It looks like what is old is new again for the popular Discovery Channel show MythBusters. Last week’s season finale ended with the surprise announcement that show regulars Kari Byron, Tory Belleci and Grant Imahara would no longer be on the show starting next season as the show changed direction.

Kari, Grant and Tory have been on the show for the majority of the run with Kari and Tory making appearances as part of the build team starting in 2004 and Grant first appearing in 2005. The three started by helping Jamie and Adam bust their myths but they eventually became the show’s B-team and had their own myths to bust separate of what Jamie and Adam were up to.

The trio’s dismissal from the program is going to coincide with the show going back to its original formal where just Jamie and Adam were the titular MythBusters and they had a team supporting them but not central characters with plot lines and myths of their own. Basically, the Build Team is going to be a build team.

I haven’t watched the show as much in the last few years as I did when it first debuted. However, I could kind of predict how an episode was going to go. Jamie and Adam would work through their myth to get it to work and would get the opening and closing segments of the show. Kari, Grant and Tory would bust their myth inside the first half-hour of the show and use the remaining time to create the biggest explosion or crash they could for their last segment.

While I’m sure that approach was probably more entertaining than a straight mythbusting show and it drew more eyeballs than a straight mythbusting show, I don’t think I’ll mind a change of pace. Doing the same thing for years on end will eventually get stale. Apparently ratings have been steadily declining so maybe this is a much-needed change to keep MythBusters on air.

And if you’re a fan of the trio, you can take comfort in the fact that Discovery is reportedly already looking for ways to keep them on the network.