4 out of 5

Created by: CollegeHumor

covers season 1

Adam hardly ruins everything.  Rather, host Adam Conover is incredibly likable and entertaining, espousing cited facts or studies exposing truthier truths around modern day myths or curiosities such as engagement rings, or halitosis, or herpes.  ‘Truthier’ because, of course, many things can only be a version of the truth, where research and opinion only take things so far before you have to make up your own mind.  Which, to be fair, ‘Adam Ruins Everything’ cops to when the show drifts into more open-ended territory like sex and death, but it also somewhat underlines how the pitch for the show – Adam using fact-backed info to really make Why We Do What We Do seem silly (thus ‘ruining’ it) – is the most successful version of it; it feels a bit preachy when it wanders into bigger territory, though, again, the writers do handle it all more evenly than any other source, making this as good an opportunity as any to explore gender equality, and challenge views on religion and life and death.  But standing that against the unrepentant fun and jaw-dropping What What What of the Didya know? fact-rattling-off of the first season’s opening 2/3rds of episodes, combined with some playful plotting between Adam and the group he’s generally annoying with his teachings, makes the tonal imbalance sort of an Aw Shucks deal, like we know we need to deal with this stuff, but dang, man, we were having a good time up ’til now…

Though maybe that’s the ultimate application of the show’s title.

Anyhow, it’s sort of like a less boastful and agenda-ish Penn & Teller: Bullshit! with a more interesting presentation style (less talking heads) and amusing cluster-fuck sensibility that lets the writers string together bits about Mickey Mouse and video games into a single episode.