the show returns to it's roots that made it big in the first place.
What, you mean a show with a handful of worrying looking blokes standing around a hangar as the presenters watch sci-fi characters attempt hot laps in a Honda Civic to determine who is 'Master of the Universe' while little old ladies learn how to handbrake park?
Or do you mean one of the presenters needs to have a life-threatening accident that raises the profile of the show massively, leads to a huge increase in viewing figures and also necessitates an immediate change in the programme's structure that informs the structure of future seasons?
The biggest rise in audience figures came when the show returned after Hammond's crash, which, because so much silly stuff had been filmed for a series that was then subsequently delayed and truncated, departed majorly from the format of previous series. The current format follows on from that, and the audience figures are only now starting to seriously roll back to where they were before (and if Mr Wilman's maths is correct, iPlayer may mitigate some of that rollback, though I'm not convinced). I remember Andy talking about it somewhere, that they needed to make a show that appealed to their whole audience including the newcomers, and not just the car enthusiasts, and this was the basis of the switch from
Top Gear being an 'entertaining car programme' to an 'entertainment programme with cars in it'. He did also recognise that eventually these people, who started watching out of curiosity after hearing all about the little chap who went upside down for weeks on end, would eventually drift away. Now that's happening, it's probably time to give the format a bit of a rethink again. At least some of the team want to get back to doing more 'straight' car based articles, and that suggests to me that the show's ready for a change.
The show has gone in very definite cycles. The first few series were entertaining, but in an endearingly crap way at times. The reviews were good, but the quality of the rest of the show was patchy. The cocking about was always there, but it was done in a very cheap and cheerful way, and a lot of ideas were repeated (e.g. 'fastest faith/political party/sci-fi character', getting grannies to do unlikely things in cars). I enjoyed it massively, but high-brow it was not.
I do think the show hit a bit of a 'golden phase' around series four, and this carried on until circumstances meant that a lot of the more serious items for series 9 had to be cut in favour of using the big, expensive films that had already been made. Perhaps unfortuately for the more hardcore fans, but not for the show at large (which has a bottom line, like any other business undertaking), viewing figures went through the roof.
This, funnily enough, was where the first proper rumbles of 'there aren't enough cars' and 'it's jumped the shark' started.
Over the last 5 series, there have been some brilliant episodes, and the increased awareness of the show has allowed them to do much bigger things than they could have done in the early days.
Top Gear as a brand has been massive, and I suspect that hit its peak in 2008.
2009 has been a bit of a transitional year for the show again, I suspect. The viewer drift that Andy anticipated probably accounts for a lot of the drop in figures (some of it from the people who were brought in by the press coverage losing interest and some of it from the old-time fans who didn't like the direction the show went in), and the guys, being human, can't possibly keep up the relentless pace that they set themselves in 2008. I think the pressure has shown this year, and particularly in series 14.
And... looking over the last few years, I've a feeling the show is due another phase. Whether this is a 'wind-down' phase, bringing the show back to what it was a few series ago, or whether it takes things in a different direction entirely remains to be seen, but I suspect when the show returns, we are going to see a few changes.
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:lol:
It's their decision, and nobody else's.