[01x04] October 20th, 2008

[Icedvovo]

Originally Posted by bolly

Charlie has been living and working in the UK for the last 15 years or more, and a lot of that time he's been working for the BBC. It's a lot more likely his wife was a floor manager in TV in the UK and he met her over there, then got her the job here. The odds of her working at Freehand before Top Gear Australia began are almost zero in my estimation.

I'm not convinced. I reckon 6998 applicants have got a case.

[Dr_Grip]

No-one would give Charlie Cox the job as the main presenter of Top Gear cause of his wife. Of course, connections are vastly important if you want to succeed in the TV industry, but people who pay the BBC an enormous sum of money for the right to use the Top Gear brand (you don't think the BBC will let SBS use the name for free, do you? ) would never jeopardize their investment by hiring a presenter whose skills are questionable...
...additionally, "floor manager" may sound big and important, but is a job way down the hierarchy, nothing that gives you the bargaining power to get your husband hired... maybe the key grip can select his grips, but a grip can never choose his key grip, maybe the gaffer can get his make-up artist girlfriend hired, and of course the presenter can get his stage manager wife a job, but this only works if the job someone gets for you is way less important than the job this someone has...

[Icedvovo]

Originally Posted by Dr_Grip

No-one would give Charlie Cox the job as the main presenter of Top Gear cause of his wife.

I was just trying to find ANY reason as to why he was chosen.


Yeah, I'm sure it's all kosher, I just find these sorts of connections interesting.

[fink99]

I've usually restricted myself to one post per week, but I felt that I wanted to say something about the nature of some of these other posts. Of all the TV networks in Australia, SBS is, I'm sure, going to be the first to stamp out any suggestion of racism in its content. I can see what Dr Grip means, but he's drawing a pretty long bow there.

As for the Charlie-bashing, I reckon if you look at episode 1 compared to episode 4, you'll see that he's settled in a bit. I still reckon that the 3 of them are a good mix, and that most of the problems have been caused by SBS or whoever insisting that CC matches JC in terms of a hosting role, thus drawing unfortunate comparisons. Maybe if they mixed up the hosting role a bit...but I guess that can't happen in S1 now 'cos it's all been recorded. I also think that the writing is a problem. Some of the in-studio stuff is pretty excruciating, and it strikes me that if the presenters were given a bit of leeway with the scripts (I'm assuming here that they don't have much input at present) then we might see a better, more relaxed result on screen. It's also far easier to remember things you've written yourself, and talk around them in a natural-sounding way.

Rant over...

[drnick]

considering the script writer is a makeshift audience-warm-up guy when your at the taping, its no wonder people find the scripted stuff "excruciating"

Did anyone else who has attended a taping apart from me and my mate think "THIS is the guy thats writing the scripts? no wonder they sound a bit stilted" The guy was telling bad "dad jokes" ahoy!

[tone76]

Originally Posted by drnick

Did anyone else who has attended a taping apart from me and my mate think "THIS is the guy thats writing the scripts? no wonder they sound a bit stilted" The guy was telling bad "dad jokes" ahoy!

Yes, his jokes were a bit Uncle Arthur, weren’t they?

I’ve said this before … what TGA needs is to let the 3 guys write their own thoughts, then someone should come along and massage it a bit. After all, the 3 guys ostensibly wrote their own scripts for their audition tapes, which were all quite decent.

You reckon TGUK might be able to lend Richard Porter to Freehand to do this for TGA S2 …?

[Dr_Grip]

Originally Posted by Icedvovo

I was just trying to find ANY reason as to why he was chosen.

C'mon, he's not that bad. (Or is he?) Eventhough i hate him as a car reviewer (not as much as a presenter) he is the only one in the team that is different from TGUK... Annoying voice guy is obviously typecast as an Australian Hammond, Warren is the cartoonist comic relief counterpart to May's "a bit behind the moon eccentric british bloke" comic relief... Charlie at least is not a Clarkson clone.

[fink99]

Originally Posted by tone76

I’ve said this before … what TGA needs is to let the 3 guys write their own thoughts, then someone should come along and massage it a bit. After all, the 3 guys ostensibly wrote their own scripts for their audition tapes, which were all quite decent.

Good idea...anyone listening?

[chitownjeff]

I thought this was an okay episode - I gave it a 7.

Tour guide vs GPS? I didn't think was to bad an idea, but it just didn't come off as well as I had hoped.

The lawn bowling was funny - i was waiting for someone to go backwards over the ramp!


I do agree the camera work and editing need help, as well as the writing, but the show is getting better each time - which all you can ask for.

[LP400]

Originally Posted by mitchtj

As much as you say that, i havn't heard them rubbish a single car yet. Clarkson is at his best when the cars are at their worst.

That's because the show is sponsored by manufacturers. Have you ever seen car plated with its name (ie. "Astra") on TGUK? Hardly the enviroment for unabashed and frank opinion. Piss poor. Will (eventually) fail for this reason alone.

[Wildy]

For the record, I gave the episode another 8.

Originally Posted by Dr_Grip

This "testament to their skills"-part is actually the kind of positive racism i'm talking 'bout... it's clichés all over... but i am beating a dead horse here. This is not a forum about politics, but about cars.

So lets stop talking politics and get back to cars. And the depressing lack of cameras on TG AUS.

Considering that it was you, Dr_Grip, who was going on about racism to begin with, I find it humorous that you are the one now trying to move the conversation away.

I also don't really understand how it is "positive racism". Or what the hell "positive racism" is. Historically Aborigines were used as trackers (the term in the police at the time was "blacktracker") and even with the racism in the police force, were a very valuable contribution to law and order in Australian society. Even today some Aboriginal communities still teach their children these skills.

[Dr_Grip]

Originally Posted by Wildy

Considering that it was you, Dr_Grip, who was going on about racism to begin with, I find it humorous that you are the one now trying to move the conversation away.

Quite simple: As i felt this discussion is going nowhere i thought it might be better to end it, especially as i started it.

"Positive racism" is the use of positive stereotypes like "latin lover" or "unique tracking skills", which are considered racist, too.

[fbc]

Originally Posted by Dr_Grip

"Positive racism" is the use of positive stereotypes like "latin lover" or "unique tracking skills", which are considered racist, too.

I get what you're saying - like suggesting all black people are brilliant at basketball, but showing off the skills of an Aboriginal tracker is a different thing altogether. They're just not the same - there was no sweeping generalisation (they didn't say come out with "Oh, and this guy's an Aborigine, so therefore he's a great tracker"), they simply showed the talents Aboriginal trackers have, and it wasn't done in a demeaning way.

[thebishop74]

Wow, really awfull episode, I had to score it lower than the past few, which were already very low, but this one just had me on the edge of viewing pain from start to finish.

I find it odd that untill now, Cox was sort of ok, in this episode he anoyed the heck out of me, it was all lame reviews and half adverts for cars.

[Wyvern]

I tried a little experiment yesterday.

I have a friend who watches TGUK primarily for the presenters as she has no interest in cars. I wondered how she would react to the TG format without the presenters she knows and - well, to be quite honest has a middle-aged crush on (it's a recognised phenomenon; a book that has just been published recently, Wendy: The Bumper Book of Fun for Women of a Certain Age by Jenny Eclair and Judith SomeoneWhoseSurnameEscapesMe even includes, amid humorous tips on coping with hot flushes and full page pin-ups of Richard Madeley and Phillip Schofield, a follow-the-lines game entitled "Which Top Gear Presenter Do You Fancy?"). So I showed her the latest ep of TGA.

Here are her exact words.

"It's a clone. But it's a good clone."

She immediately slotted the Australian presenters into their UK-equivalent roles but beyond that, she didn't go into the kind of analysis we've all been going into a bit here. And simply by taking it on face value, she actually enjoyed it. She might not watch every week, but then... and I know this is unthinkable... she doesn't always manage to watch every single episode of TGUK either But anyway, my deeply scientific survey shows that a casual viewer* can enjoy TGA.

*well, my survey only covered a viewer...

[boafan]

I can't do this anymore. I've given it four shows. What absolute rubbish. At least fifth gear has vicky.