TV-Reviewed

It seems that Discovery threw in a bonus episode to finish off the sixth season. I wasn’t expecting another viewer special, but this proved to be an excellent episode of MythBusters.

Jame and Adam tackled two myths while Grant, Tory, and Kari took on another two. I’ll start with the torture myth. This one came from stories about soldiers who were taken prisoner during the war and were tortured by being held to the ground while Bamboo trees grew into their bodies.

I was quite skeptical of this, but it proved to be a rather straightforward myth to test. Get a bamboo tree and a human analogue and see what happens. The trees grew at a surprising rate and grew right up, through the bodies. This proved the Bamboo trees could in fact be used as torture devices – yet another method of torture for President Bush to implement, eh?

The always entertaining Adam Savage and Tory Belleci

Their second myth was another drinking myth. The gang has come into a lot of these lately, even involving Kari in one or two of them. This myth was specifically looking into whether or not Brandy could help a person stay alive. This goes back to the old stories about Saint Bernards carrying around those little kegs of Brandy, saving people from hypothermia.

I didn’t learn much about here, but I found the myth’s testing and explanations to be very accurate and I know others would be able to learn from it. As the body cools, the blood is taken in towards the trunk to protect the vital organs, leaving the body’s extremities to become cold. The alcohol counteracts this, warming the extremities but cooling the body’s core. Although you may feel more comfortable, it’s bad for survival.

The MythBusters trio of Tory, Kari, and Grant took a myth about certain alkaline metals being able to create explosions in bath tubs and toilets. Again, pretty straightforward. Bring on the toilets and tubs as well as obscene amounts of alkaline metals and explosives and the myth was busted. Clearly the online video was a hoax.

Last was a rare piano myth. The gang has done a few musical instrument myths in the past but they tend to only come up once in a great while. The myth said that a piano when lit on fire would explode, likely due to the tension from the strings.

Yeah, it may sound like a good theory, but it has a big hole in it. When metal heats up, it stretches. Therefore, no explosion.

I have to hand it to Grant, Tory, and Kari especially because not only did they test the myths, but when they proved the myths were false (busted), they went the extra mile and tried to replicate the results. This is something I often complain about them falling short on, but they did a good job this time around.

Rating: 9.5