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Sad news from Variety today, the next season of Mythbusters will be the last.
"'Mythbusters' is — and will always be — an incredibly important part of Discovery's history," said Rich Ross, group president of Discovery Channel, Animal Planet and Science Channel. "Adam and Jamie are enormous talents who have brought learning and science to the forefront of this network, and their legacy will continue to live on over at Science Channel. The 'Mythbusters' library will be moving over to Discovery's sister network in 2016, where I know audiences new and old alike will be able to experience and learn with Adam and Jamie and the rest of the 'Mythbusters' family."
I guess we'll just have to try it at home now.
[Ed: Headline updated, show was not "canceled".]
(Score: 1, Informative) by Anonymous Coward on Friday October 23 2015, @04:55PM
I wouldn't say it jumped the shark, but it certainly ran further than it should. Realistically, they ran out of decent "myths" years ago.
(Score: 5, Insightful) by Snotnose on Friday October 23 2015, @05:52PM
Yeah, I quit watching when they decided to test movie stunts to see if the real world worked like that. Of course it doesn't, it's a farking movie myth!
When the dust settled America realized it was saved by a porn star.
(Score: 2) by frojack on Friday October 23 2015, @07:03PM
And yet, not a week goes by without appeal to a movie or tv show here on SoylentNews as some sort of proof of something, or to justify some impossible proposal.
Come to think of it, you often see appeals to Mythbusters episodes as conclusive proof of things when nobody on the show had a credential more impressive than stunt-man. (Well, Grant Imahara actually had some self taught electronics skills, but no credentials or formal training.)
I'm still wondering how Kari's tattoos came and went withing one season.
No, you are mistaken. I've always had this sig.
(Score: 3, Funny) by khallow on Friday October 23 2015, @07:22PM
(Score: 3, Insightful) by Thexalon on Friday October 23 2015, @09:09PM
See, I always thought that missed the point.
The real point of Mythbusters, I always thought, was to basically say "The way you know for certain whether an idea works is to test it," and to show that that approach to thinking about life could even be rather fun (because who doesn't like explosions?). That concept is the very core of science, and even if their tests weren't anything approaching "rigorous" they were demonstrating the mindset.
And I think it's important that nobody on the show really had scientific credentials, because it also demonstrates that you don't need to have credentials to do science. For example, Yuji Hyakutake was a complete amateur who discovered 2 comets because he was really interested in searching for them. Sure, I'm not going to just trust your results, but amateurs may well pick something up that the professionals missed. And more to the point, as long as they're keeping everyone safe there's very little harm in trying.
The only thing that stops a bad guy with a compiler is a good guy with a compiler.
(Score: 2) by Gaaark on Friday October 23 2015, @09:22PM
Exactly: except it got to the point where they sometimes seemed to just give up after a bit and go to the explosion...
"Maybe busted (which means we couldn't really care to test it further), now lets go blow it up!!! WOO HOO!"
It looked to me like if they really were interested, they'd bust the hell out of it to see which way the hammer fell: if not, they'd half-heart it, then explosions.
--- Please remind me if I haven't been civil to you: I'm channeling MDC. ---Gaaark 2.0 ---
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Friday October 23 2015, @09:53PM
Maybe that is supposed to be the spirit of it, but from that standpoint it was horribly executed, particularly in the later shows. They would design some sort of "experiment" and the "results" would be marginal one way or another. This was particularly true when they split the show and gave the other three their own "myth" to investigate. The spirit of building something and trying it out is there, but the process of drawing conclusions or data analysis was pretty shoddy.
(Score: 1) by deadstick on Friday October 23 2015, @11:52PM
For example, Yuji Hyakutake was a complete amateur who discovered 2 comets because he was really interested in searching for them.
Amateurs have been players in comet discovery for a long time. It's labor-intensive and can be done with moderate-priced equipment, so it's not a priority for funded observatories.
(Score: 2) by LoRdTAW on Friday October 23 2015, @10:51PM
Wasn't that the whole point of the show? Showing the average person that "no, this cant happen and here's why" or "Maybe it can happen in ideal/controlled environment" or "yep, check it out, we just did that" in a fun way they can understand. Otherwise the average person would keep believing movies/TV and misinformation/pseudoscience posts on Facebook.
Myth Busters wasn't aimed at people with a knowledge of science. It was there to help educate the non-science oriented person. Me? I liked it. Though, some episodes left more to be desired and some were goofy. But you cant win em all.
(Score: 2) by art guerrilla on Friday October 23 2015, @11:48PM
actually, i think they proved more than a few movie stunts at least 'plausible' if not 'confirmed'...
the one in particular i recall, is that of our hero jumping off of a multi-story building and -relatively- safely landing on ground after whomping through 3-4 cloth awnings...
from their testing, appeared doable...
after googling: deemed 'plausible' even though buster busted up, because shock sensors didn't go to fatal levels... from indiana jones movie (well, and before that)
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Saturday October 24 2015, @01:21AM
The movie stunt ones were the best, IMO. It's not just because there actually *ARE* people out there who believe things like a person hit by a bullet gets thrown backwards from the impact. More interesting to me was when they would use their special effects backgrounds to show you how the movie stunt was done in such a way that you can believe it is possible.
Classic example: The Indiana Jones motorcycle flip. Sure, when I think about it, a stick in the spokes isn't likely to catapult the bike into the air. Locking up a wheel causes things to skid, not fly into the air. But I actually have a greater appreciation for that scene now than I did before. Seeing the combination of camera angles, shot timing, and judiciously applied explosives involved, I realize just what went into the planning and execution of that stunt. That the show demonstrated both the real-world and make-believe results of something I would be reticent to try for myself made it worth the time I spent watching it.
I'm honestly not that sad that the show is ending; surely after a decade plus, the people involved are probably ready to move on. What's worse to me is that there really isn't any other programming that at least holds out the promise of promoting science or critical thinking. If nothing else, this has validated my decision to cut the cord as of this month.