Season 5
Brainiac: Science Abuse (often shortened to simply Brainiac) is a British entertainment television show with a pseudoscience motif.
As the show focuses on entertainment at the expense of using even basic elements of the scientific method the "experiments" conducted during the production of Brainiac: are of dubious scientific value or the results are forged.
The series originally premiered in the UK on Sky One on 13 November, 2003. There are six seasons to date.
Brainiac airs in South Africa on DStv's Discovery channel.
Season 5 premiered on Discovery on Sunday 2 March 2008, at 17h00.
Repeats
Mondays: 02h50, 12h50
Synopsis
Brainiac is a fast-paced, fun-packed series combining entertainment and science in a new and ground-breaking format that proves science really can be fun.
Each episode sees two young presenters and the daredevil team of Brainiacs applying scientific principles to unusual situations - and carrying out experiments that would send most sane science teachers into a mad panic.
Expect lots of bangs, blasts and crazy stunts.
Each and every week we'll bring you all that's weird, wonderful and wild in the world of science, served up with a healthy dollop of explosions, pyrotechnics and anything else we can get our hands on: legally or illegally.
Presenters
The original presenters were Richard Hammond and Jon Tickle (formerly of Big Brother). In the second season, Charlotte Hudson joined Hammond and Tickle to bring the total number of hosts up to three.
Hammond left after the fourth season and was replaced by Vic Reeves.
Season 5
In Season 5 Vic Reeves took over as host from Richard Hammond. This was announced before Hammond's car accident in September 2006. The original production team left the programme at the same time as Hammond.
The show retains Brainiac For A Day, Things What My Body Does, and contains new segments like Brainiac V Beast, Dr Kilcoyne with "Fizzle or Flash" and Prof. Myang Lee (Rachel Grant) with steel balls, attempting to "shatter or shunt" various objects.
Also, Vic Reeves appears as the Russian scientist Uri Abusikov, attempting to destroy things with liquid nitrogen.