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Junkyard Wars Nominated For Emmy
abh writes " CNN is reporting on the Emmy nominations, apparently there is a new category for reality-based TV (such as Survivor), and none other than Junkyard Wars got a nomination." Junkyard Wars rocks - excellent recognition of good stuff. The Daily Show was nominated as well, and deserves it, IMHO.
I would decidedly not used the word fixed. The outcome is not predetermined.
the team leaders who built the crafts on Junkyard Wars.
Not quite. Unless that particular show was an extreme abberation, the team *experts* are the ones who stock the junkyard. In some cases (the underwater diver episodes, for example), there was no stocking whatsoever. In others (the rocket and steam engine episodes), the junkyard is stocked with pristine, new, tested parts. In both those cases, the reason should be obvious. I would seriously question the common sense of someone who is slapping together a high pressure steam engine in 10 hours and letting people ride in it. Safety is a concern. In the case of rockets, they were focusing on the body construction, not the propulsion, which are almost completely seperate aspects.
And yes, the corner of the junkyard that is the set is *very* "rich". Lots of working engines, lots of unpunctured batteries. Basically, it's real junk from the rest of the much larger junkyard tossed into the corner.
Also, in addition to the two days of filming, they used a 3rd day off-camera to finish up their hovercrafts.
Again, unless it was a very abberant episode, the had 10 hours in one filming day. The next day, they make sure the damn things work. In some cases, they just pull them out and play. In other cases, which they very clearly mention (something along the lines of: "We given both teams some extra time to make sure their /foo/s are up to the task"), they give up to a few hours. Almost always, it is at this point that they get some spray paint and paint their device in team colors.
It's important to remember that the point of the show is education, not competition. The prize is a wad of welded metal. The experts are generally chosen to present two very different ways of solving the problem and have had time to research the situation. The teams are thrown in with no knowledge of what they are going to build, and have to do the construction themselves. There is (in the British set, and presumably also on the American set) a large facility filled with stuff that you'd get from a Home Depot (a large warehouse style building supply store here in the states). It's behind the vehicle weighstation that's filmed in some of the episodes. That's where the paint, glue, screws, blades, etc all come from. They *have* run out of supplies, and the 10 hours ticked by.
Incidently, a few more details: they have an hour for lunch, tools down, debate on the blackboard encouraged. The clock stops when the host asks the people to explain what they are doing (as a result, the ten working hours often end at different times for the two teams).
I have almost all the episodes on tape, have interviewed Robert Llewellen for my radio show, and have exchanged emails with a few prior players. I am putting together rules for a micro version of the game for SF Conventions. It's one of the only television shows that have every caught my attention.
Sure, it's spun to be entertaining. They selectively edit and try to make sure things work; the point is to show how things work. But is it "fixed". No. The teams are genuinely out there trying to win.
--
Evan
"$30 for the One True Ring. $10 each additional ring!" -- JRR "Bob" Tolkien
Wish I had mentioned this in my earlier rant (message 30). Why the hell isn't this show reliably captioned? Why, why, why? It seems that the last British season is, but not the first US season (and the world series also was not captioned).
Battlebots is captioned. (Robot Wars UK is not). Are You Being Served is captioned. Fawlty Towers is not. Half the weird stuff on Sci-Fi is captioned (and what the hell is up with that show they put on at 8:00???) Why can't current episodes of Junkyard Wars be captioned?
Now, before anyone gets the idea that I'm one of those Deaf Community, ADA nuts, I'm not. My wife is hearing impaired, with a cochlear implant, effectively shutting us out of the 'Deaf community'. (Not to mention that she married a hearing man). And she watches JYW sometimes. Like... When it is captioned!! And she truly get's a kick out of it, but not enough to make time for it.
More important than my wife is the schools. If TLC wants to be in more, they are going to have to caption more stuff. Some school districts have requirements that captioning is available. And as others have pointed out, JYW is a not bad science/applied engineering problem.
Finally, that giant sledgehammer the Americans made was cool as shit. I really liked the British team (Hey, all those bikers? Can't go wrong) and I bet Nosh would have had a helluva good time bashing his own machine with the Americans killer sledge.
There's no problem a big enough hammer won't solve.
Jesus was all right but his disciples were thick and ordinary. -John Lennon
I discovered Junk Yard Wars earlier this year, and it has since become a family favorite. Such a favorite, in fact, that my children (a boy, almost 7, and a girl, almost 10) both insisted that I set the VCR to record the JYW 4th of July US vs. UK challenge. Then when we began watching over at my folks' house and realized it was a *two* hour special edition, all plans for watching fireworks went right out the window, and we stayed put to see who could smash that Jetta the flattest.
The show is very well-done, and I think it's not only entertaining and funny, but one of the most educational shows on TV, teching basic physical and mechnical principles and reasoning seamlessly as an adjunct to the competition. Sure, the yard is occasionally seeded with stuff that would not typically be in a junkyard (propellers and a surprising number of running engines, for example), but that really doesn't detract from the incredible feat of inventing and fabricating a usable machine in only 10 hours. More incredible to me is how often very different approaches turn out to be quite closely matched when they compete.
This is truly one of the best shows on TV, and the only one my family watches on a regular basis! If you haven't checked it out, you owe it to yourself to do so, especially if you've ever harbored any leanings to be a mech hacker..
"The future's good and the present is nothing to sneeze at." - Roblimo's last
Creativity with junk will be competing with crap.