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drjeice
Reviews
Smash Lab (2007)
How to make Mythbusters without really trying
The execs come in the room - the pitch is that although Mythbusters is a cool show, nobody wants to hear all of that scientific jargon they say at the beginning of each episode. Let's make a show where they just show the last five minutes of Mythbusters! (i.e. the explosion)
This was a traumatic failure on many levels - elementary problems with the show could have been easily avoided. Here's a small list of things that could have steered the show in the right direction.
1. The ideas on which the experiments are based on are totally asinine. " Let's see if a bullet proof layer of rubber can bomb proof a five story building!" You already know what's going to happen. The interior will be destroyed causing the collapse of the building and the experiment won't work. This concept worked on Mythbusters because you never knew what was going to happen. It always kept you guessing.
2. Nobody on the show knows what they're talking about, or doesn't know what to talk about. They always have some dumbed down explanation for...let's say this time it's force. The "scientist" will give some 5th grade interpretation of force and a usual response is , "What she said." 3. The experiments are critical failures before they start. Jamie and Adam have had their fair share of difficulties before starting experiments, but the problems on this show could have been avoided! (unlike those on Mythbusters, which experiments fail because they're mythological.) An example of this would be when they're setting up the concrete, but a support beam falls and ruins the whole slab.
4. Out of order explosions. You should start with the small scale, then work up to the bigger, more probable solutions. Someone mentioned this earlier when doing a concrete experiment.
These people have no idea what they're doing. It's sad because this could have been a nice show. I suggest one watching of this for 20 minutes just to learn what not to do in science.