Is there any moment that better unified your class and sums up middle school than while you all sat in the dark and chanted, “Bill! Bill! Bill! Bill!” because my guess would be no, there is not.
From early on in elementary school, us kids of the 90’s learned to love the day we either walked into a classroom or had the door pop open and see that giant AV cart roll in. Oh yes, I am most definitely talking about watching a movie in class. I personally remember always watching movies around the holidays or after a week of standardized testing and how that was a nice change of pace from the usual day, but nothing compared to the excitement of the unexpected movie cart perched at the front of the room. From Lifetime-esque biopics in music class to History Channel specials to Schoolhouse Rock in ELA (what do they call middle school English these days?), they were all welcomed with open arms. But the one movie day that was actually interesting, even if the corresponding class material was not, were science periods spent with Bill Nye the Science Guy.
Bill Nye started out on PBS as everyone’s favorite bow tie wearing scientist in 1993 and his program ran for five years. This show made science feel approachable and easy to understand for any audience; from the kids in third grade learning about solids and liquids to the high school biology classes wrapping up a chapter on mitosis. Since then, Nye has been known widely as simply "The Science Guy". He has been the guest on a number of panels and even made appearances at colleges and universities for lectures and commencement speeches alike. With Netflix continuing to rise in popularity and success with self-produced programming, introducing a nonfiction show with a highly recognized character to discuss relevant to science topics seems like a no brainer!
Nye had hoped in his original series more than two decades ago that he might be able to change the world, or at least the way we view science in the world around us. The new show, which is expected to roll out in the spring of 2017, will be called Bill Nye Saves The World. It is a play on his first hope, as he now aims to engage people with topics that range from climate change to the vaccination debate. It is expected be to in the style of an “unfiltered talk show.” There are also plans to include experiments, demonstrations, and special guests. A Netflix spokesperson told Fortune that the show aims to “tackle a topic from a scientific point of view, dispelling myths, and refuting anti-scientific claims that may be espoused by politicians, religious leaders, or titans of industry.”
Using the Netflix platform that has had high success with families, college students, and cord cutters alike, I am pretty confident that Bill Nye Saves the World is going to be wildly popular. Think about Fuller House for a minute. Whether or not you watched it, I would bet that you watched Full House as a child and therefore Fuller House had some appeal to it. Perhaps Bill Nye will get this same type of nostalgic appeal and all of us in our early 20’s will happily cancel our Friday night plans, grab some snacks, and hunker down to learn about GMOs!
Surely Nye is excited to be back in action, but truly hopes this is just a great platform to both enlighten and entertain his audience. And if he continues to change the world? Well, let’s assume he won’t mind continuing with that either.
