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Culture

The best of Season 5!

From jamming with the Dead at TRI Studios, to handing a smartphone to an elephant, to hitting a pedestrian while driving with Google Glass, Season 5 was a blast.

Molly Wood headshot
Molly Wood
2 min read

Now playing: Watch this: It's the best of Always On, Season 5!
13:25

The time has come for our "best-of" episode of Always On's final season. Over the year and a half or so that we've been pumping out episodes, our multitude of torture tests, unboxings, Future Techs, and road tests has taken us places we never could've imagined. While Los Angeles was the farthest we traveled from home this time around, Season 5 still produced some segments that are up there with the best of them.

All but one episode in Season 5 included one of our Future Tech installments. However, our favorite of the bunch got us "backstage" with Bob Weir of the Grateful Dead, Lukas Nelson, and a handful of other rock stars. Performing in one of the most unique venues in the world, these legendary musicians are changing the way we consume music. So here it is again, folks: a look inside the more than state-of-the-art, TRI Studios.

Benton gets ready for a round with the Galaxy S4 Mini. TKO.

Since the beginning, our concept of "torture-testing" a gadget has evolved from stairs in the back yard and a freezer in the break room to the beaches of Hawaii and a barbecue on the side of an RV. Whether it was the S4 Mini facing off against a kickboxer, the Active enduring a stomping on par with a stampede, or throwing an Xbox controller at CNET Editors' Choice TV, Season 5 set the precedent for future gadget torture testers everywhere.

This season also introduced a new segment: the mini Molly rant. We determined our first try was the one to include in our best of show: Molly versus Google Glass. Whether you're walking down the street, drinking a coffee, or driving an SUV, please refrain from letting your mind wander up into that tiny box in the right-hand corner of your field of vision. Your life is in front of you.

That's it for our best-of! Tune in next week for a special edition of our bloopers episode with a few clips from behind the scenes. As always, thanks for watching!