It’s 7:30 Saturday evening, there’s an Archimedes’ Death ray, a chicken cannon, explosions & fountains of Coca Cola. It must be Mythbusters. But no! It’s Richard Hammond’s Engineering Connections. If I must be deprived of my yummy Kari Byron from Mythbusters then Engineering Connections is a worthy replacement.
This timeslot seems to be reserved for industrial things like machines & buildings. Perhaps SBS has the excellent ‘Industrial Revelations’ series waiting in the wings to be broadcast some time. If not they should seek it out. Or bring back my yummy Kari Byron!
The essence of Shaun Micallef (available in the 5 ounce bottle) is his surreal off the wall humor. TALKING ‘BOUT MY GENERATION finally allows Shaun to bounce off all 4 walls & the ceiling!
I found NEWSTOPIA a bit too scripted & bogged down by political humor. But Shaun’s new show really does allow him to do what he does best.
Shaun is often best when he improvises such as on THANK GOD YOU’RE HERE. I hope this show continues BUT..!
There is no apostrophe in 60’s or 70’s so you loose 10 points for that Shaun. Be more careful next time!
By Jonathan 16/3/09
I’ve been watching the follow up to MYTHBUSTERS & while there is no yummy Kari Byron, it is still worth watching. (MYTHBUSTERS is now on Sunday mornings so I can still get my regular dose of Kari yumminess!)
PROTOTYPE THIS is rather like an after school program for extra credits. It’s like MYTHBUSTERS advanced class. Instead of trying a few experiments to test several myths, they concentrate on trying to invent one thing new & untested.
The ‘Mythies’ experiments can often take anything from a few hours to a few months in the case of trying to grow peas or rot down pigs in a car etc. PROTOTYPE THIS doesn’t have this luxury as they have to finish their project in around 2 weeks. I’ve seen this in other programs & while I understand you can’t let things drag on for ever, it distracts from the whole point of the show if there is a time limit. If you’re trying to invent something like an automatic toothbrush but you have to abandon the idea because of time constraints it takes part of the fun of invention out of the show.
Naturally when you see something new, you instinctively want to compare it to something familiar. Human beings have evolved this way. So naturally there will be comparisons with MYTHBUSTERS. The most obvious one is Terry who is very much like Adam Savage. He even looks like him! He’s the one who gets all emotional, throws tantrums & says ‘Oops’ the most.
Then there is Mike who despite his wacky haircut is probably the resident sex symbol, like Tory. (There is no regular female like yummy Kari. This is very much a ‘boys toys’ type of show). Joe is a lot like Grant & even does the same job of electronics. Zoz isn’t particularly like anybody, (maybe a bit like Jamie) but being Australian he does add a bit of down under twang to the accents. Since Beyond Distribution is an Australian company it’s nice to have a bit of local content for a change.
Anyway, since I said the inventions were the whole point of the show I should dwell a bit more on them. The ‘Get Up & Go’ pod that is bed & breakfast as well as shower was mildly amusing. (The breakfast component had to be abandoned, once again due to time constraints & also mess.) The air bag suit probably needs a bit more work & I’m not really into boxing so my favorite so far would be the clever car with its ability to park sideways over another car.
Of course there are a million & one problems with this, such as what if you’re the car underneath & you want to get out! What if your heavy clever car falls on somebody else’s expensive Porsche or Lamborghini! How can you turn a gas-guzzler into a gas-muzzler when this new car is so heavy it requires 2 engines! And finally, do we really want to encourage more people to drive cars? Maybe in the future the guys can invent a train that doesn’t run late! (Dream on!)
By Jonathan Scutt 25/2/09
Wanted, good home for a hilarious comedy! Must love intelligent humor & hate endless sport!
I was all set to watch another episode of BIG BANG THEORY where Penny & Sheldon are at logger heads, (what a surprise) when I got a nasty shock. Not only had the show been unceremoniously dumped but it had been replaced by a cheap & nasty rip-off of Channel 7’s BORDER SECURITY!
Whilst BORDER SECURITY is entirely made in Australia, Channel 9’s CUSTOMS is sourced from the UK & just has Vince Colosimo’s head stuck on it to make it look vaguely Australian.
Mind you I can’t complain too much, my beloved BIG BANG THEORY is made in America & set in Pasadena California so what is my problem? It’s really that the show keeps getting shoved around by sport & rather dubious local content.
Anyway I’ve just ordered series 1 of BIG BANG from Amzaon.com as it still isn’t available in Australia. (Great marketing campaign hey!) So when it arrives I’ll watch it & all the DVD extras & tell you all about it.
And check out ROBOT CHICKEN as well. It’s made by Seth Green (Scotty from AUSTIN POWERS) I got series 2 for Christmas & it is full of weird & perverted stop frame animation. The Star Wars & Harry Potter parodies are one of my favorites but just watch out for the bear from the fabric softener ad! (Enough said).
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