Inquiring method good TV

Here's one myth busted by MythBusters: Television science shows are the entertainment equivalent of the sleeping pills.

Now in its ninth year of shooting (as well as detonating, shattering and atomising), the Discovery Channel staple has proven if you creatively blow stuff up, people will want to watch.

"Why is our show successful?" says co-host Jamie Hyneman (55), smoothing his walrus-like moustache. "It's not like you're going to get a PhD by watching us, but if you're sitting on a couch with a beer, you might as well learn something."

For 189 episodes and counting, Hyneman and co-host Adam Savage (44) have tackled mysteries both profound (why did the plot to assassinate Hitler fail?) and inane (can wind blow the feathers off a chicken?).

The answers: not enough high-powered explosives; and no, the chicken would blow away first.

Anything goes on this show, right?

Myth.

"We don't do aliens, Bigfoot or the supernatural because you can't prove that something doesn't exist," says Hyneman, surrounded by an oddball array of show paraphernalia at M5, the show's warehouse-cum-studio. "If we have any guiding principle, it's to be challenged by a question and have fun exploring it."

Today's shooting schedule finds Hyneman and Savage beginning to replicate the bathroom set from 1989 film Lethal Weapon 2. Over the course of the week, they will try to answer the question raised by Danny Glover and Mel Gibson: Can you really survive a toilet bowl blast by diving into a nearby bath tub?

Across the bay, on the runway of an abandoned naval air station in Alameda, the show's other hosts Tory Belleci (40), Kari Byron (36) and Grant Imahara (40) also have gone Hollywood. They're replicating a scene from the recent comedy Date Night in which cars locked together at the nose are pushed through a series of extreme driving manoeuvres, trying to see if they come apart under duress.

"Basically, we're settling bar bets," says Byron, whom the web has granted pin-up-for-science-nerds status. "But what makes it really work is that it's almost more of a reality show than most reality shows. If we mess up, you see it."

That's another way of describing the classic scientific method: Pose a question, research your way to a hypothesis, and test it to a conclusion.

In fact, while MythBusters episodes are laden with the stuff that makes for memorable TV - occasional tension between Adam and Jamie, goofy antics among Tory, Kari and Grant, and inevitable surprises as things go explosively wrong - the show is at its core a gonzo science fair with a massive budget.

The science proven or debunked on MythBusters can often be riveting.

Take the time Hyneman and Savage decided to see if an aeroplane could take off on a runway composed of a conveyor belt travelling in the opposite direction; it did because the engines' thrust affects the air, not the ground. Or the episode in which a bunch of bulls were sent into a fabricated china shop and tiptoed their way through without damaging a saucer.

But perhaps often as watchable are the principal hosts, both former special-effects industry professionals who are "so different in temperament that they wouldn't likely spend any time together if it wasn't for the show", says MythBusters' long-time director, Alice Dallow.

Back at M5, Savage is busy cobbling together the bathroom set.

He's the father of two pre-teen boys and says the fact that kids no doubt make up a good chunk of the show's core audience is a happy accident.

"Look, we never set out to be inspiring to children or teach anything, we just get an idea and start arguing about it," Savage says, brushing a lock of blond hair from his stubbled face. "We don't know what will happen when we start an experiment. But I'm sure kids smell the veracity in that."

Nearby, under a giant rowboat made out of duct tape (yes, it floats), Savage's beret-wearing partner in mayhem offers a whispered wish.

"I don't see why TV can't be loaded with more intelligent stuff," says Hyneman. "Why fill this most powerful medium with only mindless things? We can do better than that."

• MythBusters screens Mondays at 8.30pm on Discovery and Thursdays at 7.30pm on PRIME. It is repeated Tuesday to Sunday at 8.30am and Monday to Saturday at 5.30pm on Discovery.