Wired Science on PBS
Wired magazine
‘s science show pilot was broadcast PBS TV last Wednesday, Jan 3. The
show is co-produced with KCET in San Francisco. Looking at the topics for the first
show and some of people involved in the production it seemed certainly worth
checking out.
powered by performancing firefox
Posted: January 5th, 2007 under General.
Tags: innovation, PBS, science, science_channel, tv, Wired_magazine
My wife (also an engineer but not as geeky) didn’t bother to watch the entire
show.
Ok, so why didn’t I like it.
a. As a Wired subscriber, I expected some of the funkiness of the magazine.
There were a couple of hints of its origins but they fell far short of the
magazine’s standards.
b. The most damning criticism I have is that it is simply a repeat of the
Science Channel‘s “Discoveries This Week“!! The format is nearly the same,
a host stands on a set, introduces the video segment which spends a few minutes
explaining (or promoting) some engineering activity. While the Science Channel
show is ok, I question how many of these science popularization shows we need. I
would rather see more Nova’s.
I can say one good think about this pilot. The interview with Elon Musk
(founder of Paypal) was somewhat interesting. He talked about the Tesla
(electric sports car) and SpaceX (commercial space launch) ventrues. It wasn’t a
super rehearsed polished promotion but rather a more natural conversation. Its
only problem was it was too short.
Ok so standby. The next science show pilot (it’s a competition to select a
PBS show) is scheduled for next Wed at same time. I hope this one is a little
better.