Amy Poehler’s Smart Girls has a new show sure to entertain both the most casual and arduous of scientists. The digital network, owned by Legendary Entertainment, just launched a new program on August 3, 2015 that combines comedy and Western cultural critique with STEM subject matter. It’s called Experimenting with Megan Amram.
The first installment of Experimenting introduces viewers to the titular scientist, who possesses a white lab coat, an undergraduate degree from Harvard, and some sardonic comedy chops. Amram isn’t your typical science show host. The writer for series like Parks and Recreation and a wonderful twitter account authored Science… for Her! in 2014, a satirical textbook that looks at gender roles and stereotypes in the aforementioned typically male-dominated fields. So, it’s no surprise Amram forces a tongue-in-cheek sexiness into science in her own hosted program, with an emphasis on “looking good” and plenty of sass.
For example, Amram teaches the audience how to make a “biological” clock powered by a potato battery and hooking up the machine to a toy baby doll, riffing on the idea of women feeling the urge to procreate. Amram also asks her first guest star Dr. Beverley McKeon, an engineer and aeronautics professor at CalTech, if she has Miami in her native country of England.
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In future episodes of her series, Amram will interview more female scientists (likely with the same oddball format and absurd questions she used with McKeon) while trying not to be distracted by what a release calls “womanly things.” Amram’s quirky series will also feature more experiments for viewers to try at home.
You can watch future episodes of Experimenting with Megan Amram every Monday on the series’ dedicated page at amysmartgirls.com.
