Last episode of “Mythbusters” just aired. While a whole lot of the show was simply blowing stuff up (not that there’s anything wrong with that), a good fraction of it was actually pretty good at presenting a skeptical approach to commonly held beliefs – and then blowing them up.
In a world of innumerable crap shows about horrible vacuous celebrities, or brain damaged “paranormal investigators,” or inbred “bigfoot hunters” or insane gibberers about “ancient aliens,” “Mythbusters” was a bit of a rarity… a show about the scientific method and skepticism.
It seems to me that there are two kinds of science shows on television:
- Shows like “Cosmos” and “How The Universe Works,” which show, well, how the universe works, generally describing Big Things that your average viewer probably didn’t know too much about (black holes, atomic structure, cosmology, etc.)
- Shows like “Mythbusters” (and “Bullshit!” and “Adam Ruins Everything”) that deal with the everyday… and shows that What You Know May be Wrong.
The former type of show is reasonably well represented. In general, that type gets through an hour of television by just telling you how it is, and generally fairly uncontroversially. The second type of show, however, is a much rarer thing, and it is by definition controversial… because it tells a lot of people that their beliefs are *wrong.* In the case of Mythbusters, those beliefs were usually pretty shallowly believed… stuff people saw on the internet, or other such urban legends. But shows the “The Truth Behind” and “Bullshit!” dealt with a lot of stuff that your average newage aficionados took greatly to heart, and “Bullshit!” and “Adam Ruins Everything” dealt with a lot of things that people take as received political truth. And given how entertaining these shows have been, their rarity can’t be due to low ratings… and it’s not like they’re likely all that expensive. I imagine it’s the sheer skeptical nature of the shows that make them unpopular with certain groups… including studio heads and the like.
So, now that Mythbusters is gone… what’s left? “Bullshit!” is long gone. “The Truth Behind” was only a few episodes. Season One of “Adam Ruins Everything” ended some months ago; season two won’t start until August 2016. TV seems kinda empty, abandoned to the “monster hunters.” So… what we got?