Previewing Brain Games and Duck Quacks Don't Echo

Brain Games is one of those shows that is sneaky entertaining. Like a video your science teacher puts on when he is too lazy to teach that day or does not trust a substitute to get anything done and you find yourself in class actually entertained and learning new things. The new season starts off tonight with back to back episodes, the first of which deals with color and how we perceive and process colors. That is followed by an episode dealing with the laws of attraction where you learn, of course, that attraction, relationships, and love-at-first sight feelings are all in your head.

One of next week’s episode hits a little close to home, after an episode on trust, the second episode of the night is a “battle of the ages” to find out one and for all when is better, a better more agile brain, or an aged, but experiences one. And you can find out of your brain is acting as old as it should. This is also so home for those like me who are slowly getting to the, where did I leave my keys, phase of life Also this season is an episode on stress.

Brain Games airs Mondays at 9:00 on the National Geographic Channel. You can download Brain Games on iTunes.


Coming on right after Brain Games is new series Duck Quacks Don’t Echo. Take a moment to try and think what this show could possibly be about. Well it turns out a perfect fit with Brain Games as a show that will “test out the most outrageous facts you have never heard.” Yes, the title is one of them even though they do not test it out in the first episode. Sort of Mythbusters for myths you never knew existed. But unlike Mythbusters, this is a competition of sorts where three comedians, Michael Ian Black, Tom Papa, and Seth Herzog challenge each other to test obscure theories with the audience voting on the best one. Tonight includes testing theories on toilet water can travel up to six feet when flushed (start measuring how far away your toothbrush is to your toilet now), build a hovercraft out of household items, and eat six saltines in under minute without water. Like Black’s other new show, the concept may be silly, but it is the host who make the show worth watching every week.

Duck Quacks Don’t Echo airs Mondays at 9:30 on the National Geographic Channel.