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"MythBusters" Drops Kari Byron, Grant Imahara, Tory Belleci
rbrandis (735555) writes In a video announcement Thursday on Discovery Channel, MythBusters hosts Adam Savage and Jamie Hyneman revealed that longtime co-hosts and fan favorites Kari Byron, Grant Imahara, and Tory Belleci are no longer on the show. "This next season we're going back to our origins with just Adam and me," Hyneman said in the video, which explained that the change took hold as of the season's last episode on August 21. (Our interview with the original-and-remaining Mythbusters is one of my favorites.)
I won't mind so much. A shorter, more focused format will get me watching more again.
The only shame about that is losing Grant Imahara. He actually built mechanically neat rigs and such for experiments in a more advanced way than Adam and Jamie tended to.
It always seemed to me like Grant was hired to do some science, Kari was hired to be the tits, and Tory was hired to balance out the tits.
WTF?? Another female geek role model bites the dust. She's smart, she's gorgeous, she's clever, she's witty. We need way, way, more women like her on TV.
Bad fail, Mythbusters.
...and the show "went back to its roots." Nothing to see here, move along.*
Posterity, my posterior.
It's really too early to tell, but it seems like they're taking this way too well and keep mentioning they're next adventure.
It's possible that they're going to star in their own show that Discovery is not willing to announce yet.
In Soviet Russia, Trojan exploits YOU!
My money's on "they asked for more pay for the next signing and couldn't reach an agreement". That will always boil down to some point between "you shouldn't have demanded more than you were worth" and "we probabably shouldn't have broken the cash cow's leg".
Only time will tell.
I work for the Department of Redundancy Department.
But I think it's a good move. I always thought they were trying to do too much in one episode. And really, who can argue with focusing on two really awesome dudes who love to blow stuff up?
More isn't always better, sometimes its just more.
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AGREED! I'm going entirely off topic here, but I don't know what American producer decided that this format was a good idea. It's repulsive. You don't see this on the BBC. If Top Gear ever did this, they'd be flushed down the toilet -- which is why the American version of Top Gear on the "History" channel is just so terribly unwatchable. The History channel is one of the top offenders promoting this kind of banality, and it's a shame that the Discovery channel and so many others have caught this same illness (I'm looking your way, "Science" channel). American television producers are farking idiots.
Blame Discovery (and History, and all the other copycats). It's a fucked up format designed by morons in order to pad minutes and fill out advertising when they otherwise have very little real content.
I'm surprised no one said it... I think they've just run out of Myths! A lot of the new shows - it really seems like they're reaching. And as other people did mention, they have about 15 minutes of content in an hour of show with the commercial->recap->brief content->preview->commercial->repeat format. Yeah, I just really don't think they can make another season of shows without halving the number of myths that they have to come up with..
I stopped watching Mythbusters last year when I found myself fast forwarding every episode to the end to see what happens. Too much fluff, and in some cases not enough rigor in their tests for my liking. I don't blame the hosts, though - they put a ton of effort into making the show and tried to make it entertaining.
What an impersonal goodbye. Just an announcement from Adam and Jamie, some video clips, and a stock photo.
While I could believe Adam's thanks for all their work, he seemed strained somehow. I think the network did it, after the wrap of filming for the last episode.
It really lacked the warmth that a heartfelt goodbye, shot in the M7 workshop with a handheld camera, hugs, and tears.
I speculate that the network forced the reconfiguration of the show after filming of that episode ended.
Sad, really.
http://xkcd.com/397/
I often agree with Randall, but in this case I think he's (mostly) wrong. Yes, ideas are tested by experiment. Properly constructed experiments. That means repetition, controls, statistics, the whole nine yards. If scientists used Mythbusters-style experiments we'd still think light objects inherently fall faster than heavy ones (after all, most lighter objects do fall slower than heavier ones, thanks to air resistance). You don't think people in the "unscientific darkness" didn't actually try out a lot of the things they got wrong? Of course they did. They got it wrong because they ran their experiments improperly. And Mythbuster's often does as well. To be fair, "it didn't work this time, lets try it out 99 more times to make sure" doesn't really make entertaining television, and that's generally all Mythbuster's is: entertainment. They have the seeds of science (experimentation), but science is far more than that alone. The problem is, when people look at what they do as actually being science, they end up thinking you can confirm a scientific theory with a single experiment run with 20 minutes of work. And the conclusion to that thought process is looking at the weather report and dismissing global warming because it's a particularly chilly summer. Or saying "hmm, well [some action] didn't kill me this time, it must be perfectly safe."
Scientifically educated people don't come to that conclusion, of course, but those people aren't the problem.
"None can love freedom heartily, but good men; the rest love not freedom, but license." --John Milton
ah man...Mythbusters...
I'm a fan, for sure, but it seems that even casual fans like me can sort of see past the veneer of production. It's kind of in my nature to analyze a show (as it is w/ many on /. i'm sure) and pick apart their production decisions.
So, when it comes to Kari, Byron, and Grant...I think they should have seen this coming a decade ago.
They're great, and they added value to their presence over the years. I always liked their segments.
But if we're analyzing production decisions, it seems that they should have tried to get their agent to get them more work, or maybe a spin off...their presence was never going to be more than bit parts...part timer gigs. Even the popularity of the show can't make more time in the timeslot...it's just there was a maximum ammount they could physically contribute due to time constraints per episode.
I'm sure fans will remember the super-cool welder chick from, i'm guessing, seasons 2-5...she moved on and I figured the others would do the same, having a rotating cast of experts go in and out over the years...except for Kari...she seemed like a good foil for the guys.
Anyhow, Mythbusters was always better than it's show. You could tell that dumb network people were putting weird constraints on them...ex: voiceover narration from some random in Tasmania or w/e...and other parts...but it is always going to be great for what it is...
but yeah...IMHO the three of them should have seen this coming
Thank you Dave Raggett