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Mythbusters Ending After Next Season (ew.com) 187

An anonymous reader writes: Entertainment Weekly is just one of many reporting that next season will be the last for the long-running show Mythbusters. EW reports: "The pioneering reality series, one of cable's longest-running shows, will stage its final gonzo experiment during next year's 14th season after 248 episodes and 2,950 experiments. But there is some upside: Stars Adam Savage and Jamie Hyneman have secretly known the end was coming all year and have been crafting an explosive final run for the seven-time Emmy-nominated series. 'It was my greatest fear that Mythbusters would just stop and we wouldn't be able to do proper final episodes,' Savage tells EW. 'So whether it's myths about human behavior or car stories or explosion stories, we tried to find the most awesome example of each category and build on our past history.'"
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Mythbusters Ending After Next Season

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  • The Entrie Crew (Score:5, Interesting)

    by sycodon ( 149926 ) on Wednesday October 21, 2015 @05:32PM (#50777115)

    Hope they bring them back for the finale.

    • +1.

      One thing is bugging me... 2,950 experiments would be an average of 11 experiments per episode... I don't quite remember there being that many.

      • Re: (Score:3, Informative)

        by Aelanna ( 2695123 )
        To be fair, a lot of the experiments done in the name of the show never actually made it to the show; in the later seasons they often gave a shout-out to the Mythbusters website so you could check out additional content that would otherwise have been left on the cutting room floor.

        I'd also imagine that there were ones where they'd done the entire experiment and just simply found it to not be interesting enough to air.
      • by sycodon ( 149926 )

        Maybe they are counting the variations.

      • by OzPeter ( 195038 ) on Wednesday October 21, 2015 @05:55PM (#50777331)

        +1.

        One thing is bugging me... 2,950 experiments would be an average of 11 experiments per episode... I don't quite remember there being that many.

        Maybe you should do some research and report back on how many experiments actually made it to air. After all you wouldn't want this myth of 11 experiments per show to go untested.

    • Yeah, I miss Scottie.
  • by xxxJonBoyxxx ( 565205 ) on Wednesday October 21, 2015 @05:33PM (#50777139)

    >> Mythbusters Ending After Next Season

    Wow, I had no idea it was still going. I saw there was some kind of Epic Rap Battle thing with MythBusters and some crappy new cast and I'd figured whatever they'd tried to pull with that had killed it.

    • by elrous0 ( 869638 ) on Wednesday October 21, 2015 @06:09PM (#50777455)

      Be glad you missed the last few seasons.

    • I was surprised too. They'd gone so long without a new episode, and I thought I heard the series was over, so I didn't pay attention for a couple of years. Now I only have netflix so I can't get the latest episodes anyway.

      • I used to buy the seasons from iTunes to watch with my daughter (because science!), until Discovery Canada started being insanely stupid with their release dates. OK, here's ep 1, next week 2, next week.. nothing? Oh, three weeks later is ep 3. (But we're already on episode 6? WTF?). The final straw was when the rest of the season dropped in one batch... after the *next* season had already completed airing!)

        So, I may go back and get the seasons I'm missing to watch with the munchkin.

        Also, the true star of t

        • How do you get the old seasons though, without buying DVDs?

          • I'd have to double-check, but iTunes does have most of the seasons online - my issue was with the Season Pass (i.e. "watch the show as it airs"), because I was not getting the show anytime remotely near when it aired.

            Barring that, the local library has a good back catalog to borrow from.

    • by k6mfw ( 1182893 )
      Yes, I also had no idea it was still on. I got bored with the series when every experiment became an explosion.
  • no wonder (Score:4, Insightful)

    by Anonymous Coward on Wednesday October 21, 2015 @05:33PM (#50777141)

    That's what they get after firing Kari and company.

    • Re:no wonder (Score:5, Insightful)

      by hambone142 ( 2551854 ) on Wednesday October 21, 2015 @05:40PM (#50777207)

      They've run out of material. Additionally, they seem to pick the outcome prior to conducting their experiments. Cases in point: Women vs. men throwing a baseball (forced men to throw with opposite hand) and recently, blowing a boat out of water and not checking to see what really happened to it.

      The worst was whether or not a stone kicked by a lawnmower would have the same power as a .357 magnum pistol round. They replaced the 5 HP lawnmower engine with an electric motor that was over 20 HP and completely ignored the difference in horsepower.

      Quasi scientific buffoons.

      • Re:no wonder (Score:5, Interesting)

        by Garfong ( 1815272 ) on Wednesday October 21, 2015 @05:57PM (#50777343)

        They've run out of material. Additionally, they seem to pick the outcome prior to conducting their experiments. Cases in point: Women vs. men throwing a baseball (forced men to throw with opposite hand)

        They also forced the women to throw with the opposite hand. They were trying to control for difference in training between men & women. The full conclusion was the average man can throw better than the average woman, the raw talent of the average men and average women is the same. But a multi-part conclusion like that doesn't really fit well into the Confirmed/Plausible/Busted format they use.

      • by gangien ( 151940 )

        Quasi scientific

        Sure, but they weren't exactly out there to write scientific journals.

        buffoons

        nah.

        • Sure, but they weren't exactly out there to write scientific journals.

          Nice [cambridge.org] side-effect [researchgate.net], though.

        • Quasi scientific

          Sure, but they weren't exactly out there to write scientific journals.

          A lot of it looked to be up there in the area of pilot studies, and those generally don't get written up in journals--some you may not hear about outside of the specific sub-sub-field and/or grant process, since the entire point of a pilot study is...well...can we scientifically test this this way?

          Sometimes it gets weird, because you might have a pretty sound theory and planned methodology, but the pilot study demonstrates that something is missing before it's ready for a scientific journal.

          They might get t

      • Law enforcement bias (Score:5, Interesting)

        by eutychus ( 71710 ) on Wednesday October 21, 2015 @11:10PM (#50778335)

        Another huge issue is their close ties to law enforcement and the resulting biased conclusions.

        Drug dogs [dailykos.com]

        Or polygraphs... [apa.org]

        Or traffic/speed cameras... [youtube.com]

      • yea most myths on the new stuff is movie based or some sort of cross show.
      • by hawk ( 1151 )

        >The worst was whether or not a stone kicked by a
        >lawnmower would have the same power as a .357
        >magnum pistol round.

        There are definitely other candidates. Like the 5 second rule . . . *culture* the dropped chip's bacteria?

        Uhh, yeah, right. How about waiting five seconds, putting it a solution with the acidity of stomach acid, and seeing what you get . . .

        haw

    • Re: (Score:2, Informative)

      by cayenne8 ( 626475 )

      That's what they get after firing Kari and company.

      Wow, I've not seen a recent episode in a little while, but I didn't realize they had canned Kari and presumable her other two male cohorts....

      Hell, SHE was one of the primary reasons I watched the show in the first place...she had a "geek" hot thing going on.....even after being preggers.

    • by elrous0 ( 869638 )

      It wasn't just the firing. They also almost exclusively started doing episodes that were nothing more than shameless promos for movies and TV shows. They had done some of these before in earlier seasons (presumably at the insistence of their Discovery masters). But now that's ALL they do. Just fucking sad to see a show I once loved resorting to unabashedly whoring themselves like that. It's like seeing the cute, sweet girl next door who everyone loves become a crack whore.

      • No, if it was unabashedly they'd still be doing it and well paid for it.

        It's because they have a kind of integrity that they're done. They had a good run, but what media needs from them now is just too obnoxious. Plus, Jamie and Adam don't like each other all that much, they just work well together. The more their show is 'media promo stunts bankrolled by movies and TV shows', the less actual work they have to do, and the more fake work and posing they end up doing. They don't like the fake work and posing,

        • by elrous0 ( 869638 )

          Oh, give me a break. They didn't quit, they got cancelled. If they had any integrity they would have quit back when Discovery first started forcing them to do all those promo episodes, instead of continuing for several more seasons.

    • Re:no wonder (Score:5, Interesting)

      by radish ( 98371 ) on Wednesday October 21, 2015 @11:38PM (#50778441) Homepage

      I disagree - the last season with just the two of them has been a great return to form. You know, actually doing science, actually showing the build process and failures as well as successes. As much as I liked the three other hosts (and I did like them) they were a distraction and devolved the show into the quest for larger explosions.

      • by AmiMoJo ( 196126 )

        It seemed like they were trying to get people flicking through channels and joining them half way through to stick with them. Endless repartition of the premise and what you had just seen, in case you happened to be channel surfing and missed it. Content condensed down to about three minutes per episode and repeated over and over.

        The new episodes are much, much better.

    • by qubezz ( 520511 )

      Mythbusters revealed they got the notice of it being their last season at the beginning of 2015. The news of the 2nd team leaving broke about a year ago. From what was said by Savage in a newer interview, it sounds like Discovery already had Mythbusters in its crosshairs:

      "The actual reasons for them going ... while we have certain understandings of what went on, that's a contract discussion between Discovery and those guys. We don't know much about how that actually went."

  • by dwywit ( 1109409 ) on Wednesday October 21, 2015 @05:38PM (#50777189)

    I guess the cut-back-on-staff-to-improve-profitibility(ratings) experiment didn't work.

    I would have moved the other three into a different field, maybe a travelling show, visiting schools to do cool science stuff - fewer explosions, sure, but maybe some rocketry +GoPro, or weather balloons. Lots of room for building stuff out of silicone/gelatine, dropping buster onto various surfaces with sensor experiments designed by the students.

    • I guess the cut-back-on-staff-to-improve-profitibility(ratings) experiment didn't work.

      I would have moved the other three into a different field, maybe a travelling show, visiting schools to do cool science stuff - fewer explosions, sure, but maybe some rocketry +GoPro, or weather balloons. Lots of room for building stuff out of silicone/gelatine, dropping buster onto various surfaces with sensor experiments designed by the students.

      I'm sure ratings played a part but it was still a flagship program and I doubt profitability was the main issue.

      I suspect this was just a case of the show being on for a very long time and the two stars having retirement money. At this point they're simply not having fun anymore and want to move onto something new. From the article it sounds like Hyneman wants a job where he just wants to build stuff while Savage wants to do some new TV.

      • I suspect this was just a case of the show being on for a very long time and the two stars having retirement money. At this point they're simply not having fun anymore and want to move onto something new. From the article it sounds like Hyneman wants a job where he just wants to build stuff while Savage wants to do some new TV.

        You're correct... but in a year they may really miss it... Well, maybe not, I don't know them, but sometimes you don't know the best time of your life until it is over...

        • I suspect this was just a case of the show being on for a very long time and the two stars having retirement money. At this point they're simply not having fun anymore and want to move onto something new. From the article it sounds like Hyneman wants a job where he just wants to build stuff while Savage wants to do some new TV.

          You're correct... but in a year they may really miss it... Well, maybe not, I don't know them, but sometimes you don't know the best time of your life until it is over...

          Well, maybe they do a reunion in a couple of years. Planned for six shows (TV episodes or on-stage), but aborted after 3 because they really hate each other.

      • by tlhIngan ( 30335 )

        I'm sure ratings played a part but it was still a flagship program and I doubt profitability was the main issue.

        I suspect this was just a case of the show being on for a very long time and the two stars having retirement money. At this point they're simply not having fun anymore and want to move onto something new. From the article it sounds like Hyneman wants a job where he just wants to build stuff while Savage wants to do some new TV.

        Profitability is probably a huge reason, actually.

        After all, if you hav

    • I think that they felt they had to have an 'edge' over what a replacement show/staff could do. Their expertise was props and stunts, so they worked their expertise into the show to accomplish presentations that couldn't easily be matched and as an effort to make things more exciting. Honestly, the process of creating some of the things they built was pretty interesting in and of itself from that angle.

      However, that 'edge' helped derail the show quite a bit as things moved on. The excessive use of Movie M

    • by hawk ( 1151 )

      >I guess the cut-back-on-staff-to-improve-profitibility(ratings) experiment didn't work.

      Or, tivo-type data disclosed just how many of us would fast forward or skip over the jv portion, which tended to be due and stupid . . .

      hawk

  • by rmdingler ( 1955220 ) on Wednesday October 21, 2015 @05:38PM (#50777191) Journal

    Any show that taught science to the masses through a clever delivery venue would be missed dearly,

    but these folks really delivered, often in an entertaining enough fashion that people might forget they were learning something, too.

    • I like that they may have changed some people's perception of science that it is cool.
    • Re: (Score:2, Insightful)

      by thegarbz ( 1787294 )

      Any show that taught science to the masses through a clever delivery venue would be missed dearly,

      Fortunately we won't miss them then. Actually that's not fair. The show did hopefully give masses an increased interest in science, but I would caution anyone who would consider anything the mythbusters as "science". They got lucky sometimes, but other times their experiments were faulty, missed the point, mostly they lacked a control, and they had little or no control over environmental variables that quite frequently they got their answer quite. Great for entertainment value, not so good when someone uses

      • by Ogive17 ( 691899 ) on Thursday October 22, 2015 @08:55AM (#50780225)
        They were not doing experiences in order to submit papers to academic journals. It was a television show meant to entertain an audience.

        No, it was not perfect science. It has been a few years since I have watched but from what I remember, each episode would have one main myth they were testing. If it was statistics based, they would almost always have a baseline to compare results to. If it was event based, they would do their best to replicate the conditions of the myth before they switched gears and simply tried to figure out how to replicate the results.

        Trial and error is science.
    • If they stopped repeating the same content before/after commercials and in interstitials it would be *much* more watchable
  • by MacTO ( 1161105 ) on Wednesday October 21, 2015 @05:39PM (#50777197)

    I loved the concept of the show and found it very entertaining. I enjoyed how they demonstrated the testing of myths from hypotheses to conclusion, how the revisited myths based on viewer input, and how they did stuff that was just plain too expensive or too dangerous for the typical person to do. Yet I stopped watching it for one simple reason: they seemed to over emphasize the dangerous stuff and that just got plain boring after a time. So thank you for everything you did, and yes thank you for moving on.

  • personnel cutbacks didn't do the trick.
  • After they shot that cannon ball into that house.....

  • by Anonymous Coward
    Show how to invent a digital alarm clock that looks like a bomb... in 20 minutes.
  • by Irate Engineer ( 2814313 ) on Wednesday October 21, 2015 @05:46PM (#50777257)

    ...they cut Kari Bryon.

    All the explosions in the world didn't fix the lack of girl-next-door fun-n-curvy hotness that was Kerri. She was hot even when prego.

    • Feh...

      Kari never toted natural hair color. She also had zero scientific background (Grant was the only degreed techie).

      Window dressing only (as with Tori).

      • by Irate Engineer ( 2814313 ) on Wednesday October 21, 2015 @06:31PM (#50777617)

        Feh...

        Kari never toted natural hair color.

        Wait...Kari had hair? I wasn't looking at the top of her head apparently.

      • by gangien ( 151940 ) on Wednesday October 21, 2015 @06:48PM (#50777747) Homepage

        She also had zero scientific background

        I think that's part of the point of the show. That you don't need to have a fancy degree and spend years in college to think critically and figure something out.

      • Nonsense. Just because Kari Byron wasn't Jamie-grade brilliant doesn't make her just a booth babe. She was and presumably is a good builder. She, like Tory, was one of the uncredited and unseen builders for the team, the fact that she got called to be onscreen talent was merely recognition of the supremely obvious.

    • Nope, it died when they started taking movie stunts as actual things that can happen. This was what, 3-4 years before they cut the rest of the team?

      The show was great, they just ran out of myths to bust.
      • Nope, it died when they started taking movie stunts as actual things that can happen.

        Actually, some of that stuff was quite fun, and it turns out some of it is actually possible.

        It is called fan service, the same thing happened when they did the pointless test of "do girls with bigger boobs get bigger tips". Like that is a real myth, everyone knows it is true.

        But it was an excuse to have fun with her boobs. :)

    • by AmiMoJo ( 196126 )

      If the show needed "girl-next-door fun-n-curvy hotness" to hold your entertainment, something was very wrong with it. Or maybe with you, but judging by the number of similar comments I'd say with the show.

      • by Blue23 ( 197186 )

        If the show needed "girl-next-door fun-n-curvy hotness" to hold your entertainment, something was very wrong with it. Or maybe with you, but judging by the number of similar comments I'd say with the show.

        You know, the show grew quite well from the "we don't have the budget for more weather balloons" early episodes before the production company wanted a second team and gave the build team trio some spotlight. While I'm sure that the production company was quite aware of any added appeal from her and Tori for their respective audiences, it's quite a stretch to say the whole show was held up it.

        Your science doesn't seem particularly rigorous, but don't worry, the Mythbusters have tested that. Can the show wo

  • Mtyhbusters was a really entertaining show to watch in the beginning. A little science, but mostly fun, And that was really refreshing
    I stopped watching when the time spent watching the actually program was less than will happen/has happened runs.
    (it felt like it, I haven't actually timed it)

    My rule of thumb is this. If a show contains reoccurring:
    1) Annoying laugh track
    2) Will happen / has happened
    3) Two characters facing the same camera in a lengthy drama dialog (strong soap opera indicator)
  • Sick show (Score:2, Funny)

    by Anonymous Coward

    That show was dominated by cisgender white males promoting their privileged and aggressive toxic behavior. I am glad it is dead. Top Gear needs to go too!

  • Used to love that show. Then they fired Grant, Kari, and Tory and started doing nothing but shameless promo episodes for movies and TV shows. It's sad to see a once-great show having sunk so low. Now if we can just find someone with a time machine to go back to 1999 and kill Matt Groening, all will be right in the universe.

  • by Lumpy ( 12016 ) on Wednesday October 21, 2015 @06:09PM (#50777451) Homepage

    When Discovery gutted the show last year it was the writing on the wall...

    I'm betting the last shows and next "season" are simply contract fulfillment for Jamie and Adam.

  • Will Be Missed (Score:5, Insightful)

    by Thelasko ( 1196535 ) on Wednesday October 21, 2015 @06:30PM (#50777607) Journal
    I'm going to miss Mythbusters. My biggest complaint is that I can never find the show on TV. It seemed to be on all of the time when it first started. Now it airs during some secret time slot that moves constantly. That usually indicates a series will soon end.
    • I'm going to miss Mythbusters. My biggest complaint is that I can never find the show on TV. It seemed to be on all of the time when it first started. Now it airs during some secret time slot that moves constantly. .

      What? It's on Channel Pi at Eleventy-three past the hour, alternating fifth Wednesdays following every full moon. Sheesh. Lazy.

    • It's currently on Saturdays on the Science channel. It IS a bad sign when a show begins changing the day it airs week to week, and worse when it hops from the main Discovery channel where it got good ratings and now airs on Science which is usually one of the least-watched channels.

      Discovery has buried the show to kill it. Everyone involved knew it.

      • Interesting, are there any channels left interested in showing anything that isn't scripted reality shows anymore?
        I don't live in the US but it seems like a world wide trend when I got rid of cable TV a few years back.

        All there's left I guess is youtube.

        • Mythbusters is a scripted reality show surely?

          But only 2 of the shows in Nielson's top 10 broadcast ratings are reality shows "Dancing with the Stars" and "Voice". There are four traditional sitcoms or dramas. 3 sports shows. And a current affairs show.

          In the top 10 cable there are 2 dramas, 1 talk show about one those dramas, and 7 sports.

          That would seem like a lor left that isn't scripted reality shows.

  • The Mythbusters have gotten to play with (or use in their experiments) some cool stuff over the years. Things like a Boeing 747. And guns of every shape and size from tiny little pocket pistols through to massive mini-guns that wouldn't look out of place on a helicopter gunship. Oh and they had some of the best F/A-18 Hornet pilots in the world fly as low and fast as the military (and FAA) would let them in order to test if a sonic boom could break glass.

    Not to mention that they have probably used every kin

  • Seriously. The show is jumping the shark big time. Mostly because, well, because it's done. There simply isn't much left anymore to test, demystify and debunk. At least nothing really interesting. What it has come down to is finding out whether something that was done in a movie actually works out, or whether you can build X out of duct tape.

    They're simply out of material to work with.

  • Was ok for the first few years, but they pissed off a LOT OF PEOPLE when they got rid of 3 of the people on that show. Good riddance!
    • The first shows, with just Savage and Hyneman, I liked better than when they added the early millennials, LOL. Then Byron, Imahara, and Belleci became a show within the show; there were tests of related myths, and Buster took a whipping like never before. At least this show will end with a bang.
  • if you watched the current session most of the team is gone the format has been ruined and the jokes are unfunny it seems there just going threw the paces now. when i saw the last season i knew the show was done.
  • We now live in an era when myths are more popular than reality.

  • Beyond Productions has kicked this show around for years. Too expensive to make, too many people, too many everything. And Discovery whined and complained and cheapened it to death all the while getting eternal reruns out of older episodes.

    Then they kept moving the show from one day to another and then from network to network to network so nobody knows where the new episodes are even running. It's Saturday nights, you know, the science night of the week. Well ok, Friday nights are worse. And it's on S

    • That's interesting. Essentially, what you're saying is that under western market capitalism, the Mythbusters can't make a living being the Mythbusters?

      Maybe they should get hired by the BBC or some such government-supported public service broadcasting system whose job it is to produce media that's worth seeing.

  • by eWarz ( 610883 ) on Thursday October 22, 2015 @03:56AM (#50779369)
    If you just love the actors, like me, they are also on the Tested youtube channel: https://www.youtube.com/channe... [youtube.com] though i haven't seen either of them lately.

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