Who says science can't be fun? To be honest, lots of people do--or at least, that's the way many (too many) people think about science. Which is why I am grateful for the many researchers who do public outreach. It's why I admire communicators like Bill Nye, so much so that he and I are now doing a podcast together. And it's why I appreciate shows like Brain Games, which capture the joyous side of using science to understand who we are and how we operate.
My younger daughter, a ravenously curious 10-year-old, loved the original Brain Games television series that delivered 66 episodes between 2011 and 2016. She was excited to hear that the show is coming back in a new format, and I was intrigued by the choice of host: Keegan-Michael Key, formerly of the razor-sharp sketch comedy show Key and Peele. The new show debuts January 20 on National Geographic.
Key brings a welcome jolt of comedic energy to the show. Less predictable, he also radiates a generous, kid-like enthusiasm: He clearly loves being a prankster, but equally loves the psychology and neuroscience lessons woven into the show.
This time around, the guests are celebrities, which works surprisingly well on the whole. Famous or not, we all have the same type of brain with the same kinds of foibles and blind spots. If anything, it's reassuring--and yes, often funny--to see that people who have spent years training to perform in front of the camera run into the same mental glitches as the rest of us. The trade-off is that the scientific segments don't go as deep as they did before; explanatory interludes featuring the muppets Beaker and Dr. Bunsen played too young even for my daughter.
Still, the result is highly entertaining, and the show is sneaky in how it gets you thinking about neuroscience without being the least bit didactic (which is, itself, a pretty neat brain game). To find out more about the scientific and entertainment thinking that went in to creating the new Brain Games, I met up with Keegan-Michael Key--with my daughter joining me, both as a fan and as a critic. Here's the conversation that resulted.
