Tag Archives: Top Gear
Dear NBC
What in the hell is wrong with you? Are you striving to drive your network into the ground?!
Yes, I’m a big fan of Conan O’Brien. No, this entry is not just about him.
You all remember when NBC decided that it’d be a great idea to cash in on our childhood memories with Knight Rider? If you do, you’d also remember that it sucked horribly. It stunk so badly they didn’t air more than four episodes despite the fact they paid for a whole season. Because Knight Rider had a car as it’s central figure, some genius at NBC figured that people must not like cars and shows about cars. With that logic in mind, NBC decided to drop Top Gear America without even showing the pilot. For those of you who aren’t in the know, Top Gear is a BBC program in the UK that is one of the most widely distributed shows in the world. It has been spun off into Top Gear: Germany, Top Gear: Russia, and Top Gear: Australia. We were inches from joining the rest of the civilized world in getting Top Gear: America! I guess people just don’t like car shows enough to watch them on TV (we do, however download Top Gear UK so much that it is the most BitTorrent’s show in the world).
Next on the chopping block? Crusoe! You remember that memorable show, right? No? Neither did I till I went through our own archives here!
So, NBC has a long time history of screwing things up. Instead of making a miniseries with a complete story arc to show (and see if people actually like it) they order entire seasons of untested shows, THEN put minimal effort into the production of said shows. Since the whole concept of television programming seemed to be failing them, I guess they decided to just make everything on their network be a late night talk show. I won’t go into the details since you’ve likely read/heard them from many other sources but the instant they announced that Jay Leno would be taking over prime time, admit it, you knew it was a bad idea. And it wasn’t even that he was starting a new show, either. The Tonight Show, was simply moving to prime time.
People watched the Tonight Show with Jay Leno for two reasons; 1) they really like Jay Leno, and 2) that’s when they get home/get kids in bed/get in bed themselves to watch TV. The people who love Leno moved to the prime time spot with him. The people in the second category stayed with the time slot. Instead of doubling their ratings, NBC effectively split them in half! Now, after admitting it was a terrible idea, they are moving Leno back to the 10PM spot, booting O’Brien, and keeping the rookie Fallon (we think). I’m honestly not going to get into who should do what, I’m just pointing out that it was a stupid idea when it was announced, and it’s even worse now that they’re trying to fix it.
This entry doesn’t actually end there, either. See, while everyone else is really interested in this late night mess that NBC has caused, they don’t really look at some of the other channels that NBC owns and operates. Top of this list in “WTF moments” for NBC would have been renaming SfiFi into Syfy. You pronounce it the same, it looks kind of the same, but one is a genre of media and the other is a venereal disease (“Syfy” is Polish slang for syphilis). Supposedly, this renaming was part of a global rebranding effort by the network to get farther away from science fiction based programming. However, their effort to do so has ended there, as they haven’t changed their programming in the slightest (other than the sudden influx of Ghost Hunter:Enter Random Destination here shows).
In their latest scheme, NBC and Syfy want to hop on the MMO bandwagon and they want to do it in a truly unique way. Instead of creating a whole new world for a game, they instead want to create a whole new world for a show, and the game goes along with the show! Of course, this was planned long ago with another, more popular property.
I have two theories behind what must be going through NBC executives’ minds regarding all this:
Theory 1: One network analyst pointed out that Conan is much more popular with younger viewers than Leno is. Top Gear is mainly watched by car and tech enthusiasts. Neither of those really fit into NBC’s target “50-60 Never Married Female” demographic. This demographic also typically doesn’t have TiVo, watch TV on the internet, or know how to program their microwave clock. Since they aren’t going to be watching pre-recorded, commercial free TV, NBC has to ensure that those ladies won’t ever turn their TV’s to another station. Instead of trying to reach out to new demographics and strengthen their viewer-base, they play to the low hanging fruit.
Theory 2: Someone in the higher echelons of NBC wants to be let go in a glorious fashion! Perhaps they’re hoping for a Rick Wagoner level severance?
Is there something I don’t know?
In three separate movies that I’ve watched this year, I’ve seen the same actress . . . get snubbed. Olga Kurylenko (who, as best I can tell, is not a leper) has been in Hitman, Max Payne, and Quantum of Solace. Her role has varied from film to film as one would expect and she seems to do well with whatever material is given to her (not saying much for two of those three).
However, one thing that is constant is that the male star seems to have absolutely no interest in her at all!
May Payne
Photoshoot for Quantum of Solace
Hitman
In two of the three movies she is topless and just about begging to guy to have some fun with her, and she’s shut down each time. Not even Bond has a roll with her. Of course, she’s a little more angsty in QoS than most Bond Girls are, but it’s never stopped him before!!
It’s not like I go to a movie expecting a sex scene, however they happen (either shown or implied). However if you go to a James Bond movie, you know that you are going to see stunts, cars, and women . . . to have one without those three things undoes all of creation or something (it’s in the Bible, somewhere in the back).
It’s not like I’m the only one to notice this with her. Jeremy Clarkson even brought it up in an interview with Mark Wahlberg on Top Gear.
What is going on here?
Prototype THIS, punk!
There’s a new show on Discovery channel that I’ve really gotten in to; Prototype This! In it, four guys take a wild idea and in a fit of wild rapid prototyping, bust out a working prototype in 14 days.
Now, it sounds sort of hum drum (unless you’re a geek), but it’s really quite remarkable when you consider that THEIR STUFF ACTUALLY WORKS!! Right off the bat, you might think, “So? Isn’t it supposed to work?” Well, yes. Ideally it is. However, the show that this is replacing rarely had anything work. If you never heard of Smash Lab, I’m not all that surprised. It was horrible.
Smash Lab: Insulting Our Intelligence On A Whole New Level
The whole premise of the show was that four “experts” would test every day materials in “extreme ways”. Well, that’s what they said; in truth it was “let’s blow stuff up and call it science!” Watching an episode was like watching four separate Mac guys (from the commercials, not actual Mac users) all try to explain to the camera what was going one, while making it look like natural conversation. Even their ideas were ridiculous: Stop runaway trailers by attaching rocket engines pointing forward (is it any surprise they caught their tow vehicle on fire?). Make a bomb proof house by coating it with Rhino Liner (it didn’t work). Stop cars by using aerated concrete (didn’t have a chance).
Maybe someone should have told them that there are actual experts in the world who are actually working on these problems, who actually know what they’re doing!
Bring in the replacements!
When Prototype This! premiered, I was pretty certain it was just going to be a recast of Smash Labs. I was wrong! Even as I was watching the first episode, I was convinced these guys were nuts, and were just wasting air-time with crazy ideas and pseudo-science. Then they made four mind-controlled cars in two weeks.
I guess it helps when you have two PhDs, an actual engineer, and a special effects professional on the team who actually all know what they’re doing! So far, they’ve only had a single build that didn’t turn out . . . but not because they didn’t know what they were doing.
If you’re a geek, or even slightly scientifically inclined, be sure to watch (TiVo) an episode of this series! You’ll start the hour wondering what these guys are smoking, and end it amazed at what they’ve created!
Prototype This! airs Wednesdays, right before Mythbusters. Smash Lab was bannished to the UK, where they have better TV to occupy them anyway.
