Why did they remove the original format of filming the laps?

W

Wydarr

New Member
Joined
Jun 7, 2009
Messages
2
Location
Romania
Good morning people,
I'm a long time Top Gear fan, but I've only recently joined the FinalGear community (since it seems you have the most complete and mature forum related to my favorite car program). My question is: does anyone know why they gave up the nice, professional looking and harder to fake presentation of the test laps that they did in the first I think two seasons? The one with the course, and the speed, and the times, and the g-meter?
I don't want to go down the "conspiracy" lane, but it seems that results are way easier to be... "adjusted" if no complete test run is presented during the show.
 
Probably got too expensive/time consuming for other things they were doing during Season 3 and beyond...
 
Ugh, as soon as people mention the word "conspiracy" I begin to get suspicious of their mental abilities.

As for why they took the meters out, it was visually cluttered, and the data was really only relevant to anoraks. That may not be the official reason, but that IS why I'm glad it's not there.

If they wanted to fudge data, or perhaps use prettier shots instead of taking it all from one lap (the latter is plausible, given the nature of television), they could have done that before.
 
The first episode I saw with all that info I thought "oh wow that is SO cool" but not even half way through the lap I was utterly overwhelmed and frustrated. There is just NO way to pay attention to that much information on the screen at one time. I can see why they thought it was a good idea at the time, but am very glad they got rid of it.
 
I thought it was fairly easy to follow the info, myself, but I am glad it's gone. Got in the way of seeing what the car does around the track.
 
Maybe because it removes the "excitement" of finding out the lap times. With the old format, they just write the time even though everybody knows what it is and put it on the board, but now they can build up tension before revealing the lap time. Just a guess -- probably not the reason why they changed it.
 
Hey!, By all means I hope you've spotted the quotation marks before and after conspiracy. :)
On the other hand, I am biased towards the full HUD-style lap because I only watch the episodes on my computer, so I can pause and re-run and so on.

As for the accuracy of the laps, I think that the lap times should be taken with a rather large grain of salt, because of numerous factors that need to be taken into account. This, and the fact that I personally don't know how rigorous they are for this part of the show.

This being said, I have to say that in my opinion, it's not the 100% factually accurate technical details that make Top Gear THE car show, but rather other, more important stuff. (Still I'd like the HUD thingie back :p )
 
lagunengrune36 said:
Maybe because it removes the "excitement" of finding out the lap times. With the old format, they just write the time even though everybody knows what it is and put it on the board, but now they can build up tension before revealing the lap time. Just a guess -- probably not the reason why they changed it.
Click to expand...

I agree with this. Also the full 1:30 lap is actually really long to watch when you see the entire thing!
 
They still cut up the laps if you look at the timers anyway.
 
Wydarr said:
My question is: does anyone know why they gave up the nice, professional looking and harder to fake presentation of the test laps that they did in the first I think two seasons? The one with the course, and the speed, and the times, and the g-meter?
I don't want to go down the "conspiracy" lane, but it seems that results are way easier to be... "adjusted" if no complete test run is presented during the show.
Click to expand...


Actually they showed very little of the lap back when they did it with the course and everything on screen. They only showed a few highlights.
 
Dsemaj said:
They still cut up the laps if you look at the timers anyway.
Click to expand...

Exactly.

The info looked untidy too. Maybe if seasons are released on DVD, they can include the full cuts (like they included the car cam video of stig taking the Renault F1 around the track in under a minute in one of those UK DVDs).
 
Fiorano said:
Exactly.

The info looked untidy too. Maybe if seasons are released on DVD, they can include the full cuts (like they included the car cam video of stig taking the Renault F1 around the track in under a minute in one of those UK DVDs).
Click to expand...

As i said above (or better, linked): The power laps shown (at least in the current format) are specially set up camera-wise to illustrate the time the car took. Thus, releasing "full cuts" would hardly be possible as it's not one lap that could be shown as a "full" cut. A complete onboard cut of the timed lap itself, without any exterior shots, that might be possible...
...but booooooooring.
 
Yeah, it was too nerdy, didn't allow for shortening the lap time (not the time, just the time on screen), etc.
 
I can't say that I wish the HUD stuff was never there, because it did help me to understand the layout of the track, but I wouldn't want to have it back really.
 
I guess it makes it easier to make the lap look better for TV. Say if the Stig does 5 laps of the track or whatever, they'll take the time for the fastest lap, but it may look the most 'boring', but if on one of the corners of his slower laps he got the back end out for some nice tyre smoke slidey stylee action they'll put that into the final cut.

Doesn't affect the time, makes it look better.

Funny that this thread is here really, I was only thinking the same thing about the HUD the other day!
 
You must log in or register to reply here.
Top