Smash Lab (2007– ) User Reviews

Like Watching Concrete Dry

[kyouryuu · 3/10 · 23 January 2008]

I think another reviewer put it best. Smash Lab is an attempt to take the last five minutes of any Mythbusters episode and somehow extend it into an hour-long program. Only it doesn't work.

So far, each episode appears to open on the same conceit. Our protagonists seem to pull a random idea out of the air and try to apply it in such a way that it can protect against a disaster. For example, can aerated concrete stop a speeding car from crossing a highway divider, slamming headlong into opposing traffic? The problem is, phrased like that, there's not a whole lot to go on. There is no "discovery." You just watch them do the experiment. They pour some aerated concrete. They let it set for just a day. Then, they run cars on it. This is spread out over the course of an entire hour and it is literally as exciting as watching the concrete dry. It's not long before you realize that it is a really bad idea, whether it's the concept itself or the execution. Because really, if your goal is to save the cars in the opposite lane, having gobs of concrete rock flying at them isn't going to help. But, nevertheless, the "scientists" are oblivious to that consequence and the show is fated to continue this same truly stupid idea to its conclusion - the one you saw coming from an hour away.

What would make the show more interesting is if it wasn't so rigorously defined from the start. They should have presented a problem and have teams try to develop different, creative solutions to it, rather than following each other in lockstep with the same materials. This also leads to a lot of the awkward, forced chemistry between the team members. The show really needs to loosen up.

shame on you discovery

[blast3001 · 2/10 · 27 February 2008]

I, like all the others was hoping this would be a good show since I am a huge Mythbusters fan. This show however disappointed in a big way. I agree with all the other reviews here so i wont repeat them but i will add a few things about the show that drive me crazy. This show feels so staged. On Mythbusters it feels like the cameras are following Jamie and Adam around throughout their day as they work. Smash lab feel like the hosts show up in front of camera after getting their make-up and hair done and are told what to do and say. I am certain that the hosts of Smash Lab auditioned for the show. Jamie has often said that he doesn't give a crap about the show but loves the work involved in the stuff they do. This clearly shows with the crew of Mythbusters and makes for a much better show. The hosts walking down the hall a la Monster Garage must go. Again this makes the show look incredibly fake. Anytime Mythbisters does anything like this they are doing it for fun and you know that they are laughing at themselves when they do it.

It's a real shame because it seems like Smash Lab has a giant budget. I would really like to see some of that money used on Mythbusters.

Much room for growth

[tamjap · 4/10 · 17 January 2008]

I, too, was expecting something of the quality of Mythbusters, and was generally disappointed by Smash Lab. The one episode I have watched has the crew trying to use Aerated Concrete to prevent run-away vehicles from crossing the median on a divided highway and hitting oncoming traffic. They begin by driving a vehicle into several stationary cars to show that that sort of accident is bad (I guess we didn't already know that) and used the pretense that they wanted to determine the GForce affecting the car during the accident. Any data received from this experiment would be useless because in a real accident, the target vehicles (those in the other lane) would not be stationary, and the momentum of those vehicles would have a huge effect on the results. More accurate data could have been ascertained using a pencil and paper far more cheaply than the 6 cars they destroyed.

OK - The crash is good for TV, though, and it is their big premier, so they want to do something big. I can let that slide. Unfortunately, none of the science in the entire episode seems any more reliable or useful. They never mention any attempt to calculate the strength of the aerated concrete, nor do they attempt to calculate the PSI generated by a 4 ton car traveling at 60 MPH (figures referenced frequently in the episode). They only allow their concrete to cure overnight, which would leave it very weak compared to it's 28-day-strength.

I think they would have been much better off stringing together several clips of crashes and explosions, and omitting any claim to science. I still may have watched it, but would not have been disappointed because I would know what to expect.

Like Mythbusters Except It Sucks

[kcdude21 · 1/10 · 20 January 2008]

I normally don't write reviews, I just vote my opinion and thats it. I used my DVR to get the first episode of this show knowing it was nothing but a mythbusters spin off. I expected something watchable but had to stop half-way through. You have 3 guys and one girl(The Scientist), hey that's pretty close to mythbuster's 4 guys and one girl. One major problem I had was that "The Scientist" sounds really stupid. I felt like some writer was giving her lines to say which sounded as scientific as they could come up with while she seemed to me to be dumber than a dumb blonde. Everyone on mythbusters seems to know what they are talking about and it doesn't feel like someone wrote lines for them to say. Though I've always wondered what the specialty of the girl on mythbusters is, she's never seemed stupid to me. Why watch a fake version of mythbusters on the same channel as mythbusters when you can just watch the real thing. This show won't last very long. Don't waste an hour watching it, you're better off washing your hair or watching 2 rerun episodes of the wonder years :-).

edit I've tried watching some of the episodes following the first one. I finally forced myself to finish watching the first episode on my DVR, which left me wishing I had just not finished it. I have been unable to sit through an entire episode of the show as it feels so fake. As many people have stated, they are trying hard to take the last 5-10min of mythbusters and stretch it in to an hour long show, unfortunately it just doesn't work. With mythbusters I love every bit of the leading up to the big bang. This show makes you want to fast forward to the end to see if there is anything interesting there and when when you get there, there's not. I wish they would just show another episode of mythbusters in this time slot until they find something else to replace it.

Mythbusters without personality

[kyleamason · 1/10 · 12 March 2008]

This show is a Mythbusters rip off, except with 4 sub-par actors who have no personality, jockeying for horribly generic lines like "Big explosion, that's what I like to hear." Mythbusters is entertaining because everyone on the show has their own distinct personality, and they are all goofy and quirky in their own way, which makes it a very fun show to watch in addition to the great writing and topic selection.

Smash Lab is the exact opposite of this. There are 4 people who are very transparently acting, and worse, all of them are competing to be the "cool" one, the "renegade engineer" personality on the show, the result being just awkward and lame dialog. This also contaminates their body movement; it's hard to describe, but often times they make these weird positions like someone who is trying to act like they are *really* interested in something. As though it was not rehearsed when it obviously was.

Each of them wants to be the one that talks, but the vast majority of the time what comes out of their mouth is either something totally obvious that didn't need to be said, or them trying to develop their own personality, except with really bland comments that are, again, meant to show them off as *the* "cool renegade engineer guy" on the show. "Oh yeah, that baby's burning!"

One of the comments already posted that was particularly acute was about the one woman on the show, "The Scientist." She doesn't seem at all like a scientist, just someone who is obviously acting, who has these awkward "scientific sounding" lines jammed into her mouth. Example, someone will say something plain (and of course, with their trying-to-be-cool personality), "Oh man that's hot stuff," and then she will say "Yes, that translates to 500 degrees Centigrade" for no reason. She especially has annoying fake body movements, like someone will come in with some material, and she will lean in, in this attempt to look interested as a scientist but also sexy at the same time. It's hard to even write this review without repeatedly rolling my eyes.

Everyone and everything on this show is completely transparent and lacking any substance. They try so hard to have personality but they just don't have it. It's really pathetic.

Mythbusters lite

[larrygnu · 5/10 · 27 December 2007]

On the pilot episode of Mythbusters on the Discovery Channel, Adam and Jamie test whether spray-on pickup truck bed liner can be used to make a building blast proof....wait, wait, sorry. Wrong show. The show is actually called Smash Lab, but the idea is basically the same. Take some nerdy guys, a skinny woman, have them spout techno-engineer babble, while gearing up to set off a large explosion. The only problem with this idea is that it's been done, and done much better. The comparison between the two shows was inevitable, so it makes me wonder why the creators didn't do more to make a distinction.

Smash Lab has taken the final five minutes of Mythbusters, where Adam and Jamie go for the biggest explosion possible, and made it the subject of an hour long show. Much like Smash Lab's free standing single-story building coated with Rhino Liner, I'm not sure the show will stand for very long.

Are you looking for intelligent hosts! Amazing Science!-- Well look someplace else!

[blakegadams · 1/10 · 29 January 2008]

I had high hopes for this show on the numerous Discovery Channel promos for it. I am unable to watch the actual episodes because of time conflicts, but I did catch a rerun of the Concrete episode last night. Wow... To copy the words of another poster, it was like watching the concrete dry! The main problem is that the "scientist" have no idea what they are talking about, nor do they conduct real experiments! I could have pulled out a pen and paper and did the calculations for the stupid barrier experiment in about ten minutes with a cost totaling... $0! Then it gets better, we see the first one with the hardest concrete, the car almost goes over. Then in the medium concrete the car goes over. Yet they ask and wonder.. Will the Car go through the soft concrete? It doesn't take a rocket scientist to figure out that if it went through the medium density concrete, it IS going to to through the soft concrete! I also caught part of another episode where they use special fabric to "re-enforce stuff". The first part of the 2x4 experiment everyone stands in the middle of the board, and the girl jumps to the middle. But when the place the fabric on there they stand no where near the middle! How can this be an effective experiment! It seemed like an advertisement for the fabric company!

This show (hopefully) will not be on long!

Commercial for rhino bed liners

[emtfreek · 3/10 · 26 December 2007]

I gave this show a 3 out of 10, and the only reason it got a 3 was due to the explosions.

This show was more of a commercial for a product than anything scientific(spelling).I was expecting something with a little more substance then just a few big booms. I watch the discovery channel faithfully but this is one show that i will not watch again. the people who are supposed to be the experts couldn't even figure out that with out something behind it the shotgun would have fired right through it.I figured out that much before they even pulled the trigger. and trust me I'm no rocket scientist.

At least when the myth buster test something the hide the manufacturer's name.

Diasaster

[incyphe · 2/10 · 18 February 2008]

This show is a disaster. I watched the episode where the hosts were trying to develop a magnetic fire escape system for high-rise buildings. The solution they came up with was so impractical that a 5th grader would've laughed. Yet, they were busy patting themselves on the back at the end of the show.

But the worst part about the show is the cast. They seem very self-conscious about being on camera, it feels like they just met, and they completely lack charisma. Definitely not TV host materials. I cringed several times watching them as faking "YEAH!" "WOAH!!" and Hi-5s. Obviously they were trying to use those precious moments to offset their dull screen presence.

Also, And I'm sure the girl is a nice person, but her voice is extremely obnoxious to listen to, and her on-screen persona doesn't help her credibility as a scientist.

Lacks scientific knowledge and is badly casted

[islandstone007 · 1/10 · 9 August 2008]

I totally agree with the previous posts.

It's a Mythbusters ripoff. Calling it a bad one is not appropriate enough. It really sucks.

And in addition to that, the woman, the "scientific" member of the team totally lack any knowledge of advanced scientific topics that she should know about when being called a scientist on the show. Instead she puts things in the most basic ways with the most basic words, instead of describing the underlying scientific topics in such a way that the viewers without the same knowledge can understand it. I'm sure that she really doesn't understand what she really is talking about, instead she just reads a script she has been provided or something. She is totally *not* convincing, and should never have gotten the job anyway.

And that's the second thing about the show. In Mythbusters, Adam and Jamie is already coworkers, they know each other and have fun with each other. But in, (never mind, I forgot the title of the show I'm writing about but stick with me), they have been cast for the roles individually, not as a group. And you can tell by the chemistry of the whole group that they are not used to work with each other. This leads to badly coordinated projects (as stated in other posts) where they do mostly what the other people on the team does.

In other words: *Do not watch the show, you will get starved of both scientific knowledge and good entertainment*

Applying Professionals

[gatefee50 · 6/10 · 3 April 2008]

Wow, what a concept. Young professionals applying their knowledge to a TV show for entertainment. Unfortunately, because of the dumbing down of American TV, the show is going to get many bad reviews from the general TV viewer. They want stupidity and non-sense, and for the most part, that's what they get. This show does a good job, in my opinion, of spot-lighting careers which have been neglected by the American population. There is a draining talent pool for engineering and science and we as a country are having to import trained professionals from other countries to do the mandatory jobs... great jobs too, away from which American kids are being guided because they and their parents are too busy being entertained by clowns on TV.

Worst show ever

[ntm-6 · 1/10 · 15 June 2008]

I just saw the tenth and the first episode. Both was so terrible that I wanted to punch them in the face. It's so obvious fake that it make you sick.

Like in the first episode when they're testing this bed liner. When they blew up the first truck without the liner, they put the bomb by the rear axle. But the truck with the bed lier they put the bomb way more to the front. So it wouldn't affected the truck bed as much.

Mythbusters makes things. They invent when the myths doesn't work to make them work etc. These just sprayed a commercial product on a wall. Nothing else! To sum up, Smash Lab should be canceled and I want money for the emotional distress this show caused me.

To give this show a 1 is to much. It deserves a -10!

How to make Mythbusters without really trying

[drjeice · 2/10 · 18 March 2008]

The execs come in the room - the pitch is that although Mythbusters is a cool show, nobody wants to hear all of that scientific jargon they say at the beginning of each episode. Let's make a show where they just show the last five minutes of Mythbusters! (i.e. the explosion)

This was a traumatic failure on many levels - elementary problems with the show could have been easily avoided. Here's a small list of things that could have steered the show in the right direction.

1. The ideas on which the experiments are based on are totally asinine. " Let's see if a bullet proof layer of rubber can bomb proof a five story building!" You already know what's going to happen. The interior will be destroyed causing the collapse of the building and the experiment won't work. This concept worked on Mythbusters because you never knew what was going to happen. It always kept you guessing.

2. Nobody on the show knows what they're talking about, or doesn't know what to talk about. They always have some dumbed down explanation for...let's say this time it's force. The "scientist" will give some 5th grade interpretation of force and a usual response is , "What she said." 3. The experiments are critical failures before they start. Jamie and Adam have had their fair share of difficulties before starting experiments, but the problems on this show could have been avoided! (unlike those on Mythbusters, which experiments fail because they're mythological.) An example of this would be when they're setting up the concrete, but a support beam falls and ruins the whole slab.

4. Out of order explosions. You should start with the small scale, then work up to the bigger, more probable solutions. Someone mentioned this earlier when doing a concrete experiment.

These people have no idea what they're doing. It's sad because this could have been a nice show. I suggest one watching of this for 20 minutes just to learn what not to do in science.

For a Science show, this sure doesn't have much chemistry

[DashTheGreat · 4/10 · 23 January 2008]

Smash Lab is probably one of the greatest disappointments of the new year, almost to the point of inspiring mass Discovery fan suicides. And who could blame them? First off, this show is nothing more than a Myth Busters knock off with Myth Buster wannabe characters. Deanne must be Discovery's answer to Kari, and their shameless attempt to draw viewers to this show because of this is borderline shameful. Maybe they should have put such efforts into making a decent show, instead of appealing to 50 year old slobbering men.

The premise is also insanely weak. Scientists and Engineers supposedly build to make the world better, when their experiments are weak and neutered. MythBusters is interesting mostly because it has some meaning to keep you watching. Smash Lab, on the other hand, just seems like a waste of time and life since the hosts aren't actually helping anyone. Discovery, by trying to cater to the MythBusters crowd (and by possibly thinking that the MythBusters crowd are retarded) has forgotten the number one rule that made their other shows popular: Dumbing down = Crap show.

This show wouldn't be so bad, other than the fact that it is unbelievably boring. For a show named "Smash Lab," the hosts seem to just walk around the whole time, wasting moments of our precious lives. The hosts literally look like surfer dudes that you would find on a California beach, who of course morph between scientists, builders, physicists, and anything else that the teleprompter tells them to be. Never have I seen such poor Chemistry between cast members either. I would be willing to bet that as soon as the cameras turn off, they start beating the crap out of each other or cutting each other off in the parking lot while making obscene gestures. Why don't they just make a show about that? It would be a heck of a lot more interesting than this drivel.

High hopes not fulfilled...

[akashavi · 3/10 · 5 January 2008]

We watched the first episode and hoped to see the same blend of good science with quirky experimentation that Discovery Channel has demonstrated with Mythbusters. Alas, not in this program. For one, the trailer that is promoting the show is wrong. It asks that question if a bullet proof vest can protect a building from an explosion... Well it wasn't a bullet proof vest that they tested; it was Rhino Liner. The assumptions that the team made about how best to apply the material and how to protect the windows during the final phase of the experiment were ridiculous. A simple web search would have told them that applying a blast resistant film to the window glass would have had far better results than their laughable blast shutters. It was frustrating to watch and a complete waste of time. Discovery can do much better and hopefully they will in the future. The show gets a 3-star rating only because the high speed photography of the explosions were fun to watch, otherwise it would get 0.

terrible directing

[baconbit · 4/10 · 17 January 2010]

I can get into all the other reasons why the show failed, but I don't necessarily agree with many listed here. No one watched Mythbusters for the science either. At least no one with ANY science knowledge. All these shows are entertainment with a science element.

But the problem with Smash LAb is that it failed in both science AND entertainment. It was impossible to follow due to the terrible directing. Most obvious was the over use of super slow motion. Smart directors know how to use effects to the benefit of the viewers. For one thing, always have the first cut be at normal speed. That allows viewers to see what happened as if they were there. It also shows the full impact of a collision, or speed/acceleration of an object, or whatever they were trying to show. But with Smash Lab, just as they got to the "pay off", they started with the slow motion. And also the repeated angle changes. It never allows the viewer to actually focus on what is going on. And then they show the same 5 seconds over and over again from a different angle trying to make it appear as if it is continuous rather than a repeat of the same action.

It really makes you wonder how directors are able to actually receive paychecks if they are so clueless into what makes good entertainment.

Smash Busters...

[Box_Spam_Box · 2/10 · 20 January 2008]

You will be VERY disappointed if you are looking for this show to be even close to the caliber to that of Mythbusters. Has two guys, and one gal. Shot in California area. Explosions... maybe... No Jamine, No Adam, No BUSTER!!! {No Seagate cargo truck} I see them reusing even more of the Mythbusters show ideas, and not doing them any justice. This is just my opinion, but I think this show is heading for its own Smash....

I would give this show only 2 stars out of 10. And with a hope that they would get original, but I kinda doubt it. Ashame of the Discovery Channel, this show is hardly "ground breaking" as advertised. Airplane jet engines blowing things over? Building blast proofing?

Wow. And not a good wow.

[TheDude_or_ElDuderino · 1/10 · 2 April 2008]

Hey, let's take an attractive female "scientist", team her up with 3 guys of questionable scientific background, and give them tasks to perform that they will undoubtedly fail. I've watched 3 episodes of this show, and every "problem" that they've tried to solve, they've failed. As others have said, it seems like it's trying to be a spin off of Mythbusters, but it fails. The cast lacks chemistry and charisma. It's just an awful show. If Mythbusters never existed for this show to be compared to, it would still be awful. Sometimes there are explosions. But that's still not enough to keep my interest. Like I said, the female member of the group is attractive, but that alone is not enough to keep my interest. Her scientific dialog often seems forced. I'm not saying she doesn't know what she's talking about, just that whatever she says comes out boring. She's too technical, and not enough personality behind her analysis.

All in all, don't waste your time.

Superlight version of Mythbusters!

[gangerolf-1 · 3/10 · 10 April 2008]

Even though this show may focus on a more action based version of Mythbusters (I guess), it's pretty much the same thing. Even though Mythbuster have had (and still have) quite a few fouled myth busts, it still (by far) is a better show.

The cast in Smash Lab does not have the same charisma as those in Mythbusters, especially the "Scientist". Just like in Mythbusters, by Kari, she seem not that skilled and just is there to present events or technical stuff. Kari in Mythbusters though, still have charisma (but sometimes it looks a little fake). I would rather have seen someone like Scottie (from Mythbusters), who really showed that she had skills.

Since the cast is so boring, the tests don't get very exciting or interesting. And, since the tests them self is not that thought trough (much like Mythbusters), it don't give me much reason to watch.

After watching a few episodes, I just have to say that this show is quite bad. I will record the forthcoming episodes and check if it get's any better, but at this time, I don't want to waste my time on it. Sorry!