TV Review: Furze World Wonders – Episode 101 (Lights, Camera, Action!)

Furze World Wonders - Episode 101

From the get go, it's obvious that this show is more about the people than the inventing. While the inventing is still prevalent throughout the episode, Forze uses his 20 minutes of screen time to focus on why he's doing it, not how. BMX is a tremendous force in extreme sports, but it is also a community that knows that it's important to build one another up.

When not talking about the BMX community, Colin spends a lot of his time generally going crazy about each new invention. Not crazy in a bad way, just that he's clearly excited about every new invention and new discovery. Perhaps a bit more time getting to focus on that would make it a more interesting learning experience, because in general the show acts more like an 'ooh' and 'ahh' fest.

This isn't always bad, but learning the science behind some of the inventions might be pretty cool. Unfortunately, Colin tends to drop little bits of information without describing it in a way that's fully understandable. Perhaps fully explaining what a Catherine Wheel is or going into detail about how the ramps work, such as why they are angled as they are, could have really driven home the science portion of the show.

By the time the episode reaches its end, all the viewer can really be sure of is that Colin really likes inventing, and he's good at it, and that BMX riders really like BMX. Perhaps it's the short format of the episodes, but there's just not a tremendous amount of time to get invested into any of it. The inventions are cool, and it's nice to see how they are helping individuals and their communities, instead of being dumped into major government projects or the like. However, coming in at almost 21 minutes, there's just not enough time to get into the more intriguing aspects of the inventions, or even to enjoy learning about this community.

The show does manage to take some stabs at humour, most of which work fairly well. The introduction is moderately funny, and only one or two jokes stand out miss the mark entirely. Furze World's Wonder just suffers from doing too much in too little time. Perhaps as the series goes on, it can find a better balance. Right now, though, it feels a bit too fast to really find its footing.

6/10

Good

Furze World Wonders definitely shows some promise. It's a heart-warming take on something that could easily come off as being too analytical and stiff, but adding some of the 'how' could definitely draw people in further. Right now, there's just not enough time to squeeze in everything needed, and the short format doesn't leave wiggle room for everything that's trying to be done.