I F***ing Love Science Is The Latest Internet Phenomenon To Become A TV Show

By Brent McKnight | Updated

This article is more than 2 years old

Craig FergusonIf you spend any amount of time on Facebook—and let’s be honest, we all spend way, way, way too much time on Facebook—you’ve most likely come across I Fucking Love Science. Unless you’re a diehard creationist who is only friends with other diehard creationists, but I doubt there are a ton of those out there reading this particular site right now. But even then you’ve likely run across someone posting one ironically, or to mock science, much like the science-minded often repost the wacky things the more religious members of the population say and do. My point is this: you probably know what the hell I’m talking about. If you don’t, it’s a Facebook page created by Andrew Elise that posts funny, science-related memes. And now it’s getting a TV show.

The Science Channel has green lit a new I Fucking Love Science series, for some reason. Sure, it has 10 million fans, but that doesn’t necessarily mean that it should be made into a television show. But this is Hollywood, and as we all know they’re not shy about taking any popular property, no matter how ludicrous, and trying to squeeze a series out of it. After all, these are the same people that plan to make a movie out of Grumpy Cat, because that’s a brilliant fucking idea. That Shit My Dad Says show worked out, right? At least this involves science.

Craig Ferguson, host of the CBS Late Late Show—which I honestly forget is a thing that exists most of the time until I see a random commercial—will handle the hosting duties, and despite the fact that this sounds like a terrible idea on the surface, the premise isn’t half bad. The hour-long program will combine animation and live-action in order to perform recreations of events and various scientific experiments. This is an interesting decision, especially considering that Neil deGrasse Tyson’s reboot of Cosmos just premiered to less-than-stellar ratings.

In a videotaped statement released at SXSW, Ferguson said:

Science has a naughty secret — it’s that all things are connected. And this show is going to explore the randomness of science. Think of it as a late night Google search that goes a hundred pages deep until things get weird — and then you just keep going. And there is no better partner for this kind of smart entertainment like Science Channel and Elise.

Elise adds:

When I created my Facebook page three years ago I never could have imagined that it would resonate with a worldwide audience of 11 million followers…This partnership with Craig and Science Channel is an exciting new venture that I hope will encourage more people to embrace the amazing, wonderful world of science.

It will be interesting to see if the fan base—which, let’s face it, is made up of casual consumers looking for amusing bite-sized tidbits—will carry over to an in-depth, 60-minute show. Just because the brand is there doesn’t mean the audience will necessarily follow, especially when the product is so vastly different. We’ll also have to wait and see how the sense of humor translates as well. Let’s hope this adaptation is more like Cosmos and less like Shit My Dad Says.

For good or ill, I Fucking Love Science will debut on Science Channel sometime in the last quarter of 2014.

I Fucking Love Science