When I was a young lad, to be on TV would top everything. You could be as good as you like, but unless you had been on the telly, was it quite so good? If it wasn't on TV, how were my mates going to discuss what I had achieved? How would random people in the street know about what I did?
These days the thought of being recognised in the street terrifies me and the prospect of having to deal with today's inane and inappropriate presenters would bore me. Thankfully, I don't have to worry about any of these things happening to me because as it goes, I have no chance of appearing on TV - I am not a celebrity.*
TV I enjoyed when younger would include a variety of stunts and action, preferably at the same time with some good humoured injuries thrown in for good measure, some examples including:
Run The Gauntlet: Bit hazy on this one but involved large teams of 30+ people driving go-karts, climbing rope bridges and generally hanging off things;
You Bet: ordinary people trying to do extraordinary things for no reason whatsoever;
Takeshi's Castle: No winners this time, folks!
Kickstart: Kids on bikes having too much fun. Why aren't I allowed a motobike mum?!
The entertainment came from either the constant stream of lots of games or races, or the variety element - if I didn't like a particular game, a different one would be on in a bit. In retrospect, perhaps they weren't so good, but as a kid, I loved it all. I particularly didn't care that the contestant was 'Brian from Barnsley' rather than 'Her from Emerdale' or 'Him who used to be in Casulty'.
Unfortunately these days we have programmes like 'Famous and Fearless' to look forward to. For those lucky enough to miss this car crash of a show, the premise being that every night this week, four male and four female 'celebrities' (the 'famous' part of title) take part in some incredible races despite the risks that they face in doing so (the 'fearless' part of the title). I'll not bother having a go at just how terrible this programme is; plenty of people have done it in spectacular fashion here or here, and it'd be hard to argue with the hundreds of forum posts who feel mislead by the title stating that the shows participants are neither famous ("who are they?") nor fearless ("my teenage son does that everyday on the way to school"). The Digital Spy forums if you can be bothered to search appears to be particularly brutal.
Over the course of the week, the races these 8 celebrities are involved in include BMXing, Streetluge, Mini Moto, Micro Powerboat Racing, In-line speed skating, hovercraft-ing, Power Skateboarding, Enduro, Karting, Abseiling, Powerboking and Dirt Buggy-ing. Sounds fun, no? Unfortunately not.
Lets take the sport of BMX racing, a very popular sport made into a full medal Olympic sport for the 2008 Summer Olympic Games in Beijing, China. So popular there's even a National Series track in Derby didn't you know?! Away from the TV cameras, every week there are several competitions taking place all over the country, each with several races take place every hour. Talented individuals who have trained quite a bit to be there or have at least put in a lot of time and effort and with several competitors per race leading to guaranteed exciting racing. It doesn't matter if one race is a bit dull - there'll be another one in a few minutes.
Using this as a basis for a TV show sounds fair enough. But then why strip the competitors down to 2 people racing at once? Why only have 6 races spread over a 2-hour long show? Why pit 'middle-aged biker' against 'young son of business tycoon'? Why film the action from overhead so that the built in jumps and rollers appear to be around 2 foot high? Why then get very excited over what were very clearly very dull races?
Other F&F complaints include the long build-up (approximately half an hour getting to know the celebrities), the long (2-hour) running schedule, the lack of action (6 races in total plus two car rolls), the presenter choice (Chris Evans and Claire Balding), the inclusion of Jack Osbourne ('Yes, I've done this before') and David Hay ('I've not done this before, but as a boxer...') to provide insight and endless replays of some quite boring racing - typically first to the first corner won.
Viewing figures were appropriately low with approximatley 2 million tuning in on Sunday night and (at present) figures dropping through the week so it would seem that further F&F events would be unlikely.
All things considered, I think F&F have missed a huge opportunity and essentially made overcomplicated what should be a very simple thing to do. These competitions are already set up round the country. The infrastructure is in place already. There are talented individuals who would love to be stars for the day. I don't know what the overall F&F budget is, but with a reported fee of £1 Million purely to pay Chris Evans to host, this money could have been much better spent on televising exciting stuff that is going on already.
My big TV programme pitch idea that I mention quite a lot, but never do anything about is 'Gravity Tuesday', essentially a Summer version of Ski Sunday. Every week, the programme would show coverage of various events taking place round the UK, be it cyclocross, downhill mountain biking, downhill mountainboarding, BMX racing, longboarding etc, etc, etc. Perhaps I should write to Ed Leigh? Some people seem to think he's a bit of a plonker but he could be the right person in the right position with the right power to make something happen. But personally, I'd push to have Christian Stevenson do the actual presenting - anyone old enough to remember the TV show Rad?
But then you have to wonder, why aspire to be on TV when you can do it yourself on the internet? If I can film it, I can upload it, send people the links, be my own star! Technology has made it a very exciting time to be around and we're lucky that we have so much more opportunity to document ourselves doing what we find fun and to share with like-minded individuals who will love you for it.**
So in the words of another show from days gone by, 'Why Don't You Just Switch Off Your Television Set and Go Out and Do Something Less Boring Instead?' Just make sure you tell us all about it afterwards...
* Though I did go to school with the son of Tosh Lines from 'The Bill'....
** Though I'd love a go on Total Wipeout - looks ace fun!
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