TV: iz evrybody reddy vor diving?
Day 01 - A show that should never have been cancelled
Day 02 - A show that you wish more people were watching
Day 03 - Your favorite new show (aired this TV season)
Day 04 - Your favorite show ever
Day 05 - A show you hate
Day 06 - Favorite episode of your favorite TV show
Day 07 - Least favorite episode of your favorite TV show
Day 08 - A show everyone should watch
Day 09 - Best scene ever
Day 10 - A show you thought you wouldn't like but ended up loving
Day 11 - A show that disappointed you
Day 12 - An episode you've watched more than 5 times
Day 13 - Favorite childhood show
Day 14 - Favorite male character
Day 15 - Favorite female character
Day 16 - Your guilty pleasure show
Day 17 - Favorite mini series
Day 18 - Favorite title sequence
Day 19 - Best TV show cast
Day 20 - Favorite kiss
Day 21 - Favorite ship
Day 22 - Favorite series finale
Day 23 - Most annoying character
Day 24 - Best quote
Day 25 - A show you plan on watching (old or new)
Day 26 - OMG WTF? Season finale
Day 27 - Best pilot episode
Day 28 - First TV show obsession
Day 29 - Current TV show obsession
Day 30 - Saddest character death
I can't really say "the news," because I can't fault anyone for wanting to not watch the parade of injustice and atrocity that is the modern world. Uncoupled from a thirst for change and impetus to follow through, awareness just angries up the blood. And most of the shows I currently like are in pretty decent Nielsen shape, so there's none in imminent danger of cancellation that I don't think deserve it.
But I have to call on one show that more, younger people should definitely be watching: MythBusters. I think recent seasons have fallen from previous heights as the producers emphasize explosions and technical carnage instead of the grueling building, trial-and-error and theoretical clashes that made the earlier episodes so much more interesting, and there's an artificiality and a polish to the canned studio segments that detracts from the connection one feels with the show's participants.
And yet it's still science. Yes, sample sizes are watered down for TV presentation, and fire/explosions/collisions are seemingly a requisite of every episode now, but it hammers home the fundamental building blocks of the scientific method: gather data, hypothesize, deduce and experiment, corroborate, repeat (and, at show's conclusion, crank it up to ridiculous proportions). Use control groups. When in doubt, use lard.
The show avoided the one idiotic hurdle I foresaw, and that was that the drama between Adam and Jamie would be artificially ratcheted up to American Chopper-like proportions -- they may have gone the opposite direction, in fact, because while I found the drama uninteresting, I liked the friction of their two (usually disparate) approaches to any problem intriguing. The unanimity is slightly disappointing, mainly because the heart of the show is the process, not the fireworks, and reconciling those points-of-view always fascinates me.
And, of course, the surprises: I'm not sure anyone really thought a lead balloon was feasible. Maybe not the duct tape boat or duct tape bridge or the Alcatraz escape. The seesaw launch (the myth that a skydiver's parachute fails and he hits a seesaw that catapults a small child seven stories) remains my absolute favorite episode, in no small part because of the astonished faces on the entire assembled team. The idea that mice might actually frighten elephants or that a bull in a china shop might not be an unmitigated disaster...those still reassure me. With the right mindset you can walk into an experiment with a preconception, sure, but you can walk out of it with the revelation that you were wrong -- and that's just fine.
One could argue it's not science -- I'll have to maintain that it's the best scientific show that can sustain itself on a cable network. It trains the mind to delineate, enumerate and test ideas with the basic, critical tools of science. It's an exception in the realm of reality TV that I wish was the rule.