I just finished watching Episode 1. I hate to say it but it’s exactly what we expected. The show seems like it’s trying to mix the best parts of Pawn Stars and Sons of Guns to form The One Gun Show to Rule Them All. There’s haggling over firearms sales, pet projects (machining and fixing old guns), gratuitous slow motion shots, and a heaping helping of “family drama” to tie it all together. As expected, the son never smiles; he’s generally a prick. The 16-year-old girl carries a tiny little dog around in the great Parisian tradition. I’d love to post the video but I get the feeling the black helicopter that’s been circling my apartment is just looking for a reason to ruin my day. The show debuts next Monday night. While I didn’t see anything patently dangerous, I also didn’t see a reason to watch another episode.
Special thanks to Discovery Channel for letting me see the episode in its entirety.
Guess I won’t be wasting my time with this show either. Besides, Mondays are Top Gear marathon day on BBC America.
At least guns are getting the same mindless reality shows as everything else now. I see it as a win.
Funny how they didn’t put the lapdog in any of the promos, but think how that would have gone over: “MILFs! Bimbos! Guns, Guns And More Guns! And a lapdog!”.
I almost hate to slam the guy without even seeing the show, but to put your wife and kids out on such blatant sexual display like that is well beyond tasteless.
Agreed w/ regard to pimping out his wife and underage daughter for ratings.
I listened to some trouble shooter radio link someone had posted about an issue over a refund with this guy…and no worries slamming him, he is literally the biggest tool bag on the planet.
Lemme guess…the jailbait daughter bends over a lot and her top keeps “accidentally” sliding down. Right?
Bye Dan. I think the black op helicopters are on their way to your house.
As apparently every gun show on TV isn’t worthy of your time, what kind of basic cable gun show do you want to see?
Keep in mind the show a) has to attract enough viewers to remain on basic cable and b) has to show guns (not necessarily hunting) in a positive light on every single episode.
Prior to Top Shot / Sons of Guns / American Guns, the only basic cable or network shows that consistently showed civilians using guns for anything other than murder weapons were “The American Sportsman” on ABC and “Mythbusters”. Yes, there was “Lock and Load” and “Mail Call”, but those shows, while entertaining, were more about military weapons. And “Tales of the Gun” was a show about the history of guns themselves, not so much about people using them.
If we want shows about people using guns to be the new norm, those shows have to be shows that “normal” people watch. One hour of “How to Detail Strip a Glock 17” is a ratings disaster waiting to happen.
If you’ve got a better idea, pitch it to History Channel or lay it out here on the blog. 10,000 posts of “All the shooting shows on TV suck” gets a little old.
I want Top Gear for guns. That would be awesome.
And we’re working on it.
Top Gear is definitely a good paradigm, as a very handsome hunk o’ manliness once said. 😉
Top Gear (UK) is successful, though, because of its hosts. Compare the reaction to the bland cutouts of the US version and their boring banter muzzled by political correctness and the sponsors. However, it’s also personalities that drive “Sons of of Guns”, “Top Shot” and I assume “American Guns”.
Live by strong personalities, die by strong personalities.
“Live by strong personalities, die by strong personalities.”
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Get Mike Rowe to host it.
Can I be Hamster?
I dibs Jezza. I have the pot belly, curly hair and the attitude.
“Some say sleeps in the Weaver stance and he thinks a hair trigger comes from Roy Rogers horse. All we know is, he’s called The Stig!”
I find that beyond hilarious. The secret sauce that makes Top Gear work is the “cocking about” aspect that, were it applied to firearms, would have the safety police pulling their hair out, and that wouldn’t be entirely unjustified.
Top Gear is entertainment. In its first seasons, it was borderline unwatchable dreck. One could draw more than a few parallels between it and a few of the current firearms-focused reality shows.
Personally, I find it pretty damn funny that people are arguing over several gun-centric shows on popular networks. If someone told me that would be happening five years ago, I would have asked what color the sky was on their planet.
*ding*
I’ll take this argument ANY day over complaining that there are no shooting shows on TV.
Now, is there room for improvement? Of course. None of the shows out there are what I (or anyone else) would call “smart”: They tend to showcase what I’ll charitably call “white recyclables” (only slightly better than white trash 😉 )and/or the drama llama.
We can do better.
Thanks Nick for the review. I’ll be keeping my Monday nights free to watch a new sci-fi show on the Internet called Terra Nova. I love the Internet. Even though I don’t have a TV, cable, or Dish network, I can still watch a new show on the Broadcaster’s website.
i also watch terra nova, the dinosaurs and the colony and their space guns will keep me watching. i also get my dose of barf-tastic family and teen drama as well.
Have you noticed there seems to be no sights on their weapons? Great show nonetheless.
I didn’t notice the lack of sights on their weapons. You’d think that 150 years into the future they will have a gun with ammo that can easily penetrate the hide of a dinosaur.
Know what you mean. Overall, sci-fi used to be well normal, exciting, and interesting before it became so PC and family high-drama. Star Trek increasingly became one big relationship soap opera. Fortunately, there are so many great sci-fi and fantasy books from many decades past when authors knew how to write good clean solid action adventure stories. So much sci-fi writing now is really a bunch of boring PC political values being drilled into us such as with a story about an interspecies couple getting married who want to end the war between their planets with their love child.
Check out a British show called Primeval… similar mix of time travel and dinosaurs…
Thanks Aaron, I’ve bookmarked Primeval to take a look at later today.
I just knew this show wasn’t going to go well.
Top Gear style gun show would work. But, you have to find some blokes who click and are clever. The UK Top Gear show is great because of Jeremy, Captain Slow and Richard. Not that easy of a task. I think the key is to have humor. The boys “cocking” about is really the whole show. They could do a 30 minute car news only show and it would be worth watching.
knew it about the drama….think i’ll do something more constructive like trim my toe nails…
You could start with Yeager. He’s the only one of the gun show/training vid guys who seems to have any personality at all except for maybe the Gun Nuts and L.A.V. (whom I’m guessing has alot more to say that’s not suitable for broadcast.) The rest of them are pretty uniformly terrible on camera.
Being able to see so much daylight underneath Mom’s left spaghetti strap is very promising!
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