The Discovery Channel has two basic kinds of programming: documentaries and reality shows. Not all of the documentaries are really documentaries; for instance, the ones that show dinosaurs are, of course, recreations based on the best guesses of paleontologists, archaeologists and the 3-D design crew (“What color should the triceratops be?” “I like purple.” “Purple it is, then.”) And thus the triceratops is purple because that happened to be the animal the design guy was working on during Bring Your Daughter to Work Day.

Likewise, not all the reality shows are really reality shows in the way that people have come to think of them. Rather, many of them are, philosophically speaking, surrreality shows. Technically, what you’re watching is real, but it has an effervescent, no way quality to it. These are generally among the channel’s best productions. “Survivorman” and “Man vs. Wild” show what it’s like to survive in the wilderness. “Dirty Jobs” follows long-suffering host Mike Rowe from awful, ungodly task to awful, ungodly task as he travels around the country, helping “the people who make civilized life possible for the rest of us.” And then there’s “MythBusters,” which is possibly the greatest show on basic cable.

“MythBusters” is a show about where reality meets fantasy. The two wacky co-hosts (Adam Savage and Jamie Hyneman) test various situations from movies, TV, and urban legends to see if the myths in question are actually possible. Flanked by the Build Team and their crash test dummy, Buster (recently retired and replaced with Buster 2.0 after putting the original back together became too much of a hassle), they have jumped out of buildings, launched rockets, and blown up everything from pants to a cement truck. The show recently celebrated its 100th episode by testing myths from “MacGyver,” the highlight of which was a home-built airplane.

It is not at all surprising that the Discovery Channel would want to emulate its own success, and it recently introduced a new program called “Smash Lab.” Like “MythBusters,” “Smash Lab” is based around the basic premise of ‘enlightenment through explosion’. Instead of myths, Smash Lab attempts to use the cutting edge of insanity to make the world a safer place. Episodes so far have included bizarre redesigns of fire escapes, earthquake-proof houses, and two episodes dedicated to the arrest of runaway vehicles.

The “Smash Lab” team consists of three guys and one woman, who work together to design, build and test various deranged systems. And, as I watched episode after episode, I felt first trepidation, then pity, and finally contempt.

“Smash Lab” doesn’t have any single damning factor; it’s actually a combination of small things that is slowly condemning the show, now in its first and quite possibly last season, to failure.

The structure of the show is the first problem. In “MythBusters,” there are generally several concurrent myths being tested over the course of any one episode. In “Smash Lab” each episode is dedicated to the testing of one single idea – which ties in catastrophically with the next problem the show has.

All the ideas I’ve seen tested so far are suffused with a Rube Goldberg quality: none of them had any practical aspect. The lone exception was a concrete arrester bed, designed to stop runaway vehicles by causing their wheels to sink slowly into the soft concrete. However, this doesn’t really count in my mind, because similar things are already used to stop airplanes that get to the end of the runway and keep going.

The most recent episode I saw was the one that finally left me feeling contempt. It was also about halting runaway vehicles – in this case, by using rockets to bring them to a halt. I’ve seen a lot of really dumb stuff on television, but this episode takes the cake for sheer persistence.

The first set of tests involved strapping rockets to a small cart, which was pushed up to 25 M.P.H. or so and then “stopped” by the rockets. In addition to the fact that all the designs were pathetically ineffective, the one that worked the best (tying rockets to the wheels themselves) left unnerving scorch marks on the asphalt.

Anybody not shackled to this experiment would have looked at it and called it quits for safety reasons, perhaps moving on to something saner, like drag parachutes. Instead, the team cripples their project by getting caught in the middle: they kill the wheel rockets for safety reasons, instead choosing a less effective but no less dangerous side-mounted rocket design for their first full-scale test.

Of course, they thought it was safer, but the second test proved that wrong when the retrorockets failed to fire when ignited. Then, after a deceptively long pause, one of them did go off, scaring the hell out of the team member who happened to be in front of it at the time.

Now in full denial, they moved to the final test. This involved attaching very large, very expensive rockets to the full-scale vehicle, to see if they would stop it from going off a cliff. They never got the chance: one of the rockets spontaneously ignited when the remote control setup was activated. This led to a very intense moment when it was not clear whether or not a couple of people were dead or not.

Then, and only then, did they admit this was a bad idea.

“Smash Lab” is already an embarrassment. Everything about the show, from the lackluster team of hosts to the disturbingly odd ideas they test, turns what should be an amusing romp with potential benefits into a gloomy slog with all the “fun” of trench warfare. Had I written this review at an earlier date, I would have chided the program on the lack of magic that makes “MythBusters” so delightful – little things, like naming the crash test dummy. But after watching the retrorocket episode, I hope in all earnestness that this show is cancelled before someone gets killed.

(The accompanying photo is from www.discovery.com)