Top Gear duo's banter was a load of big red balls
There came a point in lockdown - week eight? Week 12? Is anybody counting now? - when my children were bored by Paw Patrol. They had watched every episode of Horrible Histories, even though the youngest is four and has yet to grasp the concept of time, never mind the Napoleonic Wars. (We were also doing reading, glueing, Lego-building, bike-riding and constructing dens out of sofa cushions, before you contact the relevant authorities.) I wanted to find something fun to watch together as a family. And, in a lightbulb moment, I remembered Total Wipeout.
The show ended in 2012 but we found some old episodes online. They loved it, and I was reminded of what a gloriously silly show it was. Harking back to the days of It’s a Knockout, it involved people attempting a giant foam-covered assault course. The entertainment value was in seeing them fall off. That’s it. Sometimes the simplest ideas are the best.
So imagine my delight when Total Wipeout: Freddie and Paddy Takeover (BBC One) appeared in the Saturday night schedules. But oh, what a travesty this was. Clips from past episodes, cut together and overlaid with a voiceover by Paddy McGuinness and Freddie Flintoff that sucked the very life out of it.
The original show was greatly enhanced by Richard Hammond, who hosted it from a bar stool, and Amanda Byram, who was on hand to interview the contestants beforehand and laugh her head off when they sailed head first into the drink. It would be nice to see Byram back on British primetime. But both have been excised from these repeats, so all we had was an endless succession of competitors running at stuff and squeaking while McGuinness and Flintoff tried to recreate their Top Gear banter (their “unique banter”, as the BBC blurb describes it).
McGuinness would actually have been much better on his own; we know from Top Gear that Flintoff isn’t a natural when it comes to reading a script. Anyway, sample dialogue: “This is the Cradles of Doom. Sounds like a dodgy heavy metal band. It’s actually some big slippy swing. Are you a fan of swinging, Fred?” “Always been quite partial, Paddy.” All in all, a load of big red balls.
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