Top gear plumbs new depths...

[Bren]

Absolutely awful again and getting worse - more interested in celebrities than cars.

 

The BBC must have money to burn - no way would the film financiers have paid to wreck the focus.

 

Please BBC put it out of its misery....

[flat4alfa]

Well that's not going to happen. It makes a profit for the BBC.

[Mike D]

What?!

 

It's an entertainment show. If I wanted to find out the boot space of a Kia Picanto, i'd nip down the local dealers...

 

Powerslides, explosions, screeching tyres, all on at the same time as some crap about midwifes that my mrs likes to watch - it's a Sunday escape. keep it up!

[dollywobbler]

Yes, but it's just the same old stuff time and again. Better off watching the old ones on Dave. They were better then and you don't have to wait until Sunday night to watch them.

[Mike D]

Like she lets me watch dave

[cort16]

It was fine I enjoyed it. Once you just accept it's a setup then just enjoy the entertainment value.

[RedSparrow]

What happened in it then?

 

TBH there are worse things on TV. Like everything on 1+2 and BBC3. And channel 5.

[dollywobbler]

Like she lets me watch dave

 

Consider yourself lucky. My wife sold our telly! (well, ok, t'was a joint effort. The fire's much nicer to watch and rarely makes us grumpy!)

[eddyramrod]

What happened in it then?

 

TBH there are worse things on TV. Like everything on 1+2 and BBC3. And channel 5.

 

Isn't QI on BBC1 or 2? Have I Got...? Two Pints? Eggheads? I might be wrong, I'm a bit out of touch, but those almost make it worthwhile paying the licence fee. Almost. Then good old Auntie trips herself up by employing twats like Clarkson and Woss, and making Eastenders and Holby; and all the real entertainment has so much more ground to make up.

[Mr Lobster]

I'm actually enjoying the new series of TG. Only saw the first half of tonights but what I saw was ok. Probably not as good as the China thing last week or supercars across Italy but decent enough telly all the same.

 

Its entertainment though and yes a lot of it is staged. I don't want to go back to old TG comparing dull stuff against more dull stuff. Carry on.

[RedSparrow]

What happened in it then?

 

TBH there are worse things on TV. Like everything on 1+2 and BBC3. And channel 5.

 

Isn't QI on BBC1 or 2? Have I Got...? Two Pints? Eggheads? I might be wrong, I'm a bit out of touch, but those almost make it worthwhile paying the licence fee. Almost. Then good old Auntie trips herself up by employing twats like Clarkson and Woss, and making Eastenders and Holby; and all the real entertainment has so much more ground to make up.

 

Sorry I meant to write ITV1+2!

[Timewaster]

The bit with james and the panda vs barried Corsa was pretty good.

No idea who the "star" was and the car chase stuff was bollocks though.

[eddyramrod]

Sorry I meant to write ITV1+2!

 

Fair comment then.... I have rather mixed feelings about returning to British telly. I suspect Play.com will be doing well out of me for DVDs of some of the series I've been watching here, that AFAIK are unknown in UK. Sea Patrol, anyone? The Good Guys? Flashpoint?

[R9UKE]

This has got me thinking that there may be room for a "proper" car review show. Obviously it wouldn't make BBC bosses the millions that Top Gear has over recent years but perhaps a smaller channel would be interested? I'm talking a mish mash of Top Gear, Fifth Gear and Wheeler Dealers. There could be features such as buyer guides for popular used cars, and of course the weekly Autoshite car. I think it could be very, very good. I love Top Gear when they're racing up to Blackpool in £100 cars and turning CXs into camper vans, but I really couldn't give a shit about the star in the reasonably priced car and Ferraris going around tracks. The BL challenge was a brilliant episode

[eddyramrod]

That's it! "Autoshite the Series!" That's what we need! Jon for producer?

[morris_ital_lover]

IMHO it wasn't a good topgear but it wasn't the worst. It's unlikely that they trashed decent cars that were to be sold on, I'd place £5 on the Jag and Focus being the ones that got nobbled earlier on and consequently were to be binned anyway.

 

Topgear is car porn, nothing more nothing less. in all it's ways. It has supercars that we'll never dream of sitting in, going round tracks all across the world, being thrashed and making lovely noises. This is combined with reviews of lower end performance cars on similar terms, larking around in largely staged challenges involving older cars and a bit of serious introduction stuff that allows us to see motorsports etc that we wouldn't anyway. (The Senna and Nascar pieces over the past couple of series stand out in terms of this). If you don't like it remember the BBC makes a profit on it so it helps fund other shite, the BBC waste far more money on crap like "the Voice" and you don't have to watch it.

 

As for serious car reviews, we don't really need 'em anymore. The internet allows us to find thousands of professional and amateur reviews, performance data etc use that then go and book a testdrive.... and you have to find appropriate personalities, most producers would plump for Dom Littlewood and Quentin "give us a fiver and I'll say anything" Wilson.

[RedSparrow]

Tis true. If people wanted to watch a serious car review show there would be one.

[RoadworkUK]

Absolutely awful again and getting worse - more interested in celebrities than cars.

 

The BBC must have money to burn - no way would the film financiers have paid to wreck the focus.

 

Please BBC put it out of its misery....

 

Nah, not this time.

 

Chances are that the Focus was a non-sale pre-prod or factory mileage accumulation car, just like the Fiesta in the Army Beach Landing test, or the Citroen C2 dockyard chase. Personally speaking, accepting that it's basically a car-themed comedy series, then, providing it's funny it's OK in my book. Sometimes it's a little wide of the mark, but the loosely edited "Car Chase" that H and C put together was funny. My other half was guffawing uproariously and she's fervently anti Top-Gear.

 

When I pick up a car magazine, it usually isn't Top Gear, which has turned into a preteen comic. If it's CAR, I tend to read the road tests first, then the news section. But the stories about estoteric, daft, not-to-be-attempted-by-mortal-man driving adventures (Testarossa to Tiera Del Fuego, SL65 through Ethiopia) are the bits that I really savour. We're talking glass of red wine and a cigarette, Sade playing in the background, low blood-pressure, dimmed lights, girlfriend laying sidled up beside me. Quality time.

 

The more fantastical bits of Top Gear are the closest the telly gets to those bits of magazine. The last thing we want is it to turn into Which crossed with Watchdog.

 

(I was joking about Sade.)

[Spiny Norman]

If people wanted to watch a serious car review show there would be one.

 

This.

 

There used to be a serious car show IIRC. It was called "Top Gear" and it did deal with ordinary cars like Datsun Cherries and things like checking your tyre pressures regularly.

No bugger watched it.....

It's entertainment, nothing else. If you don't like it there are dozens of other channels full of shite to watch instead.

 

I really think they're taking the piss with the guests this series though, OK so I'm not the most music/film/TV savvy guy out there but the last few weeks I'd no idea who the guests were. I'd never heard of that guy tonight, or that dumbass rapper character they had on recently. All this from a show that's had Ranulph Fiennes, Steven Fry, Ronnie Wood and Brian Johnson on previous episodes.

 

Did like the pointed dig they had at these whiplash claiming fucktards though, but I'll bet someone somewhere won't have liked the Chinese gag....

[mk1_4dr]

Lets not spoil it for those yet to see it. Im fixing to watch it when i get in at 5am...

[Mike D]

That's the thing! You look forward to watching it when you get in at 5am! What other car related crap is there in tele that provokes that reaction? Fair enough, it's no Mad Max, however, it is car tele, which there can never be enough of. Have you watched Pinks on extreme? Hick but worth it!

[messerschmitt owner]

Eddie

 

they have sea patrol on some sky channel here in UKland!

[eddyramrod]

Thanks, but I'd rather buy DVDs than a Sky subscription, even to see Nav again!

She's the one on your left. Ding dong!

[flat4alfa]

..Then good old Auntie trips herself up by employing twats like Clarkson and Woss, and making Eastenders and Holby; and all the real entertainment has so much more ground to make up.

Agree about having to make much more ground up. But what sells, sells. My Missus loves Holby therefore I do to, because I get to give my ears a rest.

 

Don't agree about that Woss though. He's been on that ITV for a while now

[eddyramrod]

I did say I was out of touch....

[Negative Creep]

For anyone who hated the Focus being destroyed, I guess you don't watch any films out of principle. Production companies tend to wreck a fair few motors, and I bet Ford and Jag donated them for free. Appearing in a film like that will be worth its weight in gold for advertising

[trigger]

SIARPC needs scrapping, It's a dead format which is purely an exercise to promote a stars new film/album/book whatever, It's very rare for there to be a star on the show who i actually like and who isn't up their own arsehole.

[morris_ital_lover]

Thanks, but I'd rather buy DVDs than a Sky subscription, even to see Nav again!

She's the one on your left. Ding dong!

 

Eddy, I hate to break it you but she appears to be named after a bus, judging by her name tag:

 

http://www.caetanobus.pt/

 

As for SIARPC, they need to keep it as it gives just enough time to get up, get a brew on and be back before anything decent appears again.

[retrogeezer]

it would be nice if they came up with something less predictable, they get enough money too.

[Conrad D. Conelrad]

As for SIARPC, they need to keep it as it gives just enough time to get up, get a brew on and be back before anything decent appears again.

 

I think its purpose is as a fixed time segment which is easy to cut for foreign broadcasters.