Sunday 3 February 2008

New kids in town

Mythbusters is a great series, taking the myths and trying them out.

Well, in their view, there's a new series that's recently started: Smash Lab.

The basic premise is: take something that saves lives or otherwise helps in one context, and apply it in another. An example: using truck bed liner paint (which helps protect truck beds against wear and tear) and coat a house in it to see if it can protect the house against an explosion. (Result... largely successful.) Or take an air-bag from a car, and scale it up to protect a car from a train. (Result... largely unsuccessful.)

Similar to Mythbusters, the group of four break up to trackle various things, but currently it's one episode per topic. This does lead to a lot of repetitive narration (which Mythbusters isn't immune to), which really shows up when viewed without ads, but they are getting better production-wise.

The series is still in its infancy, and I would like to see a Smash Lab/Mythbusters cross-over (they are both Discovery Channel shows, so not impossible) some time. There is definite potential there and worth checking out.

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