The BBC has a few lines of attack it favours when talking about the ‘disaster’ that is Brexit, that’s one of them by the way, another is that Michael Gove recklessly and irresponsibly spoke disdainfully about experts and the elite thus undermining democracy and society’s respect for aforementioned worthies. Naturally the BBC can speak authoritatively on this subject and scorn Gove for his juvenile and shallow attitude because it never ever doubts the integrity, expertise and professionalism of the Elite and those experts in their fields.
This morning then must have been a blip, the working class John Humphrys allowing ignorance, prejudice and a tabloidesque desire for a story to get the better of his judgement as the Today programme ran a skit about butter not being better. Experts have told us that butter is the work of the devil, now experts tell us it is heavenly, oh wait, Humphrys drags in another expert who tells us put the butter down, stay away from the Lurpak. Experts eh? Still, good job the BBC doesn’t go all Gove on us and question their genius.
Talking of experts you probably thought that the BBC, a long established media company, renowned for the excellence of its programmes and jammed to the rafters with experts on making such programmes, would have been able to replicate the success of one of its flagship programmes, the Real Top Gear. Just a look at the two photos of the presenters shows how it all went wrong with the reproduction…
How did the BBC, which has made Top Gear for years and years to a basic formula, fail to replicate that success?
How did the experts get it so badly wrong?
Their first mistake was wanting to copy the success but to do so by not copying the programme, they didn’t just tinker with the formula they tore it up. What we have now is, yawn, a car show….of cars few people can actually afford even in their dreams. Now OTG had the same cars but they trashed them and didn’t seem to be presenting the show as if we were customers seriously considering shelling out for one of these planet destroyers. The programme’s production values are great, the photography as Rory Reid tore around the Highlands in a Mustang was stunning and absolutely beautiful, the Scottish tourist board should license the footage, but that’s not the beating heart of Top Gear.
It always had brilliant photography and stunning visual effects but that wasn’t the secret of its success.
What was? Three grown men acting like boys. What the BBC then brought us was a boy trying to act as a grown up and Chris Evans could never carry that off. He’s great on the radio but Top Gear was never going to be a good fit.
What about Joey? The BBC thinking? A huge American star, just as big here, sure fire lure to bring in the audience….but does that indicate a lack of confidence in the content of the new show? Top Gear was a ‘star’ already, it didn’t need a big name, in fact what it needs is unknowns making it their own, stamping their personalities on it. Joey is too big a star, too reliant on keeping his dignity to indulge in the stupidity that Clarkson and Co indulged in. All the other presenters are in his shadow and there can never be the banter and fooling about with Joey that was so much a part of the old team, they’ll never be ‘mates’. I like ‘Joey’, with George Clooney and Brad Pitt on the show he might have had some equals, but he’s way out of the current crop of Top Gear presenters’ league.
Therefore….he has to go…and he can take Eddie Jordan with him…why does Jordan think a show that treats him as the ‘fool’ is something he wants to be part of?
Rory Reid, Chris Harris and Sabine Schmitz should be the presenters…maybe Vicki Butler-Henderson should be head-hunted from Fifth Gear to mellow and balance the ballsy Schmitz who might overwhelm the boys. Four presenters max. There are too many now and it is impossible for them to gel as a team as the denim clad old crocks did.
Where is the fun, where is the banter, where is the knockabout stupidity, the special trips, the races that really seemed like races rather than three cars that just happen to be going in the same direction?
Even the Guardian, which had an innate hatred of Top Gear for so many reasons, thinks the spirit of the old Top gear should be wrought again….
INTRODUCE! You know, some fun
I don’t know, guys, just try to make it look like this is a fun programme to make. Laugh a little. Improvise. Crack jokes. Be rude about Mexicans. Punch a man in the face. Anything, so long as it brings a little of the old sparkle back.
How could the BBC ‘experts’ have got things so wrong on a programme that they must have known was based on a specific formula…..and one that was so obvious?
Top Gear has been changed into a car show, it’s Fifth Gear…and Fifth Gear already exists…and relatively few people watch it, no one talks about it…a clue there. Top Gear has been reduced to an animated calendar, beautiful to look at but kinda boring in the end, and it does seem time passes at a calendar-like pace as you watch it…..The old ‘Star in a reasonably priced car‘ was already past its sell by date…what did the BBC do? Add an extra star, make it even longer and more boring but with an exciting new change having a rally car (a mini…why not the Ariel Nomad?) go over a small bump and through a puddle. Yawn. Fast forward.
Three presenters (4 at most), jokes, banter, stupid pranks, great races, fantastic Specials and the stunning visuals….if it in’t broke don’t fix it…..bin Evans (done!), bin Joey, bin Jordan, bin those BBC experts and let’s have some fun.
Just because Old Top Gear had cars in it didn’t mean it was a car show. It’s become a car show, it’s become a car crash.
Down with experts!
BBC ‘experts’ are not infallible, as real world data has shown in climate science.
In fact, BBC ‘experts’ are not experts at all, they are just mouthpieces for the BBC narrative.
Down with expert Trolls !
Ah…taffman-was hoping to catch you over a Brains!
Now then…further to my short term suck up re your great nation that …er misfired…I was wondering next time I`m in Little Englander mode (of Irish of course) if I could refer to Wales as
a) England West
b) West England
c) The Prince of Principalities
Hope you deal with the Portuguese…but rather fear it`ll be boring, a grinding 1-1 before the Portuguese win on penalties.
Chris Coleman?…Gary Numans sporty nephew?
chrisH
Nothing wrong with a pint of Brains SA when watching Al Beeb down the local . It has a calming effect on the ‘old wags’ who are of the opinion that Al Beeb is definitely Biased!
Irish ? – Welshmen who can swim .
2-1 to the Land of Song where ‘men are men’ and sheep look ‘worried’. 🙂
Will remember that Irish joke!…good stuff.
Nothing allowed on telly until you hopefully get to meet one of the two Trump Towers of the European Firesale.
And what a dream if you (little Vote Leave nation) turn them over….
Here`s a Greatest Hits of Nigel..on loop now until the game…no need to bother our arses as they feign surprise at Campbell and Blair…
Bet he`s got Welsh blood somewhere…and his hatred of Verhofstad is a motif !
Except with environmental programmes. Then they can be editors.
It’s the magic of the license fee again. Even if you think firing the old team was inevitable (I don’t) the BBC still made the choice to replace therm with a front man who was practically the anti-Clarkson. It was a blatant ‘screw you’ to the fans, like McDonalds replacing the Big Mac with lentil bake. The BBC tried to force feed its agenda on the public, the public told them to shove it but I don’t recommend holding any breaths waiting for the people who made these decisions to be fired.
The thing about the old Top Gear was the chemistry between the presenters. Over time, they really had become friends, which made it amusing to watch them do silly things with cars. Sometimes they turned cars into boats and it was still as much fun to watch. Chris Evans and Matt LeBlanc could do exactly the same things, but it would not be fun to watch because there is no chemistry between them, indeed, the rumour is that they can’t stand each other.
It seems that the BBC experts really did not understand why Top Gear was a success, and why it would, as has been shown, prove to be impossible to reproduce. Sometimes, the presenters are the show, and the format just does not work without them. Oisin Tymon really should have made sure Clarkson got a hot dinner that night in Yorkshire, but there is nothing to be done about it now. It’s over, just admit it.
Top Yawn?
Try “The Media Show” now on, with Steve Hewlett.
Water cooler monotony of a kind you`d find at the tax economy branch of paperclip tensile capacities.
How the HELL do they concoct a programme out of this?
Mere twaddle about the BBC moving north-and now coming back south…James Purnell sliding into the Top Job but without scrutiny…he`s Labour so he`ll be a boon…and the Ideas and Vision Directorate will now incorporate Childrens Radio(eh?…steady on, does Savile know?)…as Strategy and Direction-or such shite , unique to the Beeb.
20 minutes only…
For Gods sake, put them out of their incestuous misery-whether Gillian Reynolds gets a better Paisley check to her Glyndebourne umbrella after the seismic changes in the Charter Review is just a yawn…
Next up-the Panama Papers..apparently they were MASSIVE…and Cameron never recovered.
Who let`s them write their own history?
“..bin Evans (done!), bin Joey, bin Jordan” I thought you were reeling off some Islamic State peace junkies then Alan!!
I have no doubt the Al Beeb are desperately looking into some ROPer enrichment to this shockingly shit, abysmal joke of a show…
“young infidel girls in a reasonably priced taxi registered under one name but used by 20 of the same family” is a great name for a section of the show
Followed by everyone’s favourite..
“Jihadi stig” could just be women in burkhas/post boxes and are illuminated in hilarious wipe outs and challenges…
And of course the Ramadamalinglong special..
“Nothing to do with lslam State”
See how racism and bigotry have created a false picture of what the peaceful and victimised IS is all about.
Witness the beautiful sight of those who have displeased Allah being thrown off rooftops.
See the hustle and bustle of a infidel sex slave market.
Feel the love during a mass beheading of those who have failed to submit to Allah and become Muslims, when the brothers give praise to Allah with swift strokes and leave the infidels heads on spikes.
Hosted by Mishal Husain and Stephen Fry to tick as many boxes as possible…. Of course only for the first section because of course Stephen will be enrichment off the rooftops later in the programme
Just checking the Al Beeb webshite to see if it’s confirmed yet….
You sound very bitter Tothepoint at the end of the day this is all just “cultural relativism” – dont ya know.
However after reading your post you did miss a couple of possibilities.
How about – The Restaurant Challenge. See how many Kafir diners can you shoot with a reasonably priced Kalashnikov.
or
Law in Action with Theresa May explaining why sharia law would be so good for the UK.
Or even a Jackanory special where German migrant activist Selin Goren, (who admits she concealed the ethnicity of her sexual attackers because she did not want to fuel racism) could tell ungrateful kafir whores why it is such a great idea to hush up sexual assaults by migrants.
I am an avid fan of the old TG and my wife can wearily confirm I watch three or four old episodes a week on my SKY box. Tonight I think I’ll watch the one with hamster wearing a Breitling homing watch in the Canadian mountains. it’s easy watching with no BBC propaganda slipped in so I can let my guard down for once and relax!
I am proud to say that out of principle I have watched not one new TG and like to think I have contributed to it’s dismal ratings.
What white heterosexual motor loving men want is a programme with and by other men with the same addiction and who we can identify with. VB Henderson looks good in the photo above and clearly it’s not a summer photo, but her screeching voice is annoying and her only forte is how fast a car will go round a track, boring in the extreme.
The BBC cocked up big time but their left wing bigoted ego probably means that they still don’t know why the new TG is a failure and always will be. Hopefully other programmes will go the same way until the BBC eventually crumbles.
Excellent blog Alan!
I haven’t seen the new Top Gear and I seldom ever watched the old one (I remember one where they drove trucks because that’s more my scene, man), but if there was a Top Gear involving trains or busses or lorries I would be an avid fan!
I think what the BBC fail to realise is that Top Gear was always a programme (until it became a “show”) that was watched mainly by the automobile equivalent of trainspotters. Even when it was commanding its biggest audiences worldwide, I saw it as a show for sad people who worship examples of cosmetically sleek bodywork that hides the innards of not-far-off obsolete, inefficient and crude internal combustion engines. Not unlike a trainspotter – venturing out to far off unheard of towns on the railway network to see the Mallard or the Flying Scotsman (I live next door to Toton sidings – which used to be my playground many years ago before they fenced it off after some stupid kid played chicken once too often – and I have seen them!) – the Top Gear viewer is unaware of his/her own trainspotter credentials!
Clarkson, May and… the other one… looked like trainspotters. The new crew don’t.
Once again – the BBC completely out of touch and influenced by the inward London-centric view that ratings can only come from personalities we are already familiar with. This is why the BBC has been told not to chase ratings at the expense of shunning new talent – talent which deserves every opportunity to shine because THAT’S HOW THE BBC IS FUNDED!!!
The BBC belongs to the licence-fee payer!
WE OWN THE BBC – THEY WORK FOR US!
So it’s time they were reminded of this fact.
I myself would do a whole new series . but replacing the analogue cars you boys get so worked about with the new vehicles that reflect current BBC interests.
1 Muslim Top Gear
Up to now, Anjem and his bruvs have been content only to use their old Bangers to runaround the outdated protocols and impartiality rules of the BBC, here in beinge old Britain.
Watch this week, how the chaps set out around the edgy cities built on sand where they go to a wedding, do charity work and practice their swordsmanship in time-honoured and traditional ways.
2.Disability Top Gear.
Is YOUR urban runaround still burnin on the old juice?…you seeking extra storage for the takeway, the hand out or the moblie offie you`ve long dreamed of?
Watch now to see how you can further widen your load without necessarily going via the bakery, Pimping up the spacker chariot with Gormleys Angels Wings can FURTHER enhance your profile, carry adverts and prevent traffic flow still further. Dame Tana works the welders.
3. Gay Top Gear.
You still undecided whether to go the whole Peter Perfect or Penelope Pitstop? A-Team or Daisy Dukes? What`s a gender New Troll to do?Let us embrace YOUR Wacky Races as we decide the internal look and decor required of this seasons Bruced-up, abbed and buffed-up Limousine of Love.
Rest of the series will be these three again in an endless loop until the end of series stand off between Anjem and Quentinas pussies and posses.
They could of course combine Nos. 1 and 3 and create a spin off to No. 2, with Rear Enders Top Gear II, the Whiplash Compo Years. And have cast swaps from Al Bert Square in an unreasonably over valued, untaxed, MOT’d but insured Nissan.
Audience halved by the end of the season…? That can’t be right, where’s all this anti-Clarkson constituency? Come on outraged Twitter warriors… tune in, why don’t you? Support your BBC. Lazy lot – bet they were in the 48%
Don’t give up gracefully just yet BBC (like you ought to have done) maybe Bob Geldof has a valid UK licence (drivers, not television)
Or, or , Sandi Toksvig and Paloma Faith. Georgie Entwhistle thought those two talents would be just fine to present a quirky take of our Royal Jubilee.
A fashion socialist and a half-pint Danish muffin, what could go wrong? They could do a Top Gear Special (or Fifth Wheel – that was my pitch for rebranding) on… wait for it…. Social Mobility Motoring.
Who says Britain has low social mobility – have you seen the forecourt of our post office in the high street after 9 o’clock on a Wedenesday – it’s like a slow mo Grand Prix with reverse Le Mans start thrown in.
How you doin’, Joey.
Be fair, the audience for that 90s New York 20 somethings tv show translates directly to the place our Jeremy left off, right? What could go wrong. Especially after the masses followed Episodes – come on, pop into your nearest Kwik Fit with a photo of Stephen Mangan and our Tamsin and just watch the blue overalls swoon. No, the one with the lucious black flowing locks is the bloke – that’s the bird with the big beak. Page 3 in the Guadrian they reckon.
Not a fan but I could see the appeal. And the differences may explain much.
Pre-pro BC (Before Chris):
“Let’s buy lots more caravans and blow them up again!”
“Yay!’
Pre-pro AD (Aunty Driving):
“Let’s buy lots more caravans and blow them up again!”
“But…. Margaret Beckett”