Thanks to the Miracle of DVRs, I almost never have to watch an episode of “Mythbusters” in real time, but this excellent post at Baekdal.com does a great job of breaking down an episode into its components and then explaining exactly how the producers assemble the segments into a show that manages to stretch the viewer’s tolerance for commercials and filler to the very breaking point and still deliver an hour-long program that keeps you watching for the whole time. I have learned from years of experience taping the show that if you’re particularly sharp with the remote, you can even trim out the repetitious exposition and “Don’t Try This At Home” bits and watch just the myth segments in only a little more than half an hour.
It’s worth noting that just because he’s singling out “Mythbusters”, it doesn’t mean that every single show on television isn’t doing the exact same thing, although “Mythbusters” is particularly egregious about the repetition of the setup compared to some other shows. Cable reality shows in particular are very adept at using as little actual content as possible, and the tactic that I particularly despise is the “teaser” that leads in to almost every commercial break. Between unnecessarily leading clips and clips that spoil a moment that would be funnier left un-teased, they aren’t doing much to keep me tuned in, they’re just wasting time.
I was also intrigued to learn that the “Mythbusters” site offers so much additional footage. They hype it on the show all the time, but I’ve never really bothered to look, since most of the Discovery Network show websites are even more content-free than the shows. According to Thomas Baekdal, though, the additional footage online frequently outstrips the amount shown on-air. As he points out at the end of the post, this really highlights the dilemma television producers face with the diminishing value of their product on-air in a world where everyone expects everything to be online.
