Bill Nye's New Show Couldn't Come at a Better Time (It Also Looks Amazing)

Bill Nye
"Bill Nye Saves the World" premieres April 21 on Netflix. YouTube

We've known since the fall that everyone's favorite science guy, Bill Nye, would host his own Netflix show in 2017. On Tuesday morning, the streaming service released the show's trailer as well as its release date. Bill Nye Saves the World will arrive April 21, should the planet still be intact by the spring.

Related: States, cities plan robust defense of climate science in Donald Trump era

Nye is known for his popular '90s show, Bill Nye the Science Guy, the theme song of which will be familiar to any kid growing up during its run from 1993 to 1998. Wearing his trademark bow tie, Nye would demonstrate how science affected everyday life. It was fun and charming, and it appears that Bill Nye Saves the World will take a similar approach to the subject, only with a ton of celebrity guest appearances.

In the trailer alone are Zach Braff, Tim Gunn, Donald Faison, Wil Wheaton, Joel McHale, Steve Aoki, baseball player Hunter Pence and more. The show will also feature a number of correspondents, one of which will be supermodel Karlie Kloss. The trailer also promises that Nye will tackle sex, global warming, genetically modified organisms, technology and even alternative medicine.

The show comes as science is being threatened by the White House. Since he was inaugurated, Donald Trump has instructed the Environmental Protection Agency to freeze all grants and contracts, and his pick to run the agency, Scott Pruitt, has been decried as an opponent of the agency itself. Sierra Club Executive Director Michael Brune said the choice was "like putting an arsonist in charge of fighting fires."

Nye himself has been critical of the pick. "With an administration coming in that is at least right now nominally going to be opposed to doing anything significant about climate change, this is trouble for everybody," he said in December.

It wasn't the first time Nye has spoken out against Trump. Throughout the election, he was critical of climate change denial among Republican candidates, particularly Trump. "Climate change is a conspiracy of scientists to enable China to take jobs? Dude, really?" Nye said in response to Trump's now-infamous tweet saying that climate change was invented by the Chinese.

He has been critical of the president since the inauguration as well. "You want jobs in the U.S.? You want to have industries in the U.S.?" he recently told People. "[Build] wind turbine solar panels. [Get] some geothermal, some tidal energy, and we could power the entire U.S. right now."

The success of Bill Nye the Science Guy lay in the accessibility of Nye himself. He was entertaining, and his excitement about the topics he was covering was infectious. The show was memorable for far more than its catchy theme song. It made science, the bane of some students' existence, cool. Many believe the president is trying to eradicate it from consideration entirely. Come April 21, Nye will be leading the popular-culture wing of the scientific resistance to the president.

There's no indication of just how political Nye will get on his new show. We know he's going to cover climate change, though, and we're guessing he's not going to be denying it.

Uncommon Knowledge

Newsweek is committed to challenging conventional wisdom and finding connections in the search for common ground.

Newsweek is committed to challenging conventional wisdom and finding connections in the search for common ground.

About the writer


Ryan Bort is a staff writer covering culture for Newsweek. Previously, he was a freelance writer and editor, and his ... Read more

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