There are still three shows to transmit, but they’re all shot and cut now – we’re just tidying up the South America special – so it feels like a good time to reflect on the run.
Personally I’ll be glad to see the back of it. We’ve done some good stuff this series, but we were too rushed and too knackered to get everything right. I’ve never ever ever seen a production team, from presenters to film crew to editors to production team, work so hard over three months, and I think only this lot could pull off what they do.
However what the viewer sees is what they see, and I notice on the interweb that there is a grumble and a rumble in the air from some of our regulars: we’ve lost the plot, we’ve disappeared up our arses, we’re scripting everything, we’re predictable etc etc, so let’s deal with that.
From what I can work out, the main complaints are that there’s too much cocking about for the car lovers, and that we’re trying too hard on camera. I think, if you consider the tastes of the Final Gear folk and the TG diehards, they’d probably say we’ve only done a couple of memorable films in the last year or so – Bonneville Flats, Commie Cars, Japan Race probably. Well, we do know where you’re coming from, and personally I have massive sympathy and empathy for a guy like that Monk chap, who clearly cares, and judging by the way he fills up the worldwide web, is clearly frustrated by what we do on a show he used to love.
However, although we understand the complaints, it doesn’t necessarily mean we’re going to do anything about them. Believe me that’s not arrogance on our part, but the fact is we’re not wedding DJs taking requests, and for good reason, because no good telly in the history of man was ever created that way. You have to make the programme you want to make, and people then vote with the on or off button. So although not many on Final Gear liked the electric car, we actually loved it, and we’ll make more of those any time we get the right idea.
However when we do agree with where the viewers are coming from, then we could be in business. Personally, for example, I do believe we’ve now got the presenters playing to their TV cartoon characters a bit too much – Jezza the walking nuclear bomb, Richard the daft Norman Wisdom, and James the bumbling professor. I like those characters, but I too would like to see more of them as they were in Bonneville, or in Botswana or in the US Special. I miss the three mates who mooch along – there were flashes of it in the Lancia film, and it’s there in the South American Special, and yes, it’s nice to have it back. I know James definitely feels that way, and Jeremy and I were saying the other morning how the Lancia film was a bit of a wake up reminder that we can actually make good films just enthusing about cars.
I’d like to offer my thoughts on a few other points. Firstly, this notion that everything’s scripted. It isn’t. We went to South America with one sheet of A4, Romania with 2 or 3 sheets about the car particulars, Ice Racing the same. Yes we do set a few things up – You won’t find Careless Air in the phone book, and obviously we rang Norwich Airport before James’s caravan airship pitched up, but no, for the millionth time, we don’t pre-arrange races or challenges or petrol stations in Alabama.
I think what you’re seeing with the scripted issue is partly down to the point above about playing to our cartoon characters, partly just old fashioned familiarity, but there’s also a more important issue, and that’s that you’re watching a show that’s lost its innocence. To explain, let’s go back a bit. When we started in 2002, our goal was to make a decent Top Gear, but then, and most important, organically, things took us by surprise. Nobody knew the onscreen chemistry of the trio would be so good, also, none of us saw coming where we could actually go with the films.
Rewatch the Cheap Porsches or the Shit Italian Supercars film, and you’ll see what I mean. That was the first time a car show was making tv out of the cars going wrong, and you can see the surprise and delight on the presenters’ faces as it’s dawning on them, right there in the shoot, how much fun there is to be had out of crap car calamity. You, we, shared the innocence. And so it went on. The America Special wasn’t even meant to be an hour long Special – we went there to make 25 minutes, and shit happened around us – the petrol station etc etc – and again, the surprise in our own faces is visible.
That innocence has gone now, as always happens, because that’s the nature of TV. You all know the main pillars of our editorial, and we do our best to entertain, but none of us are going back to that first flush of discovery.
But although that’s sad, this is not time for glumness because there’s still so much to do. Firstly, please relax if we try this or that and it doesn’t work, because it just means we’re not getting complacent. I can pretty much write that Monk chap’s review of tonight’s show, and boy will he hate Art Gallery, but it is just us pushing in a different direction, because we’re still very much obsessed, as a team, about attempting new things with cars on TV.
The flip side of this is that we’re actually the most disciplined of any formatted TV show when it comes to not relying on our old bankers. It would, for example, be the easiest thing in the world to do a big race every other week – I love a race, I can hardly sleep the night before we shoot one – but we’ve done only a couple in the last two years, and that’s because we won’t attempt one until we can find a good one.
Jeremy has now shot two of those preposterous tests – Fiesta and Twingo, but likewise he’d be happy to call a halt at two if there wasn’t another one to be done. It’s fair to say this incarnation of Top Gear is nearer the end than the beginning, and our job is to land this plane with its dignity still intact. But ironically, that does mean trying new things to the last, even if they screw up, because, well, it means you never stopped trying.
That’s the way it is with content, but as I say, the messages that resonate for me on these web posts are the ones that say: “Can we have our three old mates back?” Well, we will still continue to build electric cars and airships, because we like doing it, but trust me, there’ll be a race the second we find one, and most important we still know how to do a Bonneville, the whole three blokes with cars mooching along, and if you don’t believe me just watch the South America special. And thank you for caring so much.
There are still three shows to transmit, but they’re all shot and cut now – we’re just tidying up the South America special – so it feels like a good time to reflect on the run. Personally I’ll be glad to see the back of it. We’ve done some good stuff this series, but we were too rushed and too knackered to get everything right. I’ve never ever ever seen a production team, from presenters to film crew to editors to production team, work so hard over three months, and I think only this lot could pull off what they do.
However what the viewer sees is what they see, and I notice on the interweb that there is a grumble and a rumble in the air from some of our regulars: we’ve lost the plot, we’ve disappeared up our arses, we’re scripting everything, we’re predictable etc etc, so let’s deal with that.
From what I can work out, the main complaints are that there’s too much cocking about for the car lovers, and that we’re trying too hard on camera. I think, if you consider the tastes of the Final Gear folk and the TG diehards, they’d probably say we’ve only done a couple of memorable films in the last year or so – Bonneville Flats, Commie Cars, Japan Race probably. Well, we do know where you’re coming from, and personally I have massive sympathy and empathy for a guy like that Monk chap, who clearly cares, and judging by the way he fills up the worldwide web, is clearly frustrated by what we do on a show he used to love.
However, although we understand the complaints, it doesn’t necessarily mean we’re going to do anything about them. Believe me that’s not arrogance on our part, but the fact is we’re not wedding DJs taking requests, and for good reason, because no good telly in the history of man was ever created that way. You have to make the programme you want to make, and people then vote with the on or off button. So although not many on Final Gear liked the electric car, we actually loved it, and we’ll make more of those any time we get the right idea. However when we do agree with where the viewers are coming from, then we could be in business. Personally, for example, I do believe we’ve now got the presenters playing to their TV cartoon characters a bit too much – Jezza the walking nuclear bomb, Richard the daft Norman Wisdom, and James the bumbling professor. I like those characters, but I too would like to see more of them as they were in Bonneville, or in Botswana or in the US Special. I miss the three mates who mooch along – there were flashes of it in the Lancia film, and it’s there in the South American Special, and yes, it’s nice to have it back. I know James definitely feels that way, and Jeremy and I were saying the other morning how the Lancia film was a bit of a wake up reminder that we can actually make good films just enthusing about cars.
I’d like to offer my thoughts on a few other points. Firstly, this notion that everything’s scripted. It isn’t. We went to South America with one sheet of A4, Romania with 2 or 3 sheets about the car particulars, Ice Racing the same. Yes we do set a few things up – You won’t find Careless Air in the phone book, and obviously we rang Norwich Airport before James’s caravan airship pitched up, but no, for the millionth time, we don’t pre- arrange races or challenges or petrol stations in Alabama. I think what you’re seeing with the scripted issue is partly down to the point above about playing to our cartoon characters, partly just old fashioned familiarity, but there’s also a more important issue, and that’s that you’re watching a show that’s lost its innocence. To explain, let’s go back a bit. When we started in 2002, our goal was to make a decent Top Gear, but then, and most important, organically, things took us by surprise. Nobody knew the onscreen chemistry of the trio would be so good, also, none of us saw coming where we could actually go with the films. Rewatch the Cheap Porsches or the Shit Italian Supercars film, and you’ll see what I mean. That was the first time a car show was making tv out of the cars going wrong, and you can see the surprise and delight on the presenters’ faces as it’s dawning on them, right there in the shoot, how much fun there is to be had out of crap car calamity. You, we, shared the innocence. And so it went on. The America Special wasn’t even meant to be an hour long Special – we went there to make 25 minutes, and shit happened around us – the petrol station etc etc – and again, the surprise in our own faces is visible.
That innocence has gone now, as always happens, because that’s the nature of TV. You all know the main pillars of our editorial, and we do our best to entertain, but none of us are going back to that first flush of discovery.
But although that’s sad, this is not time for glumness because there’s still so much to do. Firstly, please relax if we try this or that and it doesn’t work, because it just means we’re not getting complacent. I can pretty much write that Monk chap’s review of tonight’s show, and boy will he hate Art Gallery, but it is just us pushing in a different direction, because we’re still very much obsessed, as a team, about attempting new things with cars on TV. The flip side of this is that we’re actually the most disciplined of any formatted TV show when it comes to not relying on our old bankers. It would, for example, be the easiest thing in the world to do a big race every other week – I love a race, I can hardly sleep the night before we shoot one – but we’ve done only a couple in the last two years, and that’s because we won’t attempt one until we can find a good one. Jeremy has now shot two of those preposterous tests – Fiesta and Twingo, but likewise he’d be happy to call a halt at two if there wasn’t another one to be done. It’s fair to say this incarnation of Top Gear is nearer the end than the beginning, and our job is to land this plane with its dignity still intact. But ironically, that does mean trying new things to the last, even if they screw up, because, well, it means you never stopped trying.
That’s the way it is with content, but as I say, the messages that resonate for me on these web posts are the ones that say: “Can we have our three old mates back?” Well, we will still continue to build electric cars and airships, because we like doing it, but trust me, there’ll be a race the second we find one, and most important we still know how to do a Bonneville, the whole three blokes with cars mooching along, and if you don’t believe me just watch the South America special. And thank you for caring so much.
Whatever any one says..
TOP GEAR is the best show on the planet and those 3 are the best presenters in the world….
i love the messing about and im sure Top gear will go on to the least till Season 17 and then may be stop
This show will be top class and will be missed in the future …
Ilove the shows (the good and the bad ),its my facvourit ive watched them since chris goffey and angela rippon and noel edmonds did them. I would like to see a challeng of three old bitish cars (a bristol for james, a morgan cross eyed aero 8 lm roadster for richard, and a gilbern of jensen for jeremy),and take them to maranello ,or the south of france and see locals reactions ?. brilliant work andy cheers norman
I know that this is a bit late but…
I friggen loved that whole season.. I strongly believe in growth and I most definitely want the show to become something new not like “five gears” or what ever it is called. which is so boring it makes me yawn… I’m just saying. I may be a newbie but I have watched this show for a very long time. and i get the whole concept if you want boring go watch “five gears” stop complaining about something you can do very little about and if you love this show like all good people do. Watch it and laugh for days afterwards with all your friends cause it is just GREAT!!!
MICHAEL – South Africa
Fifth Gear
The_Monk said…
Thursday December 24, 2009 at 6:02 pm Link to comment Report comment
I posted a lot of this message up at #377 but I’m going to revise it as a means of saying toodles for the Christmas holiday. Hopefully you can take some from it if you read it, Top Gear.
Credit where it’s due to Johnny and Stereo MC Ya’ll for their views
What would make Top Gear great again?
1. Road tests – this is a recurring concern from many, many different people. Instead of endlessly shoving supercars on a race track, it might be wise to send the cars out into a real world environment so that the reviewer (Clarkson, May, Hammond) can analyse the car’s advantages and disadvantages.
It doesn’t matter what type of cars they are but these cars must be balanced so as to appeal to a variety of different demographics – this can be from the smallest Tata Nano to the largest Maybach 62, and everything in-between.
If you feel as if you cannot review or enjoy a car unless it’s being tested on a track, it means that the car you are testing is irrelevant and cannot be enjoyed on the 300,000+ mile road network of Britain that millions of Top Gear’s viewers use each day. The only cars you should be allowed to test on tracks are cars that specifically designed to be Track Day cars for the roads, such as the Ariel Atom, KTM X-Bow, Caterham 7 or Caparo T1, etc.
2. Balance – what made Top Gear so great in the past was the balance the producers had as they walked the tightrope between fact-based programming and sheer, unadulterated entertainment (or ‘infotainment’).
In more recent series, entertainment has been at the forefront of the programme’s output. Top Gear has suddenly become less about the cars and more about the stunts, and banter between the hosts. All of this is secondary to the point of Top Gear – ‘The Point of Top Gear’ being a show about cars for car enthusiasts with entertainment being amalgamated into the mixture.
The World of Cars first; the World of Entertainment second.
The perfect formula for a great Top Series is as follows:
a) Cheap/used car challenges – no expensive holidays
b) Road testing real world cars relative to certain demographics
c) Epic races using supercars
d) Cool wall
e) The news (car related)
f) Star in a Reasonably Priced Car (actual celebrities)
g) Power laps
h) Relevant articles and segments that address the concerns of the general public
3. More spontaneity – I cannot count using the fleshy digits on my hands and feet just how many times in recent years the more “staged” elements of Top Gear have been as easy to spot.
The Top Gear presenters, as media savvy as they are, are not actors and so every time they even try to act surprised when a rudimentary electric car rolls backwards down a hill, the more intelligent viewers forget about suspension of disbelief and see it coming from a mile away.
Obviously in the world of television one can argue if such a thing as ‘spontaneity’ exists but in past series (if it did exist), it seemed to be far more concealed.
4. Less Stig – instead of using him as the face of the Top Gear brand (Stiggy Bank, Stig Shower Gel, Stig Birthday Cakes, etc), why not just put emphasis on him as nothing more than a race driver?
The Stig is there to throw Ferrari’s and Porsche’s (et al) around a track in the fastest time possible, nothing more. Any jokes or major films involving him now are boring and unnecessary.
5. More James May – Hammond doesn’t really have much to say about anything and I usually forget any review he does. He’s just a guy who has a job where it’s a necessity to love cars but lacks the enthusiasm of a real driver.
Clarkson is just a wall of fairly ignorant and inconsistent opinions but is nonetheless very good at what he does when it comes to how he writes, the way he writes things and the way he speaks about his passion for engineering.
James May, on the other hand, is arguably the most interesting person on television at the minute, and his interest in cars, in engineering and just in how things work in general is something that… well, you’ve not even scratched the surface of his value to the programme.
The FCX Clarity film was, in my opinion, the finest film Top Gear have ever made, which is ironic considering it’s from a series that I despised. The best decision you have ever made in the history of Top Gear was giving the FCX film to James May. There was no ostentation, there was no joking or gimmicks; it was pure information and a wake-up call to the world of motoring.
Don’t push this guy to the back and conceal him amongst all the tedious stunts.
—— The Little Details ——
At the end of the day, the biggest thing you have to change is taking the time to remember your roots. It is not a case of being able to evolve with time to make a programme that draws audience figures; it is up to the public to evolve around you. Your goal is to remain a constant in an ever-changing world where it takes a split second for people to lose interest.
You need to understand that if people lose interest quickly then it is indicative of just how much they cared about the programme to begin with. This fickle audience isn’t the one you should be trying to appeal to.
If people find your programme “boring”, if people find the ideas I have suggested as “boring”, then they are denying us (and you) the true purpose of Top Gear. The true purpose of Top Gear isn’t to make a programme that will appeal to viewers of competitive Sunday-night programmes; it is to make a programme designed to appeal to a certain demographic of the populace that loves cars. Top Gear is crippled by the fact that it masquerades as a car programme but tries to appeal to an audience of people who do not care about cars.
Focus on what used to make your programme so good – the balance between sheer entertainment and the joys of motoring, best typified in the Mercedes-McLaren SLR vs. Boat race from episode 6.
What was once an entertaining, fact-based programme designed to appeal to a secular audience of car enthusiasts is now a ratings war between the BBC and ITV where you forsake the support of the real fans in favour of the fickle few who would run a mile at the very thought of you showing anything but The Three Stooges “cocking about” in the African wilderness.
It has become a programme designed by a select complacent few to appeal to a general mass market of people who are more concerned with getting their casual fix of Sunday night entertainment than to learn about the basic fundamental principle that makes Top Gear what it is; the joys of motoring.
i find your rants boring
I LOVE TOP GEAR FOREVER!!!! I definitly would die to have their job..probably the best job in the entire world.
easy to fix the next couple of seasons! make it more about the cars! cars cars cars! and not soo much about boring buses and trains and air planes. Grab heaps of all the latest 2010 model good cars (astons, bentleys, porsche, bmw, mercs, feraris, sports & luxury cars) and just test them, compare them, race them across europe and have a fun time! that would make great TV! Jeremy, James & Richard are always hilarious and it would be great to see
“Land this plane with its dignity still intact?” That doesn’t seem to me to be a proper send off for Top Gear. I think you should go out in a blaze of glory, with flames, explosions, arms and legs flailing happlessly about, and ending in a great comedic THUD.
i’m getting excited that it’s back on tv…
have to agree with the original blog
can’t you make it forever??
i think you should stick to your guns no matter what people say. ‘fans’ think they can dictate how a show should be. thats not right. true fans should accept how it is and be entertained by it.. i always love top gear purely because it isnt ’3 guys reviewing cars’. its ENTERTAINMENT. i love everything the show provides and always crave more. hope it keeps going a few more years. well done to all involved.
As for The Monk’s rant copied in the previous statement – I agree that James May is the most interesting man on television. He’s hilarious, informative, boring (and knows it, so that’s hilarious times two), and genuinely interesting. The rest of it… To be honest, I lost interest around “Top Gear is crippled by the fact that it masquerades as a car programme but tries to appeal zzzzzzzzzzzzz”
As for Mr. Wilman’s statement regarding the South American film – I have, since it was released, found it the most interesting, intriguing, and laugh-inducing film that I have seen. This includes studio releases from Hollywood. I would gladly re-watch films or television shows that are like the Bolivian special rather than see boring and repetitive shows.
Please keep creating intelligent, interesting, and other alliterative adjectives that illuminate insight into… uh… unto… uh…
Thank you for giving us such a great show, Mr. Wilman et co.
I think I am speaking on behalf of all Danes..
TG is a fantastic show. Nothing else comes close. As known the show is being shown around the world and that doesn’t come cheap. The car testing, the humour, the hosts, everything about it is brilliant.
Don’t stop making the show cause it’s the most interesting on tv since the invention of the tv!
Thanks to you all.
I agree with James…Go out BIG!!
Top Gear has got to sustain the rep!!
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