Debuting on 175 commercial stations in mid-September, “Bill Nye the Science Guy” is a unique collaboration between public television (whose Seattle outlet, KCTS, produces the show) and the Walt Disney Co. (whose syndication arm, Buena Vista, is distributing it). Each week the hyperkinetic Nye, a former mechanical engineer and stand-up comic, goes on location to demonstrate a scientific concept. Here he is parasailing over Lake Washington to show how air pressure makes flight possible, there he is dropping from a helicopter onto Mount St. Helens to explain why volcanoes do their thing–periodically pausing to exclaim, “Isn’t that wild!” The lessons come with lots of waycool teaching aids: psychedelic graphics, jazzy camera stunts, even parodies of music videos.
Yet in straining so hard to go down easy, the series makes you wonder: what happens when Nye’s prepubescent pupils discover that science in the classroom is more of a grind than a gas? For their sake, not to mention the teachers who’ll inherit them, here’s a message for “the Science Guy.” Please show a bit more respect for the force of gravity.
