MythBusters this ain’t, I’m afraid.
There are smart and clever and interesting shows on television that might be termed as “dude shows.” Let’s throw The League into this category.
Never Ever Do This At Home is not one of these shows.
It’s a dude show with no point, devoid of any insight beyond, “Hey, there’s stuff blowing up. Now pass the Fritos, bro.”
So, the particulars: we have two dudes — Teddy Wilson and Norm Sousa — who take over a house for the sole purpose, it seems, to blow stuff up in, on, or around it. Essentially, if they were 12-year olds and not on TV they’d be caught by their parents and grounded for months… if they didn’t manage to maim themselves severely first, of course.
An opening scene involves the dudes lighting fireworks in the house “to see what would happen.” Beyond this not being at all compelling in of itself, I was really turned off by the manipulative editing.
That is, one dude lights the fuse and then both of them hop over a couch to “quickly get out of the way.” However, one dude then magnanimously returns to the scene to “rescue” a fishbowl that would presumably get torched in the ensuing explosion. Then there’s a camera cut to the fireworks actually lighting up, whereupon we see the dudes watching (delighted out of their gourds, of course) behind some sort of safety barrier.
It was pretty obvious that these two “never ever do this at home” maniacs would never truly be allowed to place themselves in “danger” while they blow junk up around the house. Which is all to the good in terms of safety… but further drains any actual suspense or interest from the proceedings.
Later on, while the dudes do things like explode unopened tin cans of soup on the stove, they try to bring some level of scientific discussion into the mix.
However, MythBusters this ain’t I’m afraid.
Never Ever Do This At Home is a Discovery Channel Canada import that’s now airing on Spike in the United States. Since it’s Spike we’re talking about here I might be tempted to cut such a dumbed down show some slack, but as I’m currently semi-obsessed with the expertly produced Bar Rescue, I’m not much in a forgiving mood at the moment.
This review originally appeared on TV Geek Army.