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posted by n1 on Sunday August 24 2014, @01:01AM   Printer-friendly
from the budget-cut-myth-confirmed dept.

On Thursday's episode of Mythbusters, Jamie and Adam announced Grant, Kari, and Tory were leaving at the start of the next season. There are speculations flying around such as the three perhaps were asking too much for contract renewals and/or ratings have not been doing so well.

Mythbusters certainly has its flaws, but the show is good at getting people interested in science. These departures could prove to be an unfortunate loss.

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  • (Score: 1, Interesting) by Ethanol-fueled on Sunday August 24 2014, @01:05AM

    by Ethanol-fueled (2792) on Sunday August 24 2014, @01:05AM (#84813) Homepage

    Does that mean the hot chick is leaving? She was the only reason why I watched that show!

    • (Score: -1) by Anonymous Coward on Sunday August 24 2014, @01:17AM

      by Anonymous Coward on Sunday August 24 2014, @01:17AM (#84816)

      She's old now and was probably wanting too much money. I say bring on the newer, hotter, cheaper T&A!

      • (Score: 0, Troll) by Ethanol-fueled on Sunday August 24 2014, @01:23AM

        by Ethanol-fueled (2792) on Sunday August 24 2014, @01:23AM (#84817) Homepage

        I was the kind of kid who jacked off to Peg Bundy rather than Kelly Bundy, who prefers Dr. Crusher to Counselor Troi. Not because they all had red hair, but because they were more womanly.

        Your suggestion, if heeded, would no doubt lead to bad results in this day and age. They'll end up hiring a ditzy and annoying 18 year old who looks like a 12 year-old, with an obnoxiously high-pitched artificially girly voice and fake tits, who chooses to wear 6-inch platform heels everywhere and doesn't take them off when she gets on a bed. Furthermore, she'll be spending all of her camera time tossing and adjusting her hair to gratuitously show her armpits, and will answer every response by first giggling.

        • (Score: 1, Offtopic) by Fnord666 on Sunday August 24 2014, @02:07AM

          by Fnord666 (652) on Sunday August 24 2014, @02:07AM (#84826) Homepage

          I was the kind of kid who jacked off to Peg Bundy rather than Kelly Bundy, who prefers Dr. Crusher to Counselor Troi. Not because they all had red hair, but because they were more womanly.

          Dude, your Oedipal Complex is showing.

        • (Score: 1) by pert.boioioing on Sunday August 24 2014, @06:00AM

          by pert.boioioing (1117) on Sunday August 24 2014, @06:00AM (#84870)

          who prefers Dr. Crusher to Counselor Troi. Not because they all had red hair, but because they were more womanly.

          Dude, Mr. Ethanol, I have to take issue with this statement for two reasons:

          1. Deanna Troi is virtually a perfect archetype of womanhood. This is not to diminish Dr. Crusher's womanlyness, which brings me to point two:
          2. In the immortal words of that taco-shell commercial: "Porque no los dos?" [youtube.com]

        • (Score: -1, Offtopic) by Vokbain on Sunday August 24 2014, @11:36AM

          by Vokbain (2372) on Sunday August 24 2014, @11:36AM (#84908)

          What!

          I can see back in the day, yeah.

          But now, Counsellor Troi has the most monstrous boobs!

          Seriously, who wouldn't want to wrap those around their huge junk! Or even regular sized junk! =P

          • (Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Sunday August 24 2014, @09:11PM

            by Anonymous Coward on Sunday August 24 2014, @09:11PM (#85078)

            Huge tits are disgusting. IBTs FTW

  • (Score: 2, Interesting) by bziman on Sunday August 24 2014, @01:25AM

    by bziman (3577) on Sunday August 24 2014, @01:25AM (#84818)

    The "change in direction" is always a cop-out for "we don't want to tell you what's going on". But personally, I'd like to see a little more science and a little less "let's just blow this up for the hell of it". I mean, blowing stuff up is a lot of fun for them, but for us, it really doesn't mean much. In the last few seasons, they started saying stuff like "well, we busted the myth, so now let's reproduce the results the myth wanted". Which is pointless from a science perspective, though it makes sense, given that the cast are all special effects experts.

    What I'd like to see is Kari, Grant, and Tory get their own show about special effects... maybe fans could write in with suggestions like "we want to see a monster that does this" or "how about a scene with a robot that does whatever" and they could build the props and sets for the scene and describe how they did it.

    And then Adam and Jamie can go back to a science-based show, collecting myths, forming hypothesis, setting up experiments, collecting data, doing analysis, and presenting results - in short, teaching scientific method to the masses.

    • (Score: 3, Insightful) by schad on Sunday August 24 2014, @02:19AM

      by schad (2398) on Sunday August 24 2014, @02:19AM (#84831)

      Yeah, my reaction when seeing this story was, "Thank goodness, maybe now the show can get back to being good." Nothing against KG&T, who I think are a visible manifestation of the problem rather than its cause. (I think Tory has been with Mythbusters pretty much since the beginning, and Kari and Grant almost as long.) But it really seems like at some point somebody decided that explosions get good ratings, and they like good ratings, therefore ALWAYS EXPLOSIONS. If I'm right about that, the overall trajectory of the show won't change because the people responsible for its downward slide probably remained behind.

      Who knows. I've always interpreted the addition of KG&T to be the result of a power struggle between Adam and Jamie and Discovery, and it's easy to see this as a continuation.

      • (Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Sunday August 24 2014, @02:58AM

        by Anonymous Coward on Sunday August 24 2014, @02:58AM (#84840)

        > Who knows. I've always interpreted the addition of KG&T to be the result of a power struggle between Adam and Jamie and Discovery,

        I saw it more as a move to the standard narrative style of an A storyline alternating with a B storyline. They won't be able to do that any more.

    • (Score: 2) by urza9814 on Monday August 25 2014, @05:14PM

      by urza9814 (3954) on Monday August 25 2014, @05:14PM (#85387) Journal

      In the last few seasons, they started saying stuff like "well, we busted the myth, so now let's reproduce the results the myth wanted".

      "Replicating the results" has been part of their show since the very beginning! Literally the first episode had this -- they were doing 'exploding toilet' (that a bunch of chemicals dumped down a toilet could cause the thing to explode in the presence of flame) and resorted to using gunpowder to blow the whole thing apart.

      I agree that the show has gone downhill a bit, but I think the latest season has actually been a bit of an improvement compared to three or four years ago when it truly bottomed out with the build team literally complaining on air every time they had to calculate the average of a half dozen values...

  • (Score: 3, Insightful) by goodie on Sunday August 24 2014, @02:03AM

    by goodie (1877) on Sunday August 24 2014, @02:03AM (#84824) Journal

    I never really liked how the three were portrayed as the kids doing silly experiments while the 2 adults were doing the 'real' stuff (ie the stuff you'd build up for 55min and show 2min of at the end of the episode).

    Another thing that's been busting my chops (ha!) is that everything must be blown for the sake of it. To me it looks like something wasteful in terms of pollution, resources time etc. I'm no tree hugger but it just feels plain stupid. And not fun (ok the hot water tank was cool but that's about it).

    The original purpose of the show was to make the scientific approach more fun for people unfamiliar with it. I'd say that we are pretty far from that now. Perhaps if these 3 leave they will shift the focus back to its original intent? Either way I am fairly sure that the ratings have dropped quit a bit over the past few years no?

    • (Score: 2) by Fnord666 on Sunday August 24 2014, @02:10AM

      by Fnord666 (652) on Sunday August 24 2014, @02:10AM (#84828) Homepage

      The original purpose of the show was to make the scientific approach more fun for people unfamiliar with it.

      I'm curious where you got that idea. I don't think any one of them would recognize the scientific method if it stamped on their foot. On the other hand, maybe they do know what it is because they have been very good at avoiding it.

      • (Score: 2) by c0lo on Sunday August 24 2014, @05:09AM

        by c0lo (156) Subscriber Badge on Sunday August 24 2014, @05:09AM (#84864) Journal

        I don't think any one of them would recognize the scientific method if it stamped on their foot.

        Understandable. I mean, think of it... would you recognize a thing stamped on something you keep in your mouth?

        --
        https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=aoFiw2jMy-0 https://soylentnews.org/~MichaelDavidCrawford
      • (Score: 2) by goodie on Monday August 25 2014, @02:10PM

        by goodie (1877) on Monday August 25 2014, @02:10PM (#85330) Journal

        True enough, the second I hit the submit button I thought "I meant trial through experimentation" rather than scientific method... anyway, I knew I'd be pointed out here ;)

    • (Score: 4, Interesting) by evilviper on Sunday August 24 2014, @03:03AM

      by evilviper (1760) on Sunday August 24 2014, @03:03AM (#84842) Homepage Journal

      I never really liked how the three were portrayed as the kids doing silly experiments while the 2 adults were doing the 'real' stuff (ie the stuff you'd build up for 55min and show 2min of at the end of the episode).

      Except that was reality, not some marketing gimmick. Early on, the new arrivals were given serious tasks, but it went quite poorly (repeatedly) before they figured out that they should just get the lighter and easier jobs that really just fill airtime.

      Not that the head honchos have anything to be proud of. Their "rigor" has always been extremely poor. Any time they have to sign-off at the end of a show saying "We couldn't do it, but we know for a fact that it works" completely puts the lie to the entire premise of the show.

      Plus, while I'm ranting, the quick-cut editing, popping back and forth between myths, spreading them further across commercials, made the show 10X more annoying than it was in the first season or so, when they didn't do that...

      --
      Hydrogen cyanide is a delicious and necessary part of the human diet.
      • (Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Sunday August 24 2014, @04:09AM

        by Anonymous Coward on Sunday August 24 2014, @04:09AM (#84854)

        The quick editing was a side effect of the show being a 30 min show with TONS of filler. It was basically a show re-editied to make sure you came back after the commercial break. Thus more likely to watch the commercials.

        • (Score: 1, Interesting) by Anonymous Coward on Sunday August 24 2014, @06:46AM

          by Anonymous Coward on Sunday August 24 2014, @06:46AM (#84876)

          I agree with GP that the only effect it actually had was making me less likely to watch MB.

  • (Score: 2) by Fnord666 on Sunday August 24 2014, @02:04AM

    by Fnord666 (652) on Sunday August 24 2014, @02:04AM (#84825) Homepage

    Mythbusters certainly has its flaws, but the show is good at getting people interested in science. These departures could prove to be an unfortunate loss.

    Calling what they do "science" is being pretty generous from what I've seen.

  • (Score: 3, Informative) by kaszz on Sunday August 24 2014, @02:12AM

    by kaszz (4211) on Sunday August 24 2014, @02:12AM (#84829) Journal

    Pictures of the persons in question can be found here.. Tory Belleci [wikipedia.org], Grant Imahara [wikipedia.org], Kari Byron [wikipedia.org]

    But red hot science babe Kari leaving the show!??!? *kiss*kiss*kiss*kiss*kiss* what am I going to do? :D :-)

    I wonder what nude direction.. I mean new direction the show is going to take. Blowing things up is usually fun. But science might perhaps be too boring for many viewers. Otoh design and building is perhaps not too bad either?
    And that salary thing might also be that the show owner simply is lowering pay or interpersonal relationships is cracking. Could also be that being an international recognized person might just be too much attention on a personal level. But there will probably be surprises ahead in regards to new show themes etc.

    Oh maybe fans could write in with suggestions like "we want to see a remote controlled airplane terminating evil men in black clothes south of Turkey on live television!" :D