But I Digress... Following The White Rabbit

By Cat

If you, like me, have missed the feel of the old Mythbusters (2003-) team that was bigger than just the two beardy guys, this new Netflix show might be right up your alley. Don’t get me wrong, though. The new show White Rabbit Project (2016-) is decidedly not a derivative show. No one’s really trying to bust anything here. 

The trio of geeky shenanigan-masters Kari Byron (Beyond Tomorrow, Sharkzilla, Head Rush), Tory Belleci (R2-D2: Beneath the Dome, Punkin Chunkin, Thrill Factor), and Grant Imahara (The Guild, Sharknado 3: Oh Hell No!, Star Trek Continues) have come back together to bring us a new Netflix original show that appeals to my geeky random heart. 

The White Rabbit Project is a celebration of random geekdom – right up my alley! I did a little poking around and found that the name came from the concept of “going down the rabbit hole” as one sometimes can do when chasing cool ideas on the internet.

The show takes six ideas around a central theme and explores them in an effort to ultimately rank at the end of each episode. It’s a bit of friendly competition between the three show leads. Each of them spearheads two of the topics and, in similar vein to shows past, they test out their theories with experiments and demonstrations. Each idea is then scored based on three core criteria for the episode theme. 

Take for example the first four episodes of the ten show season. Superpower Tech leads the charge. They each pick two superpowers it would be cool to have and test if they would be plausibly scientifically replicable. Cool, right? Next up is Jailbreak with a ranking of six bold escapes and how they were accomplished, etc.

As you can see, so far, there’s not really any rhyme or reason to these themes. It appears totally random and that’s part of the awesome as they poke through pop culture as well as history. Third up is Crazy WW2 Weapons. Some of these are just insane – and all were very real. Episode four focuses on Scam Artists. Who were they? How much did they get away with? Are they still at large? 

I have to tell you that my jaw has dropped a few times watching this series. I’ve seen seven of the ten so far. Next up? Where’s My Hoverboard? No seriously. Where is it? Not one with wheels – the one that Back to the Future (1985) promised we’d have already. That is the title of the episode, though. I can’t wait to watch it.

Their science remains on point, their tech is crazy and amazing, their humor had me laughing til it hurt, and their spirit of fun and adventure remain at the heart of the show. 

If you’d like to check out more of the nuts and bolts of the production information, you can find it here on IMDb then head over to Netflix and give it a peek! (Or the other way around.)

Bonus!:  You can check out the 30 min Nerdist Facebook Q&A Video with the White Rabbit team here.

But I Digress... is a new weekly column for trustthedice.com that can't be pinned down to just one thing. It's Cat's celebration of tangents, random references, and general fan geekdom that both intertwines with, revolves around, and diverges from our movie-review core. In homage to the beloved Brit comedians, we want to bring you something completely different!