Monday 28 December 2009

Time to put the old horse down?

I was amused to hear that Top Gear was the iPlayer doodad of the year or whatever and that it was favourite show of the decade, because I think it's over.

Really, it is. Yesterday, I got about ten minutes into the tedious 4x4 "adventure" with Hammond's made-up screaming, got up to make a cup of tea and didn't bother going back. It's all so samey: one car with no brakes, one car with faulty drive, the plucky British entry ruined by an incompetent driver. One of them having hissy fits and doing something stupid. Yawn, yawn, yawn. The director suffers from ADHD as well, no lingering shots of amazing scenery, it's all chop, chop, chop, funny angle, silly thing, chop, funny angle, silly thing ...

Yawn, yawn, yawn.

The thing is, I want to like it. I love cars and I love watching them being driven hard. I find the "star in a reasonably priced car" to be the best segment, because it's not subject to the artsy-fartsy direction and it shows people really driving the car. Same for the Stig.

Come on, BBC. Either fucking put it out of it's misery (and mine) or make the fucking thing about cars and driving again. If I want to watch half-arsed fantasy "entertainment", I'll switch over to 'stenders.

3 comments:

Mitch said...

have to agree, its still the best show on the BBC but its not trying anymore.
The Polar trek was a stunner this one had me picking up my new Ebook and reading Tom Clancys "red storm rising" for about the 10th time .

Angry Exile said...

Come and watch the Australian version, especially repeats of the first series. When they finally get around to showing the cut-down-to-fit-ad-breaks version of British Top Gear six months after it aired there (why, when other channels can show US imports a couple of days after the septics saw 'em?) it seems like telly heaven by comparison.

David Davis (Libertarian Alliance) said...

No, you've got it wrong, Obo.

If you want to watch boring stuff abour cars and driving, go and see Quentin wassname or that strange Vicky bird with the odd voice, on "5th gear", which I gace up on years ago.

No. "Top Gear" is about two good old reactionary English boys and one shorty fall-guy who is the "bullee", doing unmentionable things to often tired cars in hard and embarrassing places.

I can do without the tyre-destroying, wheel-screeching ruination of £250,000,000 supercars in the rain (it's always raining when they do that) on a disused airfield. I want to see them taking cars that I drive, like broken-down-old Citroen Picassos and rangerovers, over thousands of miles of moonscape and ice and forest, and the trouble they get into while doing it.

Crossing the channel in semi-watertight toyotas was really good as well, and funny to boot.

True, they could do the scenery shots more nicely and dwellingly, but then what they now have to do is called "edgy modern television", isn't it.