The Speed Channel is approaching the 15th anniversary of its original air date and apparently its going to get much more aggressive with its content in the coming years. Right now, Speed has 20 new shows in development and six of those are ready to show up in your DVR in 2011. We know that Adam Carolla is working on a show that would be an automotive version of The Best Damn Sports Show Period. Other items in the works include a series of specials with Jay Leno, a reality series based on Gran Turismo 5 (produced in cooperation with Sony and Nissan) and a Gymkhana program to be helmed by The Fast and the Furious Producer/Director Adam Cohen. Those represent part of the growing projects currently under development. These six new shows are ready to by slotted into the lineup (titles subject to change): -Car Warriors: Think Joes vs Pros but for car construction. A team of average folks square off against all-star builders and their work will be judged by George Barris, Jimmy Shine and Mad Mike Martin. -American Truckers: Rob Mariani talks about iconic rigs, amazing routes and unique cargo tales. Kind of a niche audience here but the "iconic rigs" could be interesting. -Car Science: The producers of Sports Science and Fight Science have turned their attention to automobiles. -Speedmakers: Surprisingly not a Breaking Bad rip-off, but an examination of anything that makes speed possible. The show will examine the Daytona International Speedway, go behind the scenes at Aston Martin and will generally focus on engineering feats designed to maximize speed. -Ticket to Ride with Dan Neil: Pulitzer-prize winner Dan Neil turns his column into a television show. If Speed lets him handle the writing, this one could prove quite interesting. -The 10: This one is for the NASCAR fans. The 10 will highlight the best that NASCAR has served up over the years with topics such as Most Bizarre Finishes, All-Time Races, Throw-downs and Closest Calls.
While I welcome any new content on Speed that doesn't begin with "NASCAR", I also see a lot there that bothers me. So much of TV is scripted to appeal to such a limited audience - it's as if the short attention span fast and furious folks are running the companies now - maybe they are? At any rate, I'll definitely give them all a look over, but if they're on the same level as Top Gear America.......well, we'll see I guess. So many of these shows start out with a pretty good premise - show real folks doing real jobs under tough circumstances, or show craftsmen plying their art, then for some reason the producers feel they have to inject a certain level of drama, and if that's not already provided by the circumstances they feel the need to ramp it up with manufactured drama - and the show goes downhill quickly from there. and OMG can they drag some of these things out - so much so that even tho they repeat themselves constantly you still lose all the flow of the events, and I quickly lose interest too. Not because it's not an interesting subject, but because the presentation is so lousy. Kinda like TG-A.... Still good news tho!
Just so long as I don't have to see any more Unique Whips. :mad2: Maybe I'm just hopeful but it would be nice to see more racing series. I know they don't bring the viewership the shows do. It would just be cool to see a mess of the MX-5 Cup Races along with Americon Iron Series and other Touring/Sports Car racing.
Well I really would like to watch some of these build shows, the craftmanship is amazing and I can really learn from some of these guys who have terrific and inventive techniques to do stuff - however where they lose me is firstly with the thumping heavy metal screaming guitar soundtrack they lay over everything, then with the artificial deadline drama - seems like everyone of these shows they only have 3 days left to turn a hunk of rust into a gleaming showcar - and yet they always seem to do it. Less drama, more build please! And turn the damn music down so I can hear what the guy building it is saying and doing... The deadline thing made sense in the original Overhauling series, since they "stole" the car and had to get it back before the real cops got involved - and they could only drag the poor owner thru the ringer for so long. But now, it seems every show has to have a drama deadline.... I was never a fan of the "whips" shows either, but some of the hotrod, muscle car and 4X4 build shows were fun and built interesting stuff. And I'd love to watch a series based on the design, prep and running of a race car thru a whole season - any series would be fine but Indy or ALMS would be very cool.