White Rabbit Project

I'm a huge fan of these guys and have been since they first appeared in Mythbusters. I enjoyed the last season of that show, but felt like losing these three was a big loss.

Therefore I'm super happy Netflix threw some bucks at them and got them their own gig, and it's a great time revisiting a gang who feel like old friends now - already this show gets a big pass from me.

My issue here really is with the presentation. Each subject they cover is LADEN with silly over-the-top sketch performances by the gang that easily eat up 60-70% of the screen time, with only 30% left over for the actual meat of the science. I realize that I'm in the minority of the public who find the tech stuff fascinating and the fluff, well, fluffy, but I could really do with a lot less "estrogen crazed Hitler dancing through the tulips" (in an especially egregious example of this from the "world war 2 crazy weapons" episode) and more fun experiments-gone-wrong. If they had cut out, for example, all of the "Farting Germans at a Cafe" and "Hitler gets boobs" feature-ettes from that episode they could have packed in at least a few more crazy weapon schemes which I would have found WAY more interesting.

To summarize, I watch a TON of hilarious sketch comedy shows already, when I want science I want to turn to these guys. Dial back the "acting" just a bit and you've got a winner.

Why don't the creators of this show like science???

They seem to think that the facts and stories in the show are not interesting enough by themselves. So they try to "improve" the "boring" science with weak jokes and a dumb ranking-system. Spoiler: it's not an improvement!

If you watch this show, just skip the intro and the "outro" = the 10 minutes of wasted time where they score the different stories against each other.

That way you skip all the stupid and are left with the core: a few (mildy) interesting science-related stories, which are nice to watch.

Mythbusters found out that you could not take the Build Team out of the show. Can you run a show using only the Build Team? And doing things similar to Mythbusters, without outright plagiarizing it? That's not an easy task.

And, for season one, it didn't go too well. If there is to be a second season, it will need some adjustments here and there.

The premise? Take a topic (Weirdest weapons of WW II, g-force and it's influence on humans, great escapes, just to give you examples) and pick six items related to it. Six weird weapons for example. Then, find three criteria to judge them by. Each of the three cast members takes two of them and demonstrates them. This can involve building something, like an electric car, it can be documentary footage, play scenes (some good, some bad) or a mix.

But - less nerd porn. Slightly more Byron cleavage, though (and a looong sequence of her in underwear). While Mythbusters tried, in a scientific way, to prove or disprove a myth, explaining the science behind it and showing different methods of testing them (with varying success), the White Rabbit Project lacks experimentation. More often than not, you will see experts in their fields and hobbyists demonstrating something. Quite interesting, but as six different aspects of the episode topic need their time, instead of just two or three myths, it lacks depth there.

Something is not quite right with the show. Yet. I'd love to see it succeed, though.

First off this isn't Mythbusters. The format is very different, but this isn't a bad thing.

Each episode centers around a theme, where the team compares and ranks 6 loosely related ideas (e.g. speed, heists, scams, etc.) Usually, for each idea there is storytelling interspersed with builds of contraptions used in the story. It's surprisingly entertaining, however, and the team is far more entertaining than they ever were on Mythbusters, where Adam and Jamie usually worked on the main myth of the episode and the stories of the myths weren't at the forefront.

Sometimes the stories are a little rushed in order to fit all 6 ideas in, and I wish they would spend more time on the builds, however, but that doesn't ruin it for me. In Mythbusters, I didn't particularly enjoy the sections the team did, but here they're so much more interesting to listen to. This show is nice and really surprised me, as I expected it to be very different than it is. Definitely worth a watch!

I'm really disappointed White Rabbit Project ended up as meh as it was. I've always enjoyed the trio's segments on Mythbusters and while it was sad to see them leave the show, I was excited to see what they could accomplish with their freedom on Netflix. Instead, the show feels like a very high budget YouTube top ten list with occasional experiments here and there.

Each episode focuses on a general theme, such as superhero powers. Each of the three have two entries out of 6, generally with one being an experiment and the other being some small research and storytelling. At the end of every episode, the 6 entries are (supposedly?) averaged out and ranked on three criteria, like "how similar is it to the actual superpower." The problem I have with White Rabbit Project is that it doesn't play to the strengths that the trio had back in Mythbusters. Everybody works separately here, maybe showing up to an experiment as a test subject every once in a while, which is a far cry from their work in Mythbusters.

I would only recommend watching this if you have nothing else to watch and you liked the trio's work back in Mythbusters. There's definitely some good episodes in here, don't get me wrong, but even despite those good episodes, the majority of this show is forgettable.