Underplayed Gems

The Re-Inventors (2008)

The Re-Inventors poster
Genre
documentary television program
Country
Canada
Length
2 seasons, 37 episodes
Elsewhere
IMDb
The 3D catalogue: film cases on wooden shelves, with the cat sitting at the counter next to its greeting.

The catalogue in 3D

The film shelves have a room of their own that you can walk around in. The cat behind the counter is the AI Catbot, and they pick real films from the same catalogue when you tell them what you feel like watching. Nothing is for sale, here or in there. Go in from here and this series is already out on the counter, with more like it waiting on the shelf next to it.

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How it feels

Two hosts explore old inventions from history. They track down blueprints and build working versions to test if the ideas actually work. At the end of each episode they decide whether the invention gets a passing or failing grade.

curiousplayfuleducationalhands-onexperimentallightheartednostalgicsystematic

What happens

The Re-Inventors is a Canadian TV show based around exploring historic inventions and testing them. The show follows the hosts, Matt Hunter and Jeremy MacPherson, as they discover and reconstruct inventions to see how ideas from the past hold up in the present world. In each episode, the hosts choose a historic invention and attempt to rebuild it. The hosts would examine the original patent information, including blueprints, then, along with additional tradesmen as needed, build the prototypes, and test each of these, often strange, inventions to see if any could actually succeed. Often, a few related inventions would be tested in the same episode. Each invention was given a set of evaluation criteria before being tested. At the end of the episode, the invention was graded and if the invention was considered to have met the evaluation criteria, it was granted the title of 'Patent Approved'. If the invention proved to be less than effective, it was granted the title 'Patent Denied'. The TV series was developed by Christopher Triffo, CSC; he directed all 35 episodes. The show was hosted by Matt Hunter and Jeremy MacPherson. Matt Hunter is an artist and craftsman, and played the on-screen contractor on the Canadian lifestyle program Colour Confidenetial for 65 episodes prior to co-hosting The Re-Inventors. Jeremy MacPherson is a special effects artist and carpenter who has worked on hundreds of film and television productions, most notably X-Men, Chicago, Resident Evil: Apocalypse and K-19: The Widowmaker. On History Television, two half-hour episodes were typically broadcast back-to-back in a one-hour time slot. It aired on the Canadian French TV channel Historia as Absurde et breveté and was dubbed into French. The series is airing in over 60 countries in 30 languages and is currently running on Smithsonian Channel, Charge!, and H&I in the USA. The first season was also released on Netflix USA on February 1, 2014. (from Wikipedia, CC BY-SA)

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