MythBusters: The Search

I am a huge fan of the original Mythbusters: I've seen every episode, I took my family to see Adam and Jamie live during their "Behind the Myths Tour", I have bought Mythbusters merchandise / collectibles that sit proudly in my living room. If any Discovery Channel executives read this review, if a BluRay box set of the entire original Mythbusters TV show with specials and extras were to come out I would pre-order it without thinking twice.

I gave "The Search" an honest chance. I went into the first episode with an open mind and tried to have as few expectations as possible.

I came out realizing that Discovery has no idea who the Mythbusters demographic is. This is a show that was made for someone who is not me.

What made Mythbusters special was that it was a science show wrapped in an entertaining package. Jamie and Adam formed hypotheses by using common myths and urban legends, and found creative ways to falsify those hypotheses in entertaining ways.

The Search seems to think that it can reach it's demographic with the following:

1) Nostalgia: rather than present new myths to the teams, they borrow premises from past episodes and think that we will somehow care about watching competing teams reinvent the wheel. What we miss is the people: Adam, Jamie, Kari, Grant, Tori ... the myths themselves are not something we're really all that interested in seeing busted again. Give us something new.

2) The Reality TV Trend: most Mythbusters fans that I know, myself included, do not like reality television at all. We are not the same people that watch Dancing with the Stars or The Voice. We are people who grew up on Bill Nye The Science Guy and Beakman's World. We don't want to see teams of people compete. We're not "people" people. Reality shows are about interpersonal conflict and drama. We are the type of people who stay home and read books about history and science fiction... we avoid interpersonal drama like the plague.

3) Kyle Hill: I can't understand for the life of me why this guy is the host of anything science-related. He claims he has a science background and I don't want to challenge that, he probably does, but I don't get that impression from watching or listening to him. As an on-air personality he comes across like he should have been cast to play Thor. Too much "surfer dude" and "super model", too little of anything else. In my opinion he brings nothing to the show. I think Discovery figured that by casting a male super-model they can market the show to a broader demographic. Again, a demographic that does not include fans of Mythbusters.

This show is making Mythbusters fans worried. We get it, it's not meant to "be" Mythbusters. It's a competition to find the hosts of a new show. But this show is evidence that Discovery either a) does not understand the demographic that Mythbusters appealed to or b) they don't care and they intend to use the brand to market to a demographic that does not include fans of the original show.

Anybody familiar with the original MythBusters is likely familiar with its gradual decline. The first 5 or 6 season were the "golden age" and then they started tweaking the formula for ratings / to reach a wider audience (i.e. less and less substance, and more and more "wow factor"). The last few seasons had devolved into a sort of "witches brew" of scripted reality TV, and a race to blow something up / create a spectacle, magnificently void of logic / reasoning.

"MythBusters: The Search" has once again lowered the bar. The show is now formatted as a competition, yet they attempt to shoehorn the elements of the original into the new format as if nothing has changed (e.g. classifying a myth as confirmed, plausible, or busted, when the new format provides virtually no rigorous, empirical justification for doing so).

To present this uncontrolled, "fly by the seat of your pants" science (if you can even call it that) which takes place under the new competition format, as any sort of definitive, reproducible result is downright idiotic.

Their mistake was using the "MythBusters" name for the show, as it creates a certain expectation, which goes magnificently unfulfilled.

Kyle Hill doesn't even know elementary physics. There are so many misconceptions of physics equations and concepts on his nerdist youtube channel. Also, this guy's acting is freaking cringey as hell. This show is going to get canceled. It sucks so bad. The original myth busters had REAL scientists and engineers. This show is just a bunch of communication majors wanna be scientists. Horrible show.

I too had high hopes when I first heard about this but even the PREVIEWS and commercials were so annoying my hopes slowly were dashed. Finally when the show started I could see it was never ever ever, even in it's wildest dreams, going to be remotely, fractionally close to the original.

The main problem with this concept is WHY Mythbusters was a hit for such a long time.

t was not the concept looking for casting. It was not the "pitch" of the show to a producer or network that made it a hit.

The reason Mythbusters was a smash hit, successful and an inspiration to so many people was because of the two hosts period. Without that chemistry, without that GENUINE surprise, joy, enthusiasm to what they were trying to do it wouldn't have worked.

This new show starts of right away with one of the worst elements (in my humble opinion) of "reality" shows. The COMPETITION and kicking someone out.

I despise "vote someone off" TV shows with a passion. They come up with this "forced" work together for a goal with an undercurrent of "working together but secretly against each other". You can't separate that no matter how hard you try.

The original Mythbusters was the TOTAL OPPOSITE of that horrible reality show concept. Tthe joy of the original Mythbusters was the camaraderie, the working together to figure stuff out. Yes, yes, I know that Adam and Jamie had "competitions" but they were simply fun and no potential careers were on the line. Neither of them was going to "lose their job" if they lost. (I actually think I heard once that Jamie didn't enjoy the competitions but I may be wrong.) Personally I never liked those competitions.

Another problem with this "search" concept is that all of the cast are TRYING TOO HARD!!!!!! Good grief STOP TRYING SO HARD. It's ANNOYING when some of the cast simply gush and act like morons, doing really really REALLY bad impressions of Adam (or Jamie to some degree). I guarantee the end result of this show will be two "clones" of Adam and Jamie which is a HUGE mistake. I agree they need a new idea.

Adam Savage's silly, childish personality was 100% real based on who he is and it was clear and believable. The behavior of most of THIS cast is as fake and unbelievable as a 3 dollar bill. It reminds of me of little kids shows when the hosts are completely over the top baby talking happy and over the top enthusiastic because the audience is tiny children.

I find the majority of the cast unremarkable and unwatchable for more than a few minutes before I start to gag or have to avert my eyes and cover my ears. Those that don't annoy me are simply unremarkable. They have zero personality or their personality is so fake I don't see it lasting very long before they crack under the pressure.

This show will fail is my prediction. Any resulting "Mythbusters Reboot" will also fail... but I am thinking maybe... this is NOT about finding new Mythbusters hosts but ONLY about another "Survivor" show.

What a shame if the Mythbusters reboot is just a new show about pretending to try and find someone as interesting as the original cast.

Look, I understand that this isn't the next Mythbusters season and is just the search for the next group. However, this is just pitiful to watch and just can't cope with the reputation of the original Mythbusters in the current form it is in.

I'm all for giving people a chance, as people can surprise you, but the people they got for this series just does not seem to fit the part. In the original Mythbusters, the groups all seemed balanced out with each other, they fit and appeared to work well even if that were TV magic or not. In this search for the next Mythbusters, nobody seems to have a connection towards each other. Every excessive laugh or even a single laugh, every joke, every plan seems forced and pre-determined. It's as if they're trying so hard to be appealing to the viewer and to each other, and from my point of view, it is definitely not working. Even with the thought that maybe they just need to grow on each other it just does not seem like it was meant to be or even decent. They're just trying so hard to fit in and be funny that it's just weird and actually annoying.

The host as well does not seem like he knows much of what he's doing, even if he does, he does not portray that.

Using the idea of an elimination reality show also seems like a completely odd idea for finding the next Mythbusters. This doesn't make much sense and also drastically increases the factor of chance or luck as being one of the main components to being the next Mythbusters. The original Mythbusters, which pertained to the idea of elimination of mistakes or possible problems with experiments, seems completely opposite of an elimination by challenge type of search.

Honestly, they still are striving to bust myths so I suppose I can't say that they shouldn't call the show Mythbusters and just switch it to something else. However, if the groups are to continue as they are, I believe the real purpose of Mythbusters, which wasn't just to test myths, but was also to entertain the audience in being able to show the world things that you probably wouldn't have ever tested or even thought of before and give these people a passion for science, then one of the main components of this purpose would be lost. The entertainment. The joy in watching Mythbusters not only came from the results of the myths, but seeing them put it together with their ideas, thinking processes, and bad puns or jokes. As with most cases, with the lost of fun and entertainment, the loss of interest is quick to follow. This involves the show and science in itself. In watching the groups in this series work, the only part of the show I wanted to watch was the results. The groups themselves seem like a slightly-boring filler trying too hard to pass off as amazing content.

Hopefully they develop into something that will prove this entire review wrong once the next official Mythbusters have been chosen.