Discovery’s Worst TV Show…

We watch quite a bit of the Discovery Channel around my house… Mythbusters being our favorite show. They’ve got a lot of good programming.

After watching Smash Lab tonight, I must admit… I’m now certain that this is the worst show they have right now… maybe their worst ever.

For those unfamiliar with the show, they take real-world problems (most of which already have real-world solutions in place), take an unrelated bit of real-world technology, and combine the two to try completely unrealistic solutions. Example? Applying rockets as an emergency braking system for a truck / trailer rig.

Can anyone say STUPID and DANGEROUS?

Now, I know the show is just for entertainment purposes, even though they like to present the things they do as “serious” science or engineering. That’s the problem, though… it’s clearly NOT serious science or engineering.

After tonight’s rocket braking episode, I’ve drawn the line with my viewership of the show. During full-scale testing of their ludicrous solution, the crew nearly got three people killed when the rockets went off prematurely. While no one was injured (thank God!), this near-miss should be enough of a wake-up call for Discovery to pull the plug. It was enough to prompt me to visit Discovery’s website and suggest that they cancel the show… something I’d never done before.

I’d encourage all of you reading this to do the same. Yes… I know it’s just a TV show… but this is one show that really doesn’t need to be on the air. For one thing, it gives real engineers and scientists a bad name (as NONE of what occurs on that show can be remotely considered “real” science or engineering), but more importantly? They’re gonna end up getting someone hurt… maybe even killed… all in the name of entertainment.

Enough is enough.