Science as Narratives

Perhaps the show that has most marked my development, aside from maybe Twin Peaks, was Mythbusters, which I watched up until the last few seasons, though I likely missed some of the early seasons' episodes. Looking back on it now, it's hard to easily encapsulate what made me latch onto it so heavily. The natural charisma and humor of the five hosts' interactions was a key factor, but just as important was the actual process of testing the myths. Though the show dispensed with a dedicated mythologist relatively quickly and just had the hosts and narrator elaborate on the myths, the sense of a constructed narrative remained, and much of it came out of the pleasingly step-by-step nature of the proceedings. While these were all presumably factual depictions of the Mythbusters' process, the documentary element was often subsumed by the simple narrative pleasures, all opportunities for both banter and extremely technical crafts and problem solving. The answer for my love for the show must lie somewhere in the middle, equally indebted both the human and the mechanical.