In a bizarre twist, after a satisfying day of calculating I switched on the television, accidentally pressed a wrong number, and ended up on ABC just as a program called “American Inventor” was starting. I’m not really up on all these “reality” format shows, so I’ve no idea how long this has been in existence, but I must say that it was good to see a program in this format that was primarily about using one’s brain, inventiveness and engineering/construction skills! The format is a bit too gimmicky for my tastes (I’m not partial to all the fake drama and overwrought background music), but that’s probably because I don’t watch much of this sort of thing, so I probably won’t be a regular viewer. But again I must say it was good to see that such a show exists. Perhaps there are more that I don’t know about. It seems that I just saw the phase where they filter out all the silly ones (and goodness were some silly!) and pick the finalists from each city who get $50,000 worth of development money. They did LA and SF in this show, and apparently they’ll be doing the North East next. Questions you might be able to help me with: Do all these shows have a British judge on the panel to play a sort of mean guy? Is it a sort of requirement? The one other such show I’ve seen, American Idol, has that, and like a good theorist I am extrapolating wildly from two data points.
Seeing a reality show based on some intellectual skill actually reminds me. Even though I got a reminder from some of the people behind the show, I’m embarrassed to say that I completely forgot to tell you about the show on PBS for youngsters aged 9 – 12 called “Design Squad”. From the “about” part of their site:
Borrowing from the hugely popular reality competition format, DESIGN SQUAD is aimed at kids and people of all ages who like reality or how-to television. Its goal is to get viewers excited about engineering!
Over 13 episodes, eight high school contestants tackle engineering challenges for an actual client—from building a machine that makes pancakes to a “summer sled” for LL Bean. In the final episode, the top two scorers battle for the Grand Prize—a $10,000 college scholarship from the Intel® Foundation.
I think it has now concluded, but you can watch all 13 episodes online here. Did anyone see it? (I did not.) What did you think? You can get more involved with Design Squad by following up on this part of their website.
Design Squad was co-sponsored by the IEEE, which is excellent to see. So will the American Physical Society (and other science societies) be doing something similar, one wonders? It’s a potentially good way of getting people interested in participating in science – on prime time television. We could, for example, have members of the public lining up to showcase their latest theories of how the universe works, have a panel of judges, the whole nine yards. As you know from reading blogs which have a physics flavour, there’ll be no shortage of willing contestants! There’ll be points for ingenuity, humour, etc. Could be fun. Ok, I’m joking!
More seriously, though, you could have a series of challenges and tasks for participants that could be fun to do and (crucially) to watch, and at the same time illustrate the whole process of doing science – experimental, theoretical, and the dialogue between the two. Hmmm….
Lastly, why was it a bizarre twist that I turned on a reality-show-style competition by accident tonight? Did I just say it as an attempt to make the post interesting? No. It turns out that as a result of some of the TV work I did last year (some posts here and here) a producer from one of those shoots contacted me yesterday to inquire whether I might be interested in taking part in a recording of a show on Saturday. It sounded interesting and fun. I spoke with him today and they’ll get back to me if they want me to participate. They’re still mulling over what they want to do. But guess what kind of show it is, and what I’d be doing? Well, I’ll tell you (more details later if I do it). I’d be a judge on a new reality-show-style competition. Funny old world, isn’t it?
-cvj
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Well, we’ve all been part of the audience in seminars where the speaker -when possessing a nice crisp British (often oxbridge or percieved as such) accent- is allowed to get away with murder by the audience in a way that i’m almost certain would not happen if they spoke with an accent from Southern California, or the Bronx, etc. There’s a perception of “learn-edness” which lends credibility to a lot of dubious stuff at times, probably coupled to the fact that most people in the USA assume that if you were educated in Britain it was probably at either Oxford or Cambridge…(those being the only two universities over there, of course.)
(I’m going to get so beaten up in the playground now…and possibly have my British accent license revoked for daring to say this…)
-cvj
P.S. Since I’ve not heard from the producers by now, I’m guessing that you won’t be seeing me as a tv panel judge any time soon.
I like your explanation, Yvette, the British judges are clearly there as the ones to “hate”. This is similar to the phenomenon of the British character actor always being the “surprise” bad guy in action movies, it got so blatant at one point, the British actor only had to walk into the scene for the first time and I immediately pegged him (and it is always a him I think) as being the evil behind the scenes mastermind. It got tiresome, I have to say.
But back to reality shows, the thing that surprises me is that the British judge is also the one the contestants most repect, want to impress etc etc which (in my opinion) points to a) the obvious – people respect those who speak plainly and b) some weird British/American cultural thing that I don’t really understand, can it really be as Athena suggests (jokingly) that the British accent confers gravitas?
The colonies are still resentful and rebelling perhaps, so they take it out passive-agressively on reality TV British judges?
Clifford, seeing you as a judge on a reality-show-style competition would be pretty interesting — I’d tune in!
As for the mean British judge on these shows, it could be formulaic, following the success of American Idol. The only other show I know is American Inventor, so I agree with your extrapolation! Like Samantha said, this judge also tends to be the most authoritative. And as I said to you half jokingly, sometimes an accent adds an air of authority or superiority. : )
On the other hand, that gecko from Geico has a British accent (where’s he supposed to be from anyway?), but it gets even sillier when the little guy goes on about jam and muffins. In an insurance commercial, no less. Guess he’s supposed to be our buddy, but I’m suspicious. Talking geckos don’t hail from London; it’s too cold.
Dancing with the stars ALSO has a British judge – I can’t comment on whether he is the mean one since I don’t watch the show.
The thing I think is odd about the British judge phenomenon is that the British judge, as well as being the meanest, also tends to be the most authoritative one. What is with that?
Yes, I love working in notebooks too (and sketching books are nice, I do agree)… sometimes one needs to dabble and dawdle on a larger, less structured space…. ultimately it all ends up in the notebooks though.
-cvj
P.S. waitaminute…. should this have not been on the other thread?
One of the odd things about working as an engineer in industry is that you discover that (contrary to what the guidance counselors in high school would have you believe) some of the best and most successful engineers have no college education. This is especially true in mechanical engineering of machinery. And software. Bill Gates, who didn’t earn a bachelor’s degree, just picked up another honorary doctorate.
I forgot to mention yesterday that my prefered medium for doing calculations is the 8.5 x 11 inch notebooks that art stores sell for people to sketch in. They take a clean ink line and are easy on the eyes. I can’t imagine how I survived as a grad student using cheap paper and mechanical pencils. The old notebooks are almost useless, but each has a couple pages that are indexed in the inside front cover.
Thanks! Piers Morgan? Really? That’s bizarre…
Anyway, as many as three or four data points! Excellent. I would say it is very much a tradition then, and almost a law of Nature (if I simply discount all the shows I don’t know about as experimental error 😉 )…
Is this the TV version of having the British accented bad guys in the movies?
Cheers,
-cvj
Here’s another data point for you: “America’s Got Talent”. Unfortunately, this show features Piers Morgan, whom you may recall was the former editor of the Daily Mirror.
Also, American Inventor is based upon the BBC 2 show “Dragon’s Den”. The Englishman in American Inventor was also a judge on the Dragon’s Den, providing a bit of continuity between the two I suppose.