‘White Rabbit Project’ Review: Top Three Episodes Of The New ‘MythBusters’ Build Team Series

Netflix has just released the first season for the newest project for the MythBusters build team, the wonderland-esque named White Rabbit Project. After the trio of Grant Imahara, Kari Byron, and Tory Belleci were released from MythBusters in 2014, the trio went their separate ways but remained in touch. In 2015, they were approached by Netflix to star in a Netflix original series. Through development, the series became White Rabbit Project, which was released globally on Netflix on December 9, 2016.

This 10-episode series explores various feats that involve technology and inventiveness to pull off. Each member of the three-person cast picks two examples that they think are the best. Each example is then ranked according to three different criteria that changes from week to week, with one person taking home the win. The topics covered range from replicating super powers to the strangest weapons used by the Allies in WW2, to the most irritating gadgets ever.

If you’ve seen MythBusters and think that this show is just going to be a rehash of that show, you’re doing yourself a disservice. This show isn’t about busting any myths. Instead the team spends their time recreating things that happened in history. For good or for worse, they spend the episode trying to find out why they worked or why they didn’t work. So yes, there are still the crazy builds that you love, and there are some explosions. It’s also a very educational show. While you’re going to want to binge the entire series, here are the best three episodes of the series.

Top Three Episodes to Watch

Episode 3: “Crazy WW2 Weapons”

The best part of the episodes is learning the backstory behind some of the crazy things that they’ve dug up. In the third episode, Kari explores the pigeon-guided rocket, which is as crazy as it sounds. It was essentially a glider with a warhead with three pigeons in the nose. The pigeons had been trained to peck at a picture of an enemy ship. A camera faced forward so the pigeons saw a ship on screen. As they pecked at the pressure sensitive screen, the glider adjusted course to guide the munition into its target. Unfortunately, the pigeons weren’t given little ejection seats, so it was a one-way trip for them.

Episode 4: “Scam Artists”

This episode takes a different approach and becomes just a series of stories about some of the best (or worst) scams in history. If you’ve ever wondered where the Ponzi scheme got its name, they cover that and how the original pyramid scheme worked. There’s also the entertaining tale of the Swiss Gigolo, Helg Sgarbi, who defrauded a total of 8.5 million pounds through his scams. This is one of the weaker episodes, simply because there are no builds or explosions, so the eye candy is lacking. However, the stories are interesting enough for this episode to warrant a place in the top three. The tale of the Dale, a three-wheeled car, is almost worth the price of admission alone. Involving a major scam against Big Oil, Detroit Automakers, and a cross-dressing conman, the Dale is an amusing landmark in American history.

Episode 7: “Tech We Love to Hate”

In the seventh episode, the team gears up to find the most annoying gadgets ever. Ever wonder why some of the gadgets annoy you so much? Grant explores why printers malfunction so much. To quote Office Space, “PC Load Letter? What the f*** does that mean?” The answer is fairly obvious. It’s because printers have a lot of complicated parts in them and one going wrong can cause a malfunction.

Kari looks at drones and how to defend yourself against them. She takes the low-fi defense of a garden hose, which is moderately satisfying. There are two other high-tech versions of drone defense that she explores. One is a gadget that actually hijacks the drone, giving you complete control over the intruding drone to do with as you please. A less-complicated version is an air-pressurized net gun that snares the drone and drops it out of the sky.

There’s no doubt that White Rabbit Project is a worthy entry into your binge-session queue. The chemistry between the trio of Imahara, Byron, and Bellici is apparent and that makes even the weaker episodes still enjoyable to watch.

White Rabbit Project is currently available for streaming on Netflix.

[Featured Image by Netflix]