Fifth Gear, now in its tenth season, is a television show aired in the UK about cars. As a distant cousin and direct competitor to Top Gear, Fifth Gear has always had a bit of difficulty scurrying out from underneath the shadow of the BBC goliath. Presenters Tiff Needell and Vicki Butler-Henderson were exiles from Top Gear’s previous incarnation, and though it doesn’t have the same boys-in-the-bar feel and outrageous road tests of the new Top Gear, Fifth Gear has always managed to set itself somewhat apart by taking the best aspects of the old Top Gear. The show’s more serious streak and racing pedigree meant it could put together more authoritative road tests without giving in to the faster-bigger-more mentality of Top Gear.

In recent years, the show seemed to be getting better; though the move to a full-hour format two years ago had some stumbles, Fifth Gear’s ninth season was one of its best yet. The magic formula of entertaining presenters and informative car reviews was finally coming together. Compared to the most recent season of Top Gear, which had indulged a bit too much in painfully scripted “wacky hijinks,” it even seemed that Fifth Gear might be able to compete on its own terms if it just continued to hammer away and continue to work on the formula: stop trying to get the presenters to enter race series, stop forcing the presenters to engage in witty banter around the conference table, and keep putting Tom Ford in as many cars as you can.

Well, the tenth season of Fifth Gear started last week. The verdict: it’s all gone horribly, dismally wrong.

New presenter Tim Lovejoy was responsible for the single least interesting segment from last year, driving around with a rock band in a Mini. This episode, he had nothing of worth to contribute except the oh-so-controversial statement that Al Gore is not a tree-hugging hippie. The scenes shot in the cafe—a bizarre and unnecessary change of scenery—were painful to watch, both because of Lovejoy and because of the apparent lobotomy given to co-host Vicki Butler-Henderson.

The filmed segments were, for the most part, asinine; racing a Mini against a radio-controlled car and an Evo against a stunt plane might be fun for the cameramen, but tell us next to nothing about either car and are essentially worthless even as eye candy. Then you have Tom Ford at Creamfields displaying a complete lack of embarassment when trying to DJ in a car. Normally Tom Ford can make fun of himself as well as anyone, but here it came off as desperate. Besides which, what was the point? The whole thing had barely anything to do with cars. Amazingly, the best part of the episode was Jon Bentley’s segment on a self-driving Volkswagen Golf. And not to knock Jon Bentley, as I think he’s done a pretty good job over the years, but this was the same guy that everyone hated two years ago because his segments were boring and dull. But then, when you’re up against a giant piece of construction equipment crushing a car, watching paint becomes more intellectually stimulating.

More glaring were the omissions. Tiff Needell was talked about more than he was actually on screen, and Jason Plato was nowhere to be found (though this may have to do with his chase for the BTCC championship—a reminder that some of the people on Fifth Gear still have racing credentials, i.e. not Tim Lovejoy). The professional quality of the between-segments editing has disappeared as well, leaving the interstitial bits feeling like a daytime talk show instead of a slickly produced show about cars.

Many things about the show’s new incarnation speaks to a complete lack of confidence in the material. The numerous mentions of Needell’s apparent god-like stature; the sheer amount of interstitial banter and the clumsiness with which Lovejoy and Butler-Henderson executed it; the continual promotion and hype about segments you were going to see in a couple of minutes. All that was missing was the five-minute segment about why Top Gear sucks to fill yet more time. It’s as if the producers had to convince both the audience and themselves that the show was worth watching. Here’s a hint: try putting together forty-four minutes of material that doesn’t make me want to retch. If you can’t do that, just replay the ninth season over again; you can’t possibly lose more viewers than you would if you continue to put up new episodes like this.