Mythbusters Ending After Next Season (ew.com)

An anonymous reader writes: Entertainment Weekly is just one of many reporting that next season will be the last for the long-running show Mythbusters. EW reports: "The pioneering reality series, one of cable's longest-running shows, will stage its final gonzo experiment during next year's 14th season after 248 episodes and 2,950 experiments. But there is some upside: Stars Adam Savage and Jamie Hyneman have secretly known the end was coming all year and have been crafting an explosive final run for the seven-time Emmy-nominated series. 'It was my greatest fear that Mythbusters would just stop and we wouldn't be able to do proper final episodes,' Savage tells EW. 'So whether it's myths about human behavior or car stories or explosion stories, we tried to find the most awesome example of each category and build on our past history.'"

Comments

The Entrie Crew

[sycodon]

Hope they bring them back for the finale.

Re:The Entrie Crew

[JMJimmy]

+1.

One thing is bugging me... 2,950 experiments would be an average of 11 experiments per episode... I don't quite remember there being that many.

Re:The Entrie Crew

[Aelanna]

To be fair, a lot of the experiments done in the name of the show never actually made it to the show; in the later seasons they often gave a shout-out to the Mythbusters website so you could check out additional content that would otherwise have been left on the cutting room floor.

I'd also imagine that there were ones where they'd done the entire experiment and just simply found it to not be interesting enough to air.

Re:The Entrie Crew

[sycodon]

Maybe they are counting the variations.

Re:The Entrie Crew

[MikeJones8766]

There can be multiple experiments for the same thing. For example pretty much any explosion myth had a small scale experiment, a full size experiment and sometimes even a medium scale experiment.

Re:The Entrie Crew

[OzPeter]

+1.

One thing is bugging me... 2,950 experiments would be an average of 11 experiments per episode... I don't quite remember there being that many.

Maybe you should do some research and report back on how many experiments actually made it to air. After all you wouldn't want this myth of 11 experiments per show to go untested.

Re:The Entrie Crew

[jfdavis668]

Yeah, I miss Scottie.

Re:The Entrie Crew

[mspohr]

The entire series was: How many ways can you blow up something?

Re:The Entrie Crew

[sexconker]

Yup, the only one worth a damn.

Re:The Entrie Crew

[sycodon]

Yeah! Baaby!

Anything wrong with that?

Re:The Entrie Crew

[JMJimmy]

That accounts for 4-5 per episode there's still 7-8 missing

Re:The Entrie Crew

[ArmoredDragon]

I think it was some little things that they frequently did alongside the big ones that got cut.

For example, during the episode where they tested the masks (which was half of the episose, and itself had I think 4 different experiments) they also had a segment that was cut where they tested if Jamie's dog would go to the real Jamie or go for Adam wearing a mask looking like Jamie's face. The goal was to figure out if the dog went after smell, sound, or eyesight, and indeed, the dog just went for the appearance of Jamie's face. It was all of about 10 seconds of video, but again, it was cut from the aired episode.

Re:The Entrie Crew

[aaaaaaargh!]

Why was she there only so briefly?

Re:The Entrie Crew

[prunus.avium]

The breakfast cereal experiment was one of them. I remember Adam explaining that they were testing the old wife's tale of the cardboard box being more nutritious than the cereal so they had two sets of mice: one group was fed cereal, the other got the cardboard.

The ones with only cardboard resorted to cannibalism.

They didn't show that one.

Re:The Entrie Crew

[mattack2]

I seem to remember reading she didn't get along with at least one of the two hosts.

Still going, eh?

[xxxJonBoyxxx]

>> Mythbusters Ending After Next Season

Wow, I had no idea it was still going. I saw there was some kind of Epic Rap Battle thing with MythBusters and some crappy new cast and I'd figured whatever they'd tried to pull with that had killed it.

Re:Still going, eh?

[elrous0]

Be glad you missed the last few seasons.

Re:Still going, eh?

[Darinbob]

I was surprised too. They'd gone so long without a new episode, and I thought I heard the series was over, so I didn't pay attention for a couple of years. Now I only have netflix so I can't get the latest episodes anyway.

Re:Still going, eh?

[anyGould]

I used to buy the seasons from iTunes to watch with my daughter (because science!), until Discovery Canada started being insanely stupid with their release dates. OK, here's ep 1, next week 2, next week.. nothing? Oh, three weeks later is ep 3. (But we're already on episode 6? WTF?). The final straw was when the rest of the season dropped in one batch... after the *next* season had already completed airing!)

So, I may go back and get the seasons I'm missing to watch with the munchkin.

Also, the true star of that show is, was, and always will be Jamie. Sure, the other four are all fun and bouncy and screwing around. But Hyneman is the guy I'd pick to follow around for a day and buy a beer afterwards.

Re:Still going, eh?

[Darinbob]

How do you get the old seasons though, without buying DVDs?

Re:Still going, eh?

[anyGould]

I'd have to double-check, but iTunes does have most of the seasons online - my issue was with the Season Pass (i.e. "watch the show as it airs"), because I was not getting the show anytime remotely near when it aired.

Barring that, the local library has a good back catalog to borrow from.

Re:Still going, eh?

[k6mfw]

Yes, I also had no idea it was still on. I got bored with the series when every experiment became an explosion.

Re:Still going, eh?

[hambone142]

Actually,

1 HP = 550 ft-lbs/second or roughly 746 watts. Horsepower is the rate by which work is performed. It is a unit of "power".

A 5 HP engine would yield 5 * 550 ft-lbs/second of "power" or work over one second.

A 20 HP engine would yield 20 * 550 ft-lbs/second which is a considerable increase in power.

no wonder

[Anonymous Coward]

That's what they get after firing Kari and company.

Re:no wonder

[hambone142]

They've run out of material. Additionally, they seem to pick the outcome prior to conducting their experiments. Cases in point: Women vs. men throwing a baseball (forced men to throw with opposite hand) and recently, blowing a boat out of water and not checking to see what really happened to it.

The worst was whether or not a stone kicked by a lawnmower would have the same power as a .357 magnum pistol round. They replaced the 5 HP lawnmower engine with an electric motor that was over 20 HP and completely ignored the difference in horsepower.

Quasi scientific buffoons.

Re:no wonder

[cayenne8]

That's what they get after firing Kari and company.

Wow, I've not seen a recent episode in a little while, but I didn't realize they had canned Kari and presumable her other two male cohorts....

Hell, SHE was one of the primary reasons I watched the show in the first place...she had a "geek" hot thing going on.....even after being preggers.

Re:no wonder

[Garfong]

They've run out of material. Additionally, they seem to pick the outcome prior to conducting their experiments. Cases in point: Women vs. men throwing a baseball (forced men to throw with opposite hand)

They also forced the women to throw with the opposite hand. They were trying to control for difference in training between men & women. The full conclusion was the average man can throw better than the average woman, the raw talent of the average men and average women is the same. But a multi-part conclusion like that doesn't really fit well into the Confirmed/Plausible/Busted format they use.

Re:no wonder

[elrous0]

It wasn't just the firing. They also almost exclusively started doing episodes that were nothing more than shameless promos for movies and TV shows. They had done some of these before in earlier seasons (presumably at the insistence of their Discovery masters). But now that's ALL they do. Just fucking sad to see a show I once loved resorting to unabashedly whoring themselves like that. It's like seeing the cute, sweet girl next door who everyone loves become a crack whore.

Re:no wonder

[gangien]

Quasi scientific

Sure, but they weren't exactly out there to write scientific journals.

buffoons

nah.

Re:no wonder

[Anonymous Coward]

You're a buffoon as well.
The horsepower doesn't matter so long as the blade RPM is the same. All more HP does is allow the blade to accelerate to its maximum velocity faster.
The inertia of the blade far outweighs the inertia of the motor rotor so there goes that argument as well.
The question is what is the velocity of the tip of the blade and how much of that velocity is transmitted to the projectile.
Since Ke=0.5 * mv^2 it's easy to figure out the results.
Now I'll be the first to say that the Mythbusters do crummy science but your complaints are just as ignorant.

Re:no wonder

[Pseudonym]

Sure, but they weren't exactly out there to write scientific journals.

Nice side-effect, though.

Re:no wonder

[Cramer]

Partially correct... TORQUE is the key figure they (and you) missed. HP is, indeed, irrelevant. Speed of the blade and torque of the power source are the key metrics. You're only factoring for "impulse energy". This isn't a perfectly elastic collision -- the blade doesn't stop and the rock fly away. The blade continues to spin, pushing against the rock. That energy comes from torque, not HP.

(Torque creates acceleration. HP is what maintains speed.)

Re:no wonder

[Anonymous Coward]

Funny how people are on the internet are quick to dump on them for doing more harm than good at teaching science, let the vast majority of scientists, science educators, and science outreach people I've talked to think that Mythbusters does much more good than harm. They and I have seen many direct examples of children and adults that have a more experiment based approach to learning things about the world. I've seen it motivate kids to participating in projects, sometimes without even the extra push of being for a class or science fair, learn a lot and they are full of drive and questions about how to do things the right way in far more detail than the light approaches taken by something formatted for TV. The show has been on long enough now, I've seen engineering and science college students that were partially inspired by seeing the show when they were younger.

There are a few people who get a very superficial view of science from the show. But in my experience, those people weren't getting anything from more detailed oriented documentaries and material out there already too. Hell, look at all of the people on Slashdot who learn science in half-ass manners from TV show documentaries and pop-sci, yet will comment with confidence on subjects while getting things wrong if they actually took time to read something as simple as a Wikipedia article on the topic they talk about. Speaking of which, considering how many science articles you post to with something completely wrong at such a basic level, maybe you have some experience with what constitutes a failed science education...

Re:no wonder

[luther349]

yea most myths on the new stuff is movie based or some sort of cross show.

Re:no wonder

[interval1066]

Calm down. Its for pop tv. What did you expect? Plus, I think Hyneman is getting tired of rolling his eyes evey time Savage does something stupid.

Re:no wonder

[radish]

I disagree - the last season with just the two of them has been a great return to form. You know, actually doing science, actually showing the build process and failures as well as successes. As much as I liked the three other hosts (and I did like them) they were a distraction and devolved the show into the quest for larger explosions.

Re:no wonder

[lars_stefan_axelsson]

(Torque creates acceleration. HP is what maintains speed.)

Not really. Power (weather measured in HP or Watts) for a rotating machine is simply the torque multiplied by the angular velocity. So while you need torque to accelerate e.g. a car, you can't say that "horse power" maintains speed. In fact, it's torque that maintains speed as well. You need enough output torque that when its converted to a force at the wheel/road surface, that force is sufficient to overcome the force due to other losses (wind resistance, or work due to going up hill). Of course, going up a hill your engine/motor's power output better be greater than the work you're doing, otherwise you've made a perpetum mobile

Now, the main problem with the lawn mower example is that the torque curves, i.e. torque as a function of angular velocity ("revs") is very different between an electric motor and an internal combustion engine. (Indeed, that's why many internal combustion engines has an electric motor to start it). So you'd have to compare the torque curves at the precise operating (speed/load) where the stone was hit.

Without doing the math, my feeling is that if you did so, you'd come up with the answer that it didn't matter anyway. The collision between a small, relatively speaking light and hard, stone and the fairly heavy, also hard, steel rotor of a lawn mower with substantial inertia, is as near to the idealistic elastic collision as dammit. I'd be very surprised if the rotor had time to lose enough angular momentum that the difference in torque curves between the electric motor and an ICE one would make enough of a difference in the outcome of the experiment to dominate other sources of error in the setup. Note that of course, it's the difference in torque characteristics, i.e. the speed with which the motor/engine can change its output given a change in load that's the determining factor. At the steady state, a rotor spinning at the same speed will have the same absolute torque driving it, just balancing out losses from friction. If it were otherwise the blade wouldn't rotate with a steady RPM, it would instead rev up or down. So it's not the torque of the power source per se that's the difference, but rather "on demand" torque often called, acceleration torque, given changing conditions.

Re:no wonder

[Anonymous Coward]

Kari became the worst part of the show and the main reason I stopped watching. She was great at first, but then I think the fandom went to her head and affected her personality and leaked all over the show.

Re:no wonder

[AmiMoJo]

It seemed like they were trying to get people flicking through channels and joining them half way through to stick with them. Endless repartition of the premise and what you had just seen, in case you happened to be channel surfing and missed it. Content condensed down to about three minutes per episode and repeated over and over.

The new episodes are much, much better.

Re:no wonder

[Lord Apathy]

it's like "fuck it, let's blow some shit up."

You said that like it was a bad thing.

Re:no wonder

[Chris Johnson]

No, if it was unabashedly they'd still be doing it and well paid for it.

It's because they have a kind of integrity that they're done. They had a good run, but what media needs from them now is just too obnoxious. Plus, Jamie and Adam don't like each other all that much, they just work well together. The more their show is 'media promo stunts bankrolled by movies and TV shows', the less actual work they have to do, and the more fake work and posing they end up doing. They don't like the fake work and posing, particularly having to do lots more of it per show after the build team got axed (presumably because they were demanding money and/or representation) so it's understandable that Jamie and Adam are done.

I strongly suspect they agree on that and are quitting together just as well as they've worked together. It's even a bit like solidarity with Kari, Tory and Grant. Discovery might have wanted to ditch the kids and put the Mythbusters to work being a media phenomenon with great movie/TV tie-in potential, but that myth is clearly busted.

So I guess I'm saying, Jamie and Adam whores? Myth BUSTED. You're wrong, it was their bosses the whole time and they've just quit.

Re:no wonder

[elrous0]

Oh, give me a break. They didn't quit, they got cancelled. If they had any integrity they would have quit back when Discovery first started forcing them to do all those promo episodes, instead of continuing for several more seasons.

Re:no wonder

[Cinnamon Beige]

Quasi scientific

Sure, but they weren't exactly out there to write scientific journals.

A lot of it looked to be up there in the area of pilot studies, and those generally don't get written up in journals--some you may not hear about outside of the specific sub-sub-field and/or grant process, since the entire point of a pilot study is...well...can we scientifically test this this way?

Sometimes it gets weird, because you might have a pretty sound theory and planned methodology, but the pilot study demonstrates that something is missing before it's ready for a scientific journal.

They might get talked about between researchers, and sometimes you'll hear about it if it's known that you're trying to do a bit of research which somebody else tried but had die in the pilot study, which can be helpful since obviously it'd not have turned up when you did the lit search. It's worth noting as well that on occasion, what happened is that things went wrong in absurd and clearly impossible ways--think along the lines of trying to deal with 'code does not compile unless Alice is physically in the building; all other possible factors eliminated' to get some idea how strange and annoying this can go.

Re:no wonder

[Anonymous Cow Ward]

Relevant xkcd.

Re:no wonder

[hawk]

>The worst was whether or not a stone kicked by a
>lawnmower would have the same power as a .357
>magnum pistol round.

There are definitely other candidates. Like the 5 second rule . . . *culture* the dropped chip's bacteria?

Uhh, yeah, right. How about waiting five seconds, putting it a solution with the acidity of stomach acid, and seeing what you get . . .

haw

Re:no wonder

[hambone142]

Actually, 1 HP = 550 ft-lbs/second (or 746 watts). The "foot pounds" part is torque. HP is a unit of the rate in which work is done.

So if we have 5 HP, it is 5 * 550 ft-lbs/second.

If we have 20 HP, it is 20 * 550 ft-lbs/second which is a considerable increase in torque and a helluva lot more "work" to push the stone.

Re:no wonder

[qubezz]

Mythbusters revealed they got the notice of it being their last season at the beginning of 2015. The news of the 2nd team leaving broke about a year ago. From what was said by Savage in a newer interview, it sounds like Discovery already had Mythbusters in its crosshairs:

"The actual reasons for them going ... while we have certain understandings of what went on, that's a contract discussion between Discovery and those guys. We don't know much about how that actually went."

Re:no wonder

[lars_stefan_axelsson]

No. Power is just torque times angular velocity.

So whether you can accelerate or tow or go fast depends on the torque curve, i.e. torque as a function of engine speed. Now, when you make an ICE you can make certain trade-offs that makes the torque curve look different, and that makes the engine work worse or better for certain task. Or rather, the engine as part of the drive train work worse or better. With an ICE you almost always have to have a gear box with changable gearing as the available rev range and torque curve won't fit the entire speed/work range you're interested in.

So the story is a lot more complicated than what that rule of thumb would lead you to believe. A very high power engine, i.e. an engine that can rev really high and still maintain some torque, still won't make you go fast if the gearbox doesn't allow it. And that's just one example.

Re:no wonder

[cwsumner]

Considering that too many kids get their science knowledge from Hollywood Horror movies, MythBusters was -way- better than that! 8-)

Re:no wonder

[sexconker]

That's like saying taking kids to McDonalds every day is better than dumpster diving.
Whatever happened to Mr. Wizard, Bill Nye, etc. type shows for kids?

Hint - it's the same thing that happened to the Discovery Channel, The Learning Channel, and The History Channel. People don't want to think, they want to watch sharks bite shit, hoarders addicted to eating laundry detergent pop out babies they didn't know they were carrying, and the latest cockamamie shit about Hitler's connection to aliens.

They should do a crossover

[Anonymous Coward]

With Pawn Stars, the latest Nazi Alien Time Traveling Hitler and Top Gear's Stig.

Huge grand finale...

[Anonymous Coward]

Nuke Trump's hair, see what's left.

parallels with industry

[dwywit]

I guess the cut-back-on-staff-to-improve-profitibility(ratings) experiment didn't work.

I would have moved the other three into a different field, maybe a travelling show, visiting schools to do cool science stuff - fewer explosions, sure, but maybe some rocketry +GoPro, or weather balloons. Lots of room for building stuff out of silicone/gelatine, dropping buster onto various surfaces with sensor experiments designed by the students.

Re:parallels with industry

[quantaman]

I guess the cut-back-on-staff-to-improve-profitibility(ratings) experiment didn't work.

I would have moved the other three into a different field, maybe a travelling show, visiting schools to do cool science stuff - fewer explosions, sure, but maybe some rocketry +GoPro, or weather balloons. Lots of room for building stuff out of silicone/gelatine, dropping buster onto various surfaces with sensor experiments designed by the students.

I'm sure ratings played a part but it was still a flagship program and I doubt profitability was the main issue.

I suspect this was just a case of the show being on for a very long time and the two stars having retirement money. At this point they're simply not having fun anymore and want to move onto something new. From the article it sounds like Hyneman wants a job where he just wants to build stuff while Savage wants to do some new TV.

Re:parallels with industry

[FlyHelicopters]

I suspect this was just a case of the show being on for a very long time and the two stars having retirement money. At this point they're simply not having fun anymore and want to move onto something new. From the article it sounds like Hyneman wants a job where he just wants to build stuff while Savage wants to do some new TV.

You're correct... but in a year they may really miss it... Well, maybe not, I don't know them, but sometimes you don't know the best time of your life until it is over...

Re:parallels with industry

[tlhIngan]

I'm sure ratings played a part but it was still a flagship program and I doubt profitability was the main issue.

I suspect this was just a case of the show being on for a very long time and the two stars having retirement money. At this point they're simply not having fun anymore and want to move onto something new. From the article it sounds like Hyneman wants a job where he just wants to build stuff while Savage wants to do some new TV.

Profitability is probably a huge reason, actually.

After all, if you haven't noticed, the production company is not in the US (it's Australian, I believe), while they have to pay US dollars for Jamie and Adam and the production crew.

And if you haven't noticed, the US dollar is quite strong, which means it costs the production company a lot more Australian dollars to pay for it all.

Kari, Tory and Grant were cut because the company was running out of money. It's likely they're close to running completely out of money because of exchange rate losses.

You have to remember how ratings play into everything. First off, the show ratings are irrelevant. The show exists to sell ads, and the number of eyeballs that see ads is what's important. Those ratings and ad dollars go to Discovery. Discovery reviews the profit they make from each episode from the cost of the episode. If the ratings are high, chances are Discovery will buy more episodes from the production company. There's a per-episode price that the production company charges to supply the content, which is likely set by a contractual agreement, which may been written years ago when the dollar was much weaker.

The production company gets basically a fixed price - it doesn't matter if the episode does well or poorly. And if the production company can't afford to make episodes, they're going to shut down production.

So Discovery may want to buy the next 10 year's worth of Mythbusters, but if the production company doesn't want to, then it won't happen.

Ratings matter very little - the commercial ratings matter to the stations, so that episode you torrented counts for a big fat goose egg as far as they're concerned.

Chances are, Jamie and Adam will be back doing some show or another post-Mythbusters, probably using a US production company. They've actually done about 4 of 5 different series and shows over the years, but they never seemed to work out.

Re:parallels with industry

[PPalmgren]

I think that they felt they had to have an 'edge' over what a replacement show/staff could do. Their expertise was props and stunts, so they worked their expertise into the show to accomplish presentations that couldn't easily be matched and as an effort to make things more exciting. Honestly, the process of creating some of the things they built was pretty interesting in and of itself from that angle.

However, that 'edge' helped derail the show quite a bit as things moved on. The excessive use of Movie Myths is the prime example: A lot of them became efforts of recreating stunts rather than scientific endeavors. It also flattened the myth selection to the ones that got better ratings - the ones that were more theatrical and explosive.

Re:parallels with industry

[Plumpaquatsch]

I suspect this was just a case of the show being on for a very long time and the two stars having retirement money. At this point they're simply not having fun anymore and want to move onto something new. From the article it sounds like Hyneman wants a job where he just wants to build stuff while Savage wants to do some new TV.

You're correct... but in a year they may really miss it... Well, maybe not, I don't know them, but sometimes you don't know the best time of your life until it is over...

Well, maybe they do a reunion in a couple of years. Planned for six shows (TV episodes or on-stage), but aborted after 3 because they really hate each other.

Re:parallels with industry

[hawk]

>I guess the cut-back-on-staff-to-improve-profitibility(ratings) experiment didn't work.

Or, tivo-type data disclosed just how many of us would fast forward or skip over the jv portion, which tended to be due and stupid . . .

hawk

People need more science

[rmdingler]

Any show that taught science to the masses through a clever delivery venue would be missed dearly,

but these folks really delivered, often in an entertaining enough fashion that people might forget they were learning something, too.

Re: People need more science

[GoodNewsJimDotCom]

I like that they may have changed some people's perception of science that it is cool.

Re:People need more science

[thegarbz]

Any show that taught science to the masses through a clever delivery venue would be missed dearly,

Fortunately we won't miss them then. Actually that's not fair. The show did hopefully give masses an increased interest in science, but I would caution anyone who would consider anything the mythbusters as "science". They got lucky sometimes, but other times their experiments were faulty, missed the point, mostly they lacked a control, and they had little or no control over environmental variables that quite frequently they got their answer quite. Great for entertainment value, not so good when someone uses "but mythbusters proved..." as an argument rebuttal.

That is preaching false science.

Re:People need more science

[Ogive17]

They were not doing experiences in order to submit papers to academic journals. It was a television show meant to entertain an audience.

No, it was not perfect science. It has been a few years since I have watched but from what I remember, each episode would have one main myth they were testing. If it was statistics based, they would almost always have a baseline to compare results to. If it was event based, they would do their best to replicate the conditions of the myth before they switched gears and simply tried to figure out how to replicate the results.

Trial and error is science.

Re:People need more science

[Chris Johnson]

If you want to think of Mythbusters at their best, think of their Pykrete show. They didn't know what was gonna happen freezing soaked newspaper, quickly worked out they had a material with amazing properties, built a boat that could take a full scale outboard motor, and took it out on the Bay successfully.

I think there was much truth in Adam telling Jamie, "It's a pleasure building strange craft with you sir".

THAT was Mythbusters. If they couldn't maintain it like that for very long, so what? Kudos to them for knowing when to pack it in, even if it took the loss of team members and a ratings-driven decline into pandering to convince 'em. Nobody wants to give up on something good, but good isn't the same thing as permanent.

Re:People need more science

[Plumpaquatsch]

It was a television show meant to entertain an audience.

The problem is that this notion is lost on a lot of people. Those who don't understand what science is, believe it to be making random guesses, blowing shit up and they writing busted on the screen. It doesn't even need to be statistics based. A lot of what the end up with is the correct conclusion by trial an error. Unfortunately a lot of their failures are ignoring externalities or not replicating ideal environments.

Funny thing: that sounds exactly like the arguments from the readers that leads them to revisit myths - and that almost always changes nothing in the result.

Re:People need more science

[thegarbz]

Sometimes yes, sometimes no. I've seen multiple revisits changed from busted to plausable. Likewise I've also seen them do some experiments which are so far removed from the example they were trying to prove that makes me think what's the point.

Classic example: bifurcation of a boat on a depth marker. They took a model boat (wrong mass) pulled it along by a string (wrong motive force) and smashed it against a metal pole.... in their workshop (completely wrong environment, wrong fluid effects, wrong restive forces on the boat, etc) and from that they concluded that the boat couldn't possibly have been travelling at that speed because it bounced off the marker. Now how many times have you seen a large boat in the water bounce?

Mind you to their credit some people are attached to myths in some almost religious ways so I've seen some of those revisits and thought straight away "who in their right mind would think that this changes the outcome".

Anyway my point being is they aren't universally bad or good, the only problem is when people think they are universally anything and use "but they proved it" as some kind of high science gospel.

Both sad and happy to see them go ...

[MacTO]

I loved the concept of the show and found it very entertaining. I enjoyed how they demonstrated the testing of myths from hypotheses to conclusion, how the revisited myths based on viewer input, and how they did stuff that was just plain too expensive or too dangerous for the typical person to do. Yet I stopped watching it for one simple reason: they seemed to over emphasize the dangerous stuff and that just got plain boring after a time. So thank you for everything you did, and yes thank you for moving on.

too expensive to continue

[turkeydance]

personnel cutbacks didn't do the trick.

The show has been a dead man walking

[Anonymous Coward]

The last few seasons have been pretty terrible.

I thought it had ended.

[sims 2]

After they shot that cannon ball into that house.....

I hope they...

[Anonymous Coward]

Show how to invent a digital alarm clock that looks like a bomb... in 20 minutes.

Mythbusters Died When...

[Irate Engineer]

...they cut Kari Bryon.

All the explosions in the world didn't fix the lack of girl-next-door fun-n-curvy hotness that was Kerri. She was hot even when prego.

Re:Mythbusters Died When...

[hambone142]

Feh...

Kari never toted natural hair color. She also had zero scientific background (Grant was the only degreed techie).

Window dressing only (as with Tori).

Re:Mythbusters Died When...

[Anonymous Coward]

Feh...

Kari never toted natural hair color. She also had zero scientific background (Grant was the only degreed techie).

Window dressing only (as with Tori).

Yeah the other women they had canned from earlier seasons (the one with the the tattoos) was more interesting and the one who had replaced Kari while she was on maternity leave seemed much more legitly geeky as well. Kari was always just eye candy.

Tori though had physical skills though that made him quite useful, as well as his amusing rapport with Grant.

Re:Mythbusters Died When...

[Irate Engineer]

Feh...

Kari never toted natural hair color.

Wait...Kari had hair? I wasn't looking at the top of her head apparently.

Re:Mythbusters Died When...

[gangien]

She also had zero scientific background

I think that's part of the point of the show. That you don't need to have a fancy degree and spend years in college to think critically and figure something out.

Re:Mythbusters Died When...

[Snotnose]

Nope, it died when they started taking movie stunts as actual things that can happen. This was what, 3-4 years before they cut the rest of the team?

The show was great, they just ran out of myths to bust.

Re:Mythbusters Died When...

[gstoddart]

IIRC, she was originally hired because she was willing to let them make a mold of her ass

Prithee, kind sir, might one inquire as to the availability of copies of said mold?

I'll be in my bunk pondering that.

Re:Mythbusters Died When...

[RubberDogBone]

Kari was hired to work as a sculptor and model maker and artist in the M5 business and was already working there. She happened to be around when the TV series pilot episodes needed help, but she was an M5 employee and wasn't officially added to the show cast until later.

People who work for M5 do not automatically work for the show. They have always been separate.

Re:Mythbusters Died When...

[FlyHelicopters]

IIRC, she was originally hired because she was willing to let them make a mold of her ass for the airplane toilet segment in episode 2, and they realized they need a hottie to counterbalance the walrus mustache and the annoying childishness.

She already worked for M5 before that point, she was building stuff off screen. When they needed someone's rear end, poof, she was on the show.

Then somehow the producers noticed, "hey, she is kinda hot!", and there you go...

Re:Mythbusters Died When...

[FlyHelicopters]

Nope, it died when they started taking movie stunts as actual things that can happen.

Actually, some of that stuff was quite fun, and it turns out some of it is actually possible.

It is called fan service, the same thing happened when they did the pointless test of "do girls with bigger boobs get bigger tips". Like that is a real myth, everyone knows it is true.

But it was an excuse to have fun with her boobs. :)

Re:Mythbusters Died When...

[Anonymous Coward]

Am I the only one who didn't really care for Kari? I mean the only reason she wound up on the show was because she did that porno scene with the pepsi bottle fountain.

Re:Mythbusters Died When...

[Anonymous Coward]

Except after a season or two she lost her girl-next-door and became "I'm so hot and popular and OMG EVERYBODY LOOK AT ME teehee" after it went to her head. I loved her at first too, but after a couple seasons I wished she would get killed in a horrific experiment gone wrong.

Re:Mythbusters Died When...

[AmiMoJo]

If the show needed "girl-next-door fun-n-curvy hotness" to hold your entertainment, something was very wrong with it. Or maybe with you, but judging by the number of similar comments I'd say with the show.

Re:Mythbusters Died When...

[Chris Johnson]

Nonsense. Just because Kari Byron wasn't Jamie-grade brilliant doesn't make her just a booth babe. She was and presumably is a good builder. She, like Tory, was one of the uncredited and unseen builders for the team, the fact that she got called to be onscreen talent was merely recognition of the supremely obvious.

Re:Mythbusters Died When...

[Blue23]

If the show needed "girl-next-door fun-n-curvy hotness" to hold your entertainment, something was very wrong with it. Or maybe with you, but judging by the number of similar comments I'd say with the show.

You know, the show grew quite well from the "we don't have the budget for more weather balloons" early episodes before the production company wanted a second team and gave the build team trio some spotlight. While I'm sure that the production company was quite aware of any added appeal from her and Tori for their respective audiences, it's quite a stretch to say the whole show was held up it.

Your science doesn't seem particularly rigorous, but don't worry, the Mythbusters have tested that. Can the show work without Kari? Confirmed by the early episodes.

Re:Mythbusters Died When...

[Plumpaquatsch]

Feh...

Kari never toted natural hair color.

Wait...Kari had hair? I wasn't looking at the top of her head apparently.

But I bet you would have loved to see the top of her head.

Re:Mythbusters Died When...

[Plumpaquatsch]

Nope, it died when they started taking movie stunts as actual things that can happen. This was what, 3-4 years before they cut the rest of the team? The show was great, they just ran out of myths to bust.

Hey, people still believe JATO-car is possible, if only they did it right, after three whole episodes showing it going out of control every time. OTOH they did show you could skip a car over water like in the Speed Zone (aka Cannonball Fever) movie - which nobody thought would work.

Myth: Mythbusters is ending

[Anonymous Coward]

Will it be busted or confirmed?

Re:Myth: Mythbusters is ending

[Raistlin77]

Dunno, but it's definitely plausible.

3 do-not-watch indicators for tv shows

[fuzzyf]

Mtyhbusters was a really entertaining show to watch in the beginning. A little science, but mostly fun, And that was really refreshing
I stopped watching when the time spent watching the actually program was less than will happen/has happened runs.
(it felt like it, I haven't actually timed it)

My rule of thumb is this. If a show contains reoccurring:
1) Annoying laugh track
2) Will happen / has happened
3) Two characters facing the same camera in a lengthy drama dialog (strong soap opera indicator)

...it's best to find something else to watch.

I wish they would create a condensed version of Mythbusters with just the actual program and not any fluff.

Sick show

[Anonymous Coward]

That show was dominated by cisgender white males promoting their privileged and aggressive toxic behavior. I am glad it is dead. Top Gear needs to go too!

Good

[elrous0]

Used to love that show. Then they fired Grant, Kari, and Tory and started doing nothing but shameless promo episodes for movies and TV shows. It's sad to see a once-great show having sunk so low. Now if we can just find someone with a time machine to go back to 1999 and kill Matt Groening, all will be right in the universe.

Re:Good

[Anonymous Coward]

Used to love that show. Then they fired Grant, Kari, and Tory and started doing nothing but shameless promo episodes for movies and TV shows. It's sad to see a once-great show having sunk so low. Now if we can just find someone with a time machine to go back to 1999 and kill Matt Groening, all will be right in the universe.

And then we'd have no Futurama, and the world would be a much sadder place.

Re:Good

[elrous0]

Some sacrifices have to be made for the greater good.

Re:Good

[sexconker]

No, just admit that you fucked up.

No surprise....

[Lumpy]

When Discovery gutted the show last year it was the writing on the wall...

I'm betting the last shows and next "season" are simply contract fulfillment for Jamie and Adam.

Will Be Missed

[Thelasko]

I'm going to miss Mythbusters. My biggest complaint is that I can never find the show on TV. It seemed to be on all of the time when it first started. Now it airs during some secret time slot that moves constantly. That usually indicates a series will soon end.

Re:Will Be Missed

[willworkforbeer]

I'm going to miss Mythbusters. My biggest complaint is that I can never find the show on TV. It seemed to be on all of the time when it first started. Now it airs during some secret time slot that moves constantly. .

What? It's on Channel Pi at Eleventy-three past the hour, alternating fifth Wednesdays following every full moon. Sheesh. Lazy.

Re:Will Be Missed

[RubberDogBone]

It's currently on Saturdays on the Science channel. It IS a bad sign when a show begins changing the day it airs week to week, and worse when it hops from the main Discovery channel where it got good ratings and now airs on Science which is usually one of the least-watched channels.

Discovery has buried the show to kill it. Everyone involved knew it.

Re:Will Be Missed

[Bender Unit 22]

Interesting, are there any channels left interested in showing anything that isn't scripted reality shows anymore?
I don't live in the US but it seems like a world wide trend when I got rid of cable TV a few years back.

All there's left I guess is youtube.

Re:Will Be Missed

[nedlohs]

Mythbusters is a scripted reality show surely?

But only 2 of the shows in Nielson's top 10 broadcast ratings are reality shows "Dancing with the Stars" and "Voice". There are four traditional sitcoms or dramas. 3 sports shows. And a current affairs show.

In the top 10 cable there are 2 dramas, 1 talk show about one those dramas, and 7 sports.

That would seem like a lor left that isn't scripted reality shows.

So many great experiments over the years

[jonwil]

The Mythbusters have gotten to play with (or use in their experiments) some cool stuff over the years. Things like a Boeing 747. And guns of every shape and size from tiny little pocket pistols through to massive mini-guns that wouldn't look out of place on a helicopter gunship. Oh and they had some of the best F/A-18 Hornet pilots in the world fly as low and fast as the military (and FAA) would let them in order to test if a sonic boom could break glass.

Not to mention that they have probably used every kind of explosive known to man short of a nuclear bomb (and I am sure if it was possible they would have used one of those too...)

Re:So many great experiments over the years

[The-Ixian]

The blowing up of the cement truck was the best explosion I have seen... ever....

Re:So many great experiments over the years

[jonwil]

Which is exactly why their final experiment should culminate in an even bigger explosion.

Re:So many great experiments over the years

[RubberDogBone]

But it was ruined by overdubbing the sound of the explosion in every single playback.

Exit while you're ahead

[Opportunist]

Seriously. The show is jumping the shark big time. Mostly because, well, because it's done. There simply isn't much left anymore to test, demystify and debunk. At least nothing really interesting. What it has come down to is finding out whether something that was done in a movie actually works out, or whether you can build X out of duct tape.

They're simply out of material to work with.

Re:Exit while you're ahead

[pinzvidz]

It jumped the shark a long time ago...

Re:Exit while you're ahead

[Hognoxious]

That'd make a great finale - test whether it actually is possible to jump over a shark.

Got boring

[p51d007]

Was ok for the first few years, but they pissed off a LOT OF PEOPLE when they got rid of 3 of the people on that show. Good riddance!

Re:Got boring

[dragonturtle69]

The first shows, with just Savage and Hyneman, I liked better than when they added the early millennials, LOL. Then Byron, Imahara, and Belleci became a show within the show; there were tests of related myths, and Buster took a whipping like never before. At least this show will end with a bang.

They picked up where Mr. Wizard left off

[Lord Kano]

They made science fun.
They made science accessible.

It's sad to see the end of an era but they had a good run.

LK

Law enforcement bias

[eutychus]

Another huge issue is their close ties to law enforcement and the resulting biased conclusions.

Drug dogs

Or polygraphs...

Or traffic/speed cameras...

Re:Law enforcement bias

[dcw3]

Possibly because they tested the tinfoil hats, and found them lacking.

saw this coming to

[luther349]

if you watched the current session most of the team is gone the format has been ruined and the jokes are unfunny it seems there just going threw the paces now. when i saw the last season i knew the show was done.

I have an idea why

[Applehu Akbar]

We now live in an era when myths are more popular than reality.

No surprise

[RubberDogBone]

Beyond Productions has kicked this show around for years. Too expensive to make, too many people, too many everything. And Discovery whined and complained and cheapened it to death all the while getting eternal reruns out of older episodes.

Then they kept moving the show from one day to another and then from network to network to network so nobody knows where the new episodes are even running. It's Saturday nights, you know, the science night of the week. Well ok, Friday nights are worse. And it's on Science channel which is watched by approximately one dog with a TV set in Ohio, and only because he ate the remote and can't change the channel.

The second team got axed last year and went back to making money the normal way. And no shocker, the main cast will do the same now. Actually, they have all been doing "other jobs" all the while anyway because the show never exactly paid a lot and it only filmed a few weeks a year anyway. They HAD to have real jobs.

Extended Super Basic Cable shows don't pay well.

Re:No surprise

[Chris Johnson]

That's interesting. Essentially, what you're saying is that under western market capitalism, the Mythbusters can't make a living being the Mythbusters?

Maybe they should get hired by the BBC or some such government-supported public service broadcasting system whose job it is to produce media that's worth seeing.

FYI

[eWarz]

If you just love the actors, like me, they are also on the Tested youtube channel: https://www.youtube.com/channe... though i haven't seen either of them lately.

Re:FYI

[TechNeilogy]

Tested is great; in many ways it's actually better than Mythbusters, since Tested is geek and maker oriented instead of those things just being adjunct to a larger show.

Sort of like golf.

[Hognoxious]

I'm sure that's fun for them, and if someone offered me a wad of money for doing it I'd bite their arm off.

But that doesn't necessarily translate into great viewing.

Obligatory xkcd

[RoloDMonkey]

Seriously, it is still better than most of the crap out there: https://xkcd.com/397/

Yeah but they should cut the runtime in half

[HalAtWork]

If they stopped repeating the same content before/after commercials and in interstitials it would be *much* more watchable

Re:Yeah but they should cut the runtime in half

[Baron_Yam]

You need to find a torrent of SMythBusters.

Fans edit out the repetitious crap and you get a very watchable (though much shorter) show.