This season starts off with one of the show's more explicit episodes (which says something as long-time viewers of the show are likely to know). They call out The War on Porn and those who badmouth the adult entertainment industry claiming it to be a source of violence and perversion. Penn and Teller take this opportunity to show tons of clips from various adult films, so if you are easily offended ... well, you shouldn't even approach this show in general, much less this season.
After that, the pair take on new age medicine, acupuncture, healing crystals and other forms of healing that don't actually involve trained physicians. Not only do they talk to several "therapists," but they also conduct one of their unique brand of experiments to see how people react to their own form of medicine. For one customer, they play a kazoo over their body, for others they use plungers on their skin. Oddly enough, the patients swear they feel better.
In the episode about NASA, Penn and Teller explain that people often tell them they need to rag on something they actually like, and for that, they choose our government-funded space program. The main point of the focus here is NASA's inability to learn from past mistakes, citing incidents like Challenger and Columbia. I found these first three episodes to be pretty enjoyable, and several others were as well, though the ones focusing on people who (essentially) worship dolphins and the one on sleeping products didn't feel like their standard quality.
Another enjoyable episode in this season focuses on the "Green Movement" and how much "Carbon Credit" is pointless. If you aren't familiar with this concept, it is paying a charity some amount of money to counteract your carbon-footprint and impact on the environment. The idea is that you find out driving to the store and buying products that aren't environmentally friendly have caused an impact on the environment and paying a charity that will plant a tree or something will counter your effects. Some of the problems with these systems is that there is no standard formula for these carbon-footprint costs or any kind of oversight to ensure that these companies are doing what they say they are with the money. Needless to say, Penn and Teller find this Bullsh**.
The episode "Stranger Danger" talks about household myths and over-protective parents. Not only do they touch on parents who never let their kids do anything on their own, but also other old-wives-tales like catching a cold from a rainstorm or sitting too close to the television. The season wraps up with "Good Ol' Days" where they take a look at the 1980's, 1950's and Renaissance periods. What is interesting about this episode is to see how people's current perceptions of these times don't really fit with how things were. One group of people get to meet a cast member from Leave it to Beaver and they actually believe the real world was like it was around the Cleaver household. Needless to say, Ken Osmond (who played Eddie Haskell) was rather distraught by these people's distorted view of things.
Like I said, this show isn't for the easily offended. Penn and Teller don't exactly offer an unbiased and scientific view in these shows like Myth Busters. Instead, the pair find a topic that they are very much against, talk to extremists on the other side, make fun of them and throw in their own couple of expert witnesses, so if you happen to believe in one of the topics they are taking on, be prepared to be offended.
