How to improve Fifth Gear ... ?
Discussion
Inevitably, the person formally known as The Stig has joined the Fifth Gear team along with all the other renegades from Top Gear…
The two programs have very different presentation styles, but for some reason Top Gear is always a 'must see Sunday evening program' (when its actually on), whereas Fifth Gear is only ever watched if someone happens to be channel surfing and accidently runs into it.
Top Gear has a certain laddish attitude (by a bunch of 40 somethings ..) and some great adventure type stories, and is very watchable. For some reason Fifth Gear just doesn’t quite seem to pull it off, and is badly broken up by bleedin adverts etc…
So, what should Fifth Gear do to make it more compelling to watch ???
The two programs have very different presentation styles, but for some reason Top Gear is always a 'must see Sunday evening program' (when its actually on), whereas Fifth Gear is only ever watched if someone happens to be channel surfing and accidently runs into it.
Top Gear has a certain laddish attitude (by a bunch of 40 somethings ..) and some great adventure type stories, and is very watchable. For some reason Fifth Gear just doesn’t quite seem to pull it off, and is badly broken up by bleedin adverts etc…
So, what should Fifth Gear do to make it more compelling to watch ???
Fifth gear is like old-school top-gear - it has genunine car reviews and not just 3 blokes cocking about in a loosely car-related theme....I still watch top gear most.
The most entertaining thing I've seen from 5th gear in recent years was this:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=MT5yLR4aluY
The most entertaining thing I've seen from 5th gear in recent years was this:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=MT5yLR4aluY
Baldilocks said:
Moar boobs!
Last time I watched it, there was a tit of a presenter.Anyone remember the time (years ago) when Julia Bradbury was presenting a piece on TG ( I think) and she was doing some sort of road test of an MGF's and other convertible cars in general, and at the end of the piece her sum up was 'she really likes to go topless in the summer, and promptly pulls her top of whilst turning her back to the camera with perfect timing just as her boobs fell into view ...
Strangley that was the last piece she ever did. Shame ! She should have a crack at presenting 5th gear ...
< randy perv mode: off>
steveq135 said:
Gag VBH - I suppose the method used depends on if you like her or not.
yeah, she kinda grates a bit as a horsey yar yar over-excitable squealing ex-gymkhana kinda girl...
Maybe if she watched some pron vids and practiced a few of the Monica Seles type orgasmic grunts she would get more subconscious male appreciation …
Carparticus said:
Inevitably, the person formally known as The Stig
He was formally known as Ben Collins.Who was formerly known as the Stig.
Carparticus said:
Anyone remember the time (years ago) when Julia Bradbury was presenting a piece on TG ( I think) and she was doing some sort of road test of an MGF's and other convertible cars in general, and at the end of the piece her sum up was 'she really likes to go topless in the summer, and promptly pulls her top of whilst turning her back to the camera with perfect timing just as her boobs fell into view ...
Must've missed that one....Sounds more like a frustrating dream....
Alfa numeric said:
Personally I thought the last series was spot on, although I did have a quiet chuckle at the age of the cars they were offering as prizes.
I thought the last series was pretty good as well, but they should ditch the prize; it takes up too much of the programme, and is a pointless distraction. Who do they think they are, the Gadget Show?! monthefish said:
Carparticus said:
Inevitably, the person formally known as The Stig
He was formally known as Ben Collins.Who was formerly known as the Stig.
....
monthefish said:
Carparticus said:
... when Julia Bradbury was presenting a piece ...
Must've missed that one....Sounds more like a frustrating dream....
I'd put money on it / them ...
Top gear is very much prime time light entertainment with a motoring theme. 5th Gear is a motoring show that can't hope to compete with it, but can still offer the car enthusiasts a bit of a fix between episodes of TG on Dave. They are totally different beasts now, with 5G essentially feeding off the scraps of audience TG inevitably spews out.
TG has obviously invested heavily in decent script writers, researchers, camera crew and so on. They can produce some very funny stuff, as well as pieces which are breathtaking. When needs be (constantly seemingly) they can really turn up the marketing too.
I can't remember the last time I heard anything about 5th Gear in the press. I can't even remember a truly great article, or episode. That's not to say there hasn't been some good ones, just nothing that really sticks in my mind that I'd love to sit infront of the telly with and revisit on a rainy Sunday afternoon after the F1.
I can reel at least a dozen TG episodes off the top of my head that I thought were truly brilliant, and probably another dozen individual segments of shows if I had a quick think about it.
5G has no real USP in that respect. It can try and market itself as a less glitzy, more down-to-earth alternative to top gear for the petrolheads that cringe at clarkson, but to most people that just screams 'low rent pale imitation' and doesn't remove the 'we're just trying to be TG on a lower budget' aspect.
Presenter wise, I don't think 5G is bad at all. It's a bit more grown up and sensible, but that's no bad thing given how polar opposite it can be to TG at times.
I think it's nice to have a more vanilla car show sat opposite TG. TG is great (IMO), but it can get a bit much with the clichés and 'laddishness' at times. 5G is the sort of consistently sensible yet still easy to digest antidote to that.
Personally, I hope 5th Gear doesn't change too much. Keepng a small group of top notch presenters, concentrating on good articles and relevant stuff, maybe invest a bit of time in better camera work and editing / production, but keeping distanced from TG.
I hope Ben Collins turns out to be an amazing presenter, if he doesn't it'll just be another example of them employing TG cast-offs for no real gain.
I'd really rather it stayed as a more enthusiast orientated show with less silly metrics of performance measurement and inane comparisons like 'How many foreskins can we get in the glove box of a F355 compared to a Honda Jazz'
TG has obviously invested heavily in decent script writers, researchers, camera crew and so on. They can produce some very funny stuff, as well as pieces which are breathtaking. When needs be (constantly seemingly) they can really turn up the marketing too.
I can't remember the last time I heard anything about 5th Gear in the press. I can't even remember a truly great article, or episode. That's not to say there hasn't been some good ones, just nothing that really sticks in my mind that I'd love to sit infront of the telly with and revisit on a rainy Sunday afternoon after the F1.
I can reel at least a dozen TG episodes off the top of my head that I thought were truly brilliant, and probably another dozen individual segments of shows if I had a quick think about it.
5G has no real USP in that respect. It can try and market itself as a less glitzy, more down-to-earth alternative to top gear for the petrolheads that cringe at clarkson, but to most people that just screams 'low rent pale imitation' and doesn't remove the 'we're just trying to be TG on a lower budget' aspect.
Presenter wise, I don't think 5G is bad at all. It's a bit more grown up and sensible, but that's no bad thing given how polar opposite it can be to TG at times.
I think it's nice to have a more vanilla car show sat opposite TG. TG is great (IMO), but it can get a bit much with the clichés and 'laddishness' at times. 5G is the sort of consistently sensible yet still easy to digest antidote to that.
Personally, I hope 5th Gear doesn't change too much. Keepng a small group of top notch presenters, concentrating on good articles and relevant stuff, maybe invest a bit of time in better camera work and editing / production, but keeping distanced from TG.
I hope Ben Collins turns out to be an amazing presenter, if he doesn't it'll just be another example of them employing TG cast-offs for no real gain.
I'd really rather it stayed as a more enthusiast orientated show with less silly metrics of performance measurement and inane comparisons like 'How many foreskins can we get in the glove box of a F355 compared to a Honda Jazz'
zapbrannigan said:
Alfa numeric said:
Personally I thought the last series was spot on, although I did have a quiet chuckle at the age of the cars they were offering as prizes.
I thought the last series was pretty good as well, but they should ditch the prize; it takes up too much of the programme, and is a pointless distraction. Who do they think they are, the Gadget Show?! As I understand it, competitions like this are good money-spinners, the money they make from the phone calls/text messages more than covers the cost of the prize, so gives them some money coming in and gives them at least a couple of minutes of TV time that costs hardly anything to make. It's all economics!
Maybe the drop in value of the cars is an indication that people are getting wise to it and not entering these competitions as much, so they're reducing the prize value to keep in profit.
The 'coming up next' segments are just the same: although they're nominally there to keep you interested and stop you channel hopping in the advert break, I think they also fulfil another useful job: they are another 30 seconds or so of screen time that has cost next to nothing to make.
This, I think, is fundamentally why TG is so much more enjoyable: it's a 1 hour program which has nearly 1 hour of content - maybe 58 or 59 minutes.
A half-hour episode of Fifth Gear is probably only 22-23 minutes long without advert breaks, and when you cut out the competition and the "what's in the show/coming up next/what's next week" there's probably less than 20 minutes of real content - about a third of an episode of TG.
Edited by Morf on Friday 8th October 11:05
Morf said:
This, I think, is fundamentally why TG is so much more enjoyable: it's a 1 hour program which has nearly 1 hour of content - maybe 58 or 59 minutes.
What once you've fast forwarded thro the news, the siarpc and the 'cool wall' s
te ?45 minutes more like.
I've voiced very critical opinions of both shows over the years here on PH, but based on the last series of both, I'd say the pendulum is swinging back in 5th gear's favour.
Their last series was a major improvement.
Top gear on the other hand was mostly 'same same' and getting pretty boring now.
Do they do proper car reviews or is it still Needle and Potato pretending to chase each other round MIRA? I'm sure getting an Astra VSXXRRRR GTSTDI to oversteer is fun, but its been done once or twice before.
A program that did actual car reviews & comparative road tests, a video version of What Car magazine might be quite interesting in a Woollard kind of way, but I doubt it would have much public appeal. In fact, it would probably be only me that watched it.
A program that did actual car reviews & comparative road tests, a video version of What Car magazine might be quite interesting in a Woollard kind of way, but I doubt it would have much public appeal. In fact, it would probably be only me that watched it.
monthefish said:
Carparticus said:
Inevitably, the person formally known as The Stig
He was formally known as Ben Collins.Who was formerly known as the Stig.
Carparticus said:
Anyone remember the time (years ago) when Julia Bradbury was presenting a piece on TG ( I think) and she was doing some sort of road test of an MGF's and other convertible cars in general, and at the end of the piece her sum up was 'she really likes to go topless in the summer, and promptly pulls her top of whilst turning her back to the camera with perfect timing just as her boobs fell into view ...
Must've missed that one....Sounds more like a frustrating dream....
Edited by juansolo on Friday 8th October 12:23
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