going back to the begaining ! ! great show !A+

 

[Trekker4747]

I Love it the mythbusters are back ! Better than ever! ! I will miss Karl but it like going back to the begaining ! ! great show !A+