Bang Goes The Theory promised to take science out of the lab and put it to the test. That’s possibly a laudable endeavour, especially if there’s a serious intent to bring scientific understanding to a wider audience, but I was left with the distinct taste of bum gravy in my mouth.
Leaving aside the irritating editing, the annoying camera angles, the cringe-worthy matey dialogue and the woeful attempts at humour, actually no, let’s not. The editing felt like a man mental had been given the jog wheel of an Avid suite, the cameras were angled by a drunken toddler, the matey dialogue actually made one of my testicles burst, and I was too busy attending to my burst testicle to have the time to stop my eyes bleeding from the jokes.
The whole thing had the feel of a mid-nineties kids television show and its patronising tone made my ears melt. The listing on the BBC website says that the team will demonstrate cutting edge technology and explain scientific principles that govern the world around us. And all in a style that would make Brainiac blush.
I wouldn’t mind if it just set its stall out to be a bit of fun, but it seems to be setting itself up as some sort of Tomorrow’s World successor. It sunk to its lowest when the voiceover described Kurt Weising as “the controversial millionaire scientist”; and tried to portray him as a Lex Luthor uber-villain who was intent on creating life forms.
Dallas Campbell (yes, that’s really his name) is one of the presenters, and he says the show is for “anyone who is remotely curious about life, the Universe and pretty much everything.” Wow, so we’ll learn about the LHC and the Higgs-Boson will … oh, you’re knocking down a brick wall with an air cannon.
Again, this line from the website says more about itself than the show ever could:
“The show’s presenters will travel the world looking at the scientific breakthroughs that affect us, whether they’re in cosmology, zoology, medicine or any other field. And then they’ll be back at base – a disused supersonic wind tunnel, turned high-tech science set by the people behind Dr Who – to show science in action.”
That sentence could easily read, “There’ll be a few facts but hang on look, a man on fire with a machine gun trying to juggle a clown’s penis. Don’t worry about the facts. Watch the enflamed cock tossing maniac. Look at him, watch him. LOOK.”
Dallas goes on to admit, “I’m not a scientist, and yet I’m thrilled and amazed by science. Hopefully we can get some of that across.”
Hopefully you can yes, what with your spectacular promise of eating insects next week and building a water propelled jet pack. And, the website continues:
“trust us, spectacular doesn’t mean suspect. Clever people from The Open University’s science faculty have been making sure the show’s experiments and exploits are scientifically valid.”
That’s right, “Clever People” are overseeing what the site itself is describing as “the stunts”. Hopefully, the “Clever People” hold out hope that such piss poor efforts will somehow ignite real interest in massively overlooked fields of research that are affecting all of our lives, and that SOMEHOW, watching a man fry an egg in paper will unlock the mysteries that the Large Hadron Collider is unable to at the moment.
Oh, I’ve lost you sorry. Let’s me just set light to this clown’s cock.
