Richard Hammond's Blast Lab (BBC One)

A Review of the Hamster's Latest Venture Outside of Top Gear

May 12, 2009

Top Gear's Richard Hammond puts his name to an unsuccessful attempt to make science cool and funny for the CBBC audience.

It goes without saying that the Top Gear guys are ridiculously over-exposed to the point of general annoyance. Not a week goes by without James May’s Wines of Vietnam or Why Everyone Who Isn’t a Loudmouth Bigot Like Me is Wrong starring Jeremy Clarkson being thrust in the schedules for an unsuspecting British public. The digital channel Dave might as well be rebranded as the Top Gear Network due to endless repeats of three grown men acting like buffoons (not a problem though, as it is great telly).

Richard “Hamster” Hammond is the only one who seems to have really embraced the scientific side in his outside ventures, with Sky One’s Brainiac: Science Abuse and his own BBC series chronicling advances in engineering already on his CV – ignoring the horrid day time TV endeavour of course. The latest is a childrens' game show for CBBC where he plays a mad professor asking questions about all things science in the name of entertainment. Or that’s what it says in the previews.

Richard Hammond's Blast Lab is part of the ever increasing line of quiz shows aimed at kids, this one hoping to demonstrate that learning about physics and chemistry can be exciting. Except in this case it’s not. The standard format is applied as two teams compete through a series of nonsensical rounds before the finale featuring that old CBBC staple – gunge.

Blast Lab tries to walk the line between facts and japes, however everyone learns very little as most of the questions are based on guesswork and the explosions are less impressive than teenagers lighting their own farts. Edutainment is the key word here, except Blast Lab is neither educating nor entertaining. As each episode is themed to a particular subject there are a few facts dotted about but they hardly justify a 25-minute run time.

Ninja Nan and Hammond’s Opel Oliver

The studio-based audience of youngsters look bored out of their mind. It’s either Hammond’s jokes and puns aren’t funny or the poor suckers roped in to stand around in the background aren’t paying attention enough to care. The lack of laughs is summed up with the “ninja nan” bit which makes fun of the elderly by saying that, get this, all old people are very frail so it would be hilarious to get one to mug it up for the camera with some lame kung fu moves? No, it’s not.

The premise of the show sets Hammond up as a crazy scientist completing strange experiments but he looks just like 40-year-old, leather jacket clad Top Gear Richard Hammond. A lab coat would have at least aided the charade. He has also brought in his Opel Kadett called Oliver as part of the show, the car he became attached to during the Top Gear Africa special. It’s a nice addition for TG fans, although everyone else would just be bemused by the whole thing if they weren’t already.

Then there’s a section called Mini Miss’ Science Lesson where an unbelievably smug – but admirably confident – girl sets challenges such as encasing team members in large bubbles or seeing if balloons can hold their weight. Unlike Hammond she actually embraces her role rather well.

It might be a bit harsh to criticise this considering Blast Lab is only a children's show but Escape from Scorpion Island and Jungle Run have proven, like Knightmare before them, that kids’ TV can be fun without resorting to lame gags. To sum up; the educational stuff isn’t edutaining enough and the explosions are just weak. Just as some experiments are based on trial and error it looks like Blast Lab should go back to the drawing board.

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