Top Gear

[RandomJ]

I really don't get people moaning that Top Gear is scripted when it ALWAYS has been. What do you want them to actually fire tank shells at each other so you don't have your illusions shattered? Even the races they did years ago were all staged as they had to set up camera shots for each part of it. It's a comedy show not a documentary. I agree this particular episode wasn't very funny but it wasn't cos it was fake just the jokes they chose to do were poor.

 

[Skashion]

Nobody has thought wrestling is real for a long time and WWE is targeted mainly at the upper teenage crowd who mostly know more kayfabe than I do.

My point wasn't comparing the two shows, I used an analogy of a specific event to make a point about another one.

Again, my point is that Top Gear relies on giving them leeway to do fake things in an entertaining way. Clarkson's sub ten minute lap, the aforementioned camera shot, the constant "mishaps" on camping trips, the jungle escapades, etc, etc. If we actually saw a camera following the team and them all stood planning these events it would take away from the enjoyment of the moment.

I use a different analogy. Bear Grylls uses survival shows and the entertainment value of seeing him eat worms or whatever would be vastly reduced if we heard a Director say "cut" then saw him walk over to a trailer and go for a hot bath with a chicken dinner. We know that he has facilities available to him, has loads of health and safety people around to ensure he doesn't die and nothing that he does is going to actually kill him but we want to forget all of this and enjoy the show.

Top Gear over the past few years has done increasingly outlandish things for the sake of the humour. The problem with this is that it rubs in the idea that it is obviously fake which we don't want to know whilst we're watching the show as then we start noticing all of the other fake things instead of enjoying it.

Actually I think that last paragraph is a decent distillation of my problem

Suffice to say I disagree with you Damo. I don't think most viewers would have a problem with a Nova being on its side for the sake of humour, I certainly didn't bat an eyelid and I don't think anyone else has mentioned it. I suspect you might be talking this up too much because it'll have been something you've thought too much about when pondering your love of wrestling but people might have found being hit over the head with gags about moustaches a bit irritating and basically unfunny. However, neither is the reason I didn't like last night's episode. I just didn't particularly like the budget car challenge. I don't tend to like the army-type episodes, the one where they pursued the Range Rover I didn't like, the beach landing I wasn't particularly keen on, even when they did the fox hunting thing I wasn't a fan of that either. I'm sure they'll do an episode with a challenge I do like in this series and it won't be because it requires a lesser suspension of disbelief.

 

[TCIB]

Of course it has always been scripted but it got to the stage where it was not funny but cringe worthy.
The cockups became so obviously scripted it lost it's charm.

 

[Skashion]

I agree this particular episode wasn't very funny but it wasn't cos it was fake just the jokes they chose to do were poor.

This basically. It wasn't funny because it wasn't funny, not because it looked less real than it has been for a while.

 

[Damocles]

Suffice to say I disagree with you Damo. I don't think most viewers would have a problem with a Nova being on its side for the sake of humour, I certainly didn't bat an eyelid and I don't think anyone else has mentioned it. I suspect you might be talking this up too much because it'll have been something you've thought too much about when pondering your love of wrestling but people might have found being hit over the head with gags about moustaches a bit irritating and basically unfunny. However, neither is the reason I didn't like last night's episode. I just didn't particularly like the budget car challenge. I don't tend to like the army-type episodes, the one where they pursued the Range Rover I didn't like, the beach landing I wasn't particularly keen on, even when they did the fox hunting thing I wasn't a fan of that either. I'm sure they'll do an episode with a challenge I do like in this series and it won't be because it requires a lesser suspension of disbelief.

I knew I shouldn't have used that analogy when I was posting it as it distracted from my point and became a stick to others.

It was a reaction to many people calling Top Gear "overly scripted shite". The thing is, Top Gear has always been scripted and I was attempting to highlight a change that occurred in recent years whereby they have used overly scripted stuff as humour. It wasn't specifically about the Nova (though that was a decent example), it was about how the viewer will accept a certain amount of preposterous things but won't accept a full on fabricated event then be expected to accept a full on reality based event. It's switching in tone far too much

 

[BigJimLittleJim]

I'm going to tell a wrestling analogy now as its a very similar principle.

As I'm sure you all know, the HT of the Superbowl is a big deal in America where everybody tries to steal viewers. WWF were no different during an extremely popular time 15 years back called The Attitude Era.

Here they arranged a match at HT between two of their biggest stars, Mick Foley and The Rock. This was an "empty arena" match that was taped and shown "as live" whereby the two guys fight in an empty stadium and hijinks ensue as they spill out of the ring.

One of the participants, Mick Foley, wrote in his autobiography about his experiences in watching the match. He was in an airport bar during the broadcast of the Superbowl and asked the barman to switch it to the wrestling at HT, which he did. Initially there was some opposition to this but as the guys in the bar started watching it, they got more and more into the match. They laughed when Rock threw salsa into Foley's eyes and said "that was mild sauce, you baby". They were right on the edge of their seats when Foley kicked out of a Rock Bottom and started a comeback. As the match was ending people were actively enjoying it.

Then at the end of the match after Rock just won't stay down, Mick Foley has the brilliant idea of pinning Rock using a forklift and he gets the win.

Here's the problem; the crowd were totally into the match right until the forklift scene because they included a ridiculous camera angle that could not have been shot live. A full on close up of The Rock's face as the lift came down on him. Foley wrote that it killed the crowd in the airport lounge who were all complaining saying "how could they have filmed that?" and then started up with the "fake shit" that wrestling has to fight so hard against.

The point to this story is that this is a lesson that Top Gear needs so desperately to learn. Yes, we know that it's all fake but if you don't mention it then we're willing to suspend our disbelief to go along with the fun. However when you perform shots such as the Nova arriving on it's side after the supermarket run, you are insulting the intelligence of the audience and it jars them out of the entertainment into thinking "that's obviously fake". Both WWE and Top Gear rely on the suspension of disbelief and when you insult the audience, you break it and consequently their "buy-in" to the show.

This is why people generally think Top Gear is going downhill; it is becoming a show that is willing to break your suspension of disbelief in an effort to appear funny without realising that it CAN'T be funny if we look at it and instantly think "that's bullshit".

Here's that WWF match if anybody at all cares. That camera shot is at 18:30 or thereabouts.

[youtube]http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=qRBZuQK6jg4[/youtube]

Compare to the framing of Clarkson in this shot at 0:40. He is very obviously over to the far right of the screen and it looks off-putting, then when the motorhome falls it snaps you out of it

[youtube]http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Yq6Qe4rFFJY[/youtube]

Great analogy and great post.

My feelings exactly, usually a big fan, last night was too far!

 

[Skashion]

I knew I shouldn't have used that analogy when I was posting it as it distracted from my point and became a stick to others.

It was a reaction to many people calling Top Gear "overly scripted shite". The thing is, Top Gear has always been scripted and I was attempting to highlight a change that occurred in recent years whereby they have used overly scripted stuff as humour. It wasn't specifically about the Nova (though that was a decent example), it was about how the viewer will accept a certain amount of preposterous things but won't accept a full on fabricated event then be expected to accept a full on reality based event. It's switching in tone far too much

Perhaps you're right and a substantial section of the audience is turned off by it but it's still an immensely popular programme, especially when you consider its global reach, and indeed is far more popular than in the few first series which were more unscripted. It might well have gone too far now but it's only a matter of dialling it down. On the whole, the silly scripted antics have worked for Top Gear.

 

[stony]

I watched Fifth Gear earlier, which used to be very much the poor relation. I have to say, it was far better viewing than Top Gear. They actually test cars and stuff.

 

[Skashion]

They actually test cars and stuff.

 

[Damocles]

I knew I shouldn't have used that analogy when I was posting it as it distracted from my point and became a stick to others.

It was a reaction to many people calling Top Gear "overly scripted shite". The thing is, Top Gear has always been scripted and I was attempting to highlight a change that occurred in recent years whereby they have used overly scripted stuff as humour. It wasn't specifically about the Nova (though that was a decent example), it was about how the viewer will accept a certain amount of preposterous things but won't accept a full on fabricated event then be expected to accept a full on reality based event. It's switching in tone far too much

Perhaps you're right and a substantial section of the audience is turned off by it but it's still an immensely popular programme, especially when you consider its global reach, and indeed is far more popular than in the few first series which were more unscripted. It might well have gone too far now but it's only a matter of dialling it down. On the whole, the silly scripted antics have worked for Top Gear.

I agree. I'm actually a massive fan of the show and have every episode. I read the Top Gear Years from Clarkson in which he posed a question to his audience years back relating to the balance.

His audience agreed on more entertainment. I can't help but feel that the audience now would swing the other way