Crazy Contraptions
Contents |
Host
Co-hosts
Judge: Zach Umperovitch
Insert presenter: Shini Somara
Broadcast
Optomen for Channel 4, 29 April 2022 to present
Synopsis
A sort of inversion of The Great Egg Race in which teams compete to create "chain reaction machines" to carry out a simple task in the most complicated way. In one section they have to demonstrate a particular scientific principle and in another they need to incorporate a particular object. Knockout series structure.
Unfortunately, with so many moving parts (and on this occasion that's not a metaphor), there's very little time to focus on the various engineering challenges in any depth, and then the finale is critically undermined by choppy editing. To show off a chain reaction machine properly, the camerawork needs to be as well choreographed as the machine itself, capturing the whole thing in a single flowing shot if at all possible. 48 edits in 70 seconds really won't cut it - or rather it will cut it, to ribbons, robbing us and the teams of the big "wow" moment at the end. All a bit of a shame, because this could have been a fun twist on the build-a-machine genre, if only the contestants' ingenuity had been matched on the production side.
Trivia
Officially billed as Richard Hammond's Crazy Contraptions.