Mythbusters - WTH man? No Tori, Grant, or Kari?

They MAY NEVER say anything about it except what has been already said.

Apollo said:

They MAY NEVER say anything about it except what has been already said.

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In a lot of ways, that might be better then actually learning the truth of what happened.

I follow all 5 on twitter, and between tweets and what was said on the show, it seems like, whomever brought up the change, none of the 5 are exactly "happy" with it. It also seems to have been decided/building for a while, but after the start of this season*.

For most recent seasons*, the crew has dropped hints of what they're filming, and then sneak peaks the closer to airing. A lot of times, they'd even livetweet the episodes as they air on the East Coast (incredibly annoying for those of us on a 3 hour delay on the West Coast, tbh). This season*, they started off with that for an episode or two, then suddenly they weren't talking about the episode anymore. The build team was still talking about their stuff (Kari's dress for the Emmy's, for example), and Jamie and Adam were talking about the legs of the tour going on, but not the episodes. Then, this episode airs on the East Coast, and Kari said something along the lines of "well, the cat's out of the bag, we can say this now". That, and the awkwardness of Jamie and Adam in their goodbye segment is what's telling me that none the 5 of them are exactly happy with it.

The show's been having problems a lot lately. I've enjoyed the specials (the Star Wars special was great, and even the Walking Dead one was fun, despite not watching the show), but the rest of the show has been lackluster for me. Discovery's been doing it no favors, either, with every season* having a different time slot, and sometimes they get reruns, and sometimes they don't. For the past few years, they've been consistently scheduling it against something else I watch, that's neither available On Demand or gets reruns, so I've had to choose not to watch Mythbusters and hope they repeat it.

Then, there's the "seasons". There's a reason I've been marking the word with * this whole post. I'm pretty sure that this "season" was the third season this year. I get that shows do split seasons, or a fall season and a spring season, or whatever, but it's just too hard to follow what's going on. I'd see stuff advertising the "season premiere," then, next thing I know, not even 2 or 3 months later, the show's off the air again. I'm not sure if it's a problem with funding or what, that they pretty much air the episodes as soon as they can get them edited, but I'd much rather they wait until they have a decent amount of episodes before airing them. I think this "season" was only 6 or 7 episodes!

Personally, I don't know if I'll continue to watch the show. I've never really cared for Jamie all that much, and Adam is more fun when he's on his own. The build team have always been my favorites, and more fun to watch. Then again, it's not likely that Discovery will air the show at a time when I can watch it, so it's likely to be a moot point as it is.

It seems to be the new in thing for television companies to makes several small "seasons" these days, i remember when a season was 23-26 episodes but now if you get 13 you're lucky. Discovery hasn't been known for good sense for a long time just look at what they've done with their channels and quality of shows they make. Even the science channel is reality shows now. It's all about money.

Reading this thread, it does seem to be from a money angle but one that has been made in a "catch-22'' kind of way. From what I've read here and elsewhere, one thing seems to be clear is that the Discovery isn't getting the ratings that it used to with this show, and paying the big bucks to five people for a show that isn't pulling what it once was, wasn't feasible anymore. At that same time, I also think the execs did/didn't want to cancel the show; the show is now a brand and a staple of Discovery. It still brings in ratings and money, just look at how many crossover/themed episodes they have linked to something currently popular (Star Wars, Breaking Bad, Zombies, Pirates of the Caribbean etc.) but unfortunately, not enough. So what do you do? Jump the show around different time slots (honestly, only recently have I been aware when this show is on and not a repeat) to get the viewership down low enough to justify cutting three contracts but not get rid of the show entirely. The money you once spent on three other people, complete with their own shop, can now be funneled (perhaps even partially) to your main two guys.

I liked Kari, Grant, and Tori, and it was a bit callous in how unceremoniously they were booted off the show in a 20 second clip for 10 years worth of work. However, I know I liked the show when it was just Adam and Jamie, it was what brought me to watch it in the first place. I loved their dynamic together; not the straight-guy/goofball thing, but how they just had a low tolerance for each other. You saw how they had to work together, but didn't like it. It's probably changed now since 12 years has passed but I, for one, am looking forward to seeing 1-2, maybe 3, myths per episode with in-depth build logs, again.

Bring it on, I say.

Re: Adam, please explain..

OldSkoolEffects said:

I personally think the show got too " 'Murican " and concentrated too much on the "ooo shiny" factor and explosions and such, and not enough on the science. Granted, that's the way all of Discovery Network's channels seem to be going.

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It's never really been a show about science.

Re: Adam, please explain..

Wow this is all news to me SPOILERTHREAD!!!!
Regardless of the how and the why Adam Tori amd Grant have been friends and co workers for years before mythbusters. Unless Adam is giving an oscar worthy act of being a genuine warm human the b team will have come away from this in a great position.

Re: Adam, please explain..

AJTaliesen said:

It's never really been a show about science.

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Clearly Mythbusters is, and always has been, more about the entertainment factor than about the science. But by explaining the science behind the "myths" they tested, even when they took those tests to ridiculous extremes, they made the "science" part of it fun...initially, anyway.

The problem is that after 10 years of doing this a lot of the "myths" end up having to be tested in similar ways, so there's a lot of repetition--I know more about ballistics, explosives, and human analogs now than I ever thought I would. So at this point they're explaining what the "myth" is, and I'd guess a lot of home audience members do the same thing I do: "Oh, they're going to get this and this and this, and they're going to build one of those, and they're going to do this and this to prove it's nonsense. Then they're going to blow something up real good."

So maybe by reducing the cast Adam and Jamie can put a little more emphasis on the science the way they did in the early days. Then again, they'll probably lose even more viewers that way. Oh well, 11 years is a pretty good run.

I think Kari, Tori and Grant should get together and make their own special effects company for motion pictures and TV. I mean, we know they got the skills to do it. Why not?

Saw it once(around 10 years ago), really liked it, got hooked and been watching it ever since: THIS SUUUCKS, big time almost as much as Discovery Channel. No more Kari
My heart died a bit

Re: Adam, please explain..

More likely it was that they were working on the myth that foil hats protect you from the mind control satellites or something similar and The Illuminati had them let go instead of the usual "kill them and make it look like an accident or suicide." Seriously, this thread is like watching CNN when something huge happens and they start making **** up and repeating it over and over untill they get actual information.

And I don't like the term "b team" either.

Mythbusters was at its best the first seasons when it was only Adam and Jamie, it was new and fresh ant it took it´s subjectmatter seriously. I remember the criticism when they brought in other hosts, especially Kari. It was conceived as a move to make the series appeal to a broader audience. But also, you could see that Adam and Jamie put in a lot of work to fill the one hour program. They were constantly on camera and the tension between them was palpable. It was almost not fun to watch since they seemed to really dislike each other. So, from a production point of view it was probably a smart move to have more hosts that could share the workload. Therefore it seems strange that they want to go back to those days, perhaps Mythbusters will only be 30min per episode the next season?

I used to watch religiously, and even though the show interpreted "thought experiments" as myths, I was okay with it. Once Discovery crammed in as much fluff as they could and the streaming twitter feeds and all the extraneous stuff, I tuned out. I'm amazed with the programming that is currently on Discovery Networks, Jamie and Adam aren't out searching for Bigfoot having lunch with the extraterrestrials that build the pyramids, all while being rednecks in the buff making alcohol.

OldSkoolEffects said:

I used to watch religiously, and even though the show interpreted "thought experiments" as myths, I was okay with it. Once Discovery crammed in as much fluff as they could and the streaming twitter feeds and all the extraneous stuff, I tuned out. I'm amazed with the programming that is currently on Discovery Networks, Jamie and Adam aren't out searching for Bigfoot having lunch with the extraterrestrials that build the pyramids, all while being rednecks in the buff making alcohol.

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Don't give them ideas, Discovery Communications has gone off the rails and should be ashamed. Every channel they own from A&E to science and military channels is nothing but reality crap now.

Re: Adam, please explain..

glunark said:

Do people actually remember the first series of Mythbusters fondly?

They spent half the time rummaging though junkyards and charity shops looking for cheap or free stuff to experiment with, and then you had that female "myth expert" who would explain where the myth came from.

Or is all we really remember "Am I missing an eyebrow?" and "I like it in here, its private"

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I completely forgot about that myth expert. I honestly hated her lol. I couldn't tell you exactly why, and I didn't notice she was gone, but im glad.

She just came across as a bit of a smug hippy.

And a minute spent with her was a minute not seeing a frozen chicken being fired through a plane windscreen.

Wes R said:

It seems to be the new in thing for television companies to makes several small "seasons" these days, i remember when a season was 23-26 episodes but now if you get 13 you're lucky. Discovery hasn't been known for good sense for a long time just look at what they've done with their channels and quality of shows they make. Even the science channel is reality shows now. It's all about money.

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I hate to break it to you but it's always been about the money, that's what all TV networks are about, the money. Their goal isn't to entertain but to make money by providing entertainment, unfortunately too many networks feel that it's easier to do it by putting on cheap, crap shows rather than quality shows but from a business perspective I can't blame them.

In all honesty, the show hasn't really been about myths since about the second season. It is really more of a "here is a science-y question, let's test it". Once it got away from "real" myths there was just no point for her anymore. The things they test now don't really have any folklore to them.

NormanF said:

... Seriously, this thread is like watching CNN when something huge happens and they start making **** up and repeating it over and over untill they get actual information...

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Yeah, but that's kinda' what we do here.