Can’t say that I’m surprised, but it still makes me sad. Reading the article and the interviews, it sounds as though Jamie and Adam are both ready to move on to something else - especially Jamie.
I loved Mythbusters when it was in its prime. Mythbusters (and the Discovery Channel in general) were the main reason I kept cable as long as I did. But yeah, that horse should have been put out to pasture years ago.
Properly speaking, the OP here should be about three screens long, with the actual bits of information separated by several thousand words each, and the actual point of information one sentence from the end.
In other words, resembling all but a handful of *Mythbusters *episodes, which were filler, nonsense, cast horseplay, and about ten seconds of actual ask-and-answer.
They never did anything that could be mistaken for top-quality (or even mediocre) academic research, sure, but empiricism was always at the heart of the show. That was a great and unique thing. I’d rather they showed kids that anyone can learn about the world by testing it rather than bore them with rigorous statistical inference.
I was never a fan, because they usually did not actually test the myth, but rather substituted things that were more convenient. All they proved was that their test worked or not; but that was different from the myth they were trying to debunk.
I love the Mythbusters and I’m sorry to see the show end, but it’s been on borrowed time for a while now. I won’t miss the “movie myths,” gun-oriented episodes, and the obsession with explosives. My favorites were the smaller, low-key things, like “bull in a china shop” (the bulls didn’t knock over anything), “are elephants afraid of mice” (yes), and “is it better to walk or run through rain” (I can’t remember the outcome).
I think the show peaked when the airplane took off from the conveyor belt. It’s been downhill ever since.
Yeah, the entire show was the scientific method - don’t just look something up, or sit and theorize, or guess. They might start an episode with some theorizing, but ultimately they put it to the test! Granted, they were never particularly rigorous and a lot of the interesting engineering behind the scenes never made it onto television. But they were first and foremost about testing things, and, on occasion, re-testing them.
I’d say the scientific facts on the show were scarce. The scientific method, however, was always present.
The show went on too long and never lived up to its full potential. I always felt there was a better, more interesting show inside of it struggling to get out. Overall I’m glad the show was successful for so long, but I’m sad it was always over-edited and repetitive.