We are not entirely sure why ITV commissioned Drive. If we hazard a guess it probably has something to do with the fact that while Top Gear is being rethought on the BBC and rebranded on Amazon, they might just pick up a few of the millions of bored viewers waiting for something TG to happen. Well, that is exactly what did happen because rather less than two million bothered to switch on and that just won’t sustain a prime time telly show. So let’s break this to gently, Drive is Dead.
Should we care? Probaby not, presenter Vernon Kay Drive can go off and do something less demanding indoors. Perhaps Jonny Vegas would have been a better choice as a sarcastic presenter rather than the nervous and not very confident driver. As for the rest of the celebrities, we could see a case for car loving and Free Car Mag cover star, Ella Eyre, competitive athlete Colin Jackson and down with the kids rapper Professor Green. The rest of them, Louis Walsh; TV presenter Mariella Frostrup; weather expert Laura Tobin and broadcaster Angus Deayton were best left at the back of the grid, out of sight.
Making TV is not an exact science and we should know because we’ve been involved in a few programmes. The magic ingredients of lower tier celebrities mucking about in cars, making sure everyone lives together in a house (luxury hotel) with an elimination after a race off in the dark, clearly didn’t work.
If you have any useful suggestions that you would like to jot down on the back of an envelope and post to ITV, or indeed any broadcaster, please run it past Free Car Mag first, we can let you down gently.
Oh and if you recorded the programme or plan on watching it on catch up, then look away now, the 2016 Drive Champion is for all time, Professor Green. So the reality of this slice of reality car based TV is, nobody cares.
