Tour De France: Unchained aka that netflix thingy

[Potomac]

Is there really no thread on this yet? I saw some discussion in the Roglic thread, but it seemed out of place.

 

[Skalman]

Have just seen one episode, seem overly dramatic and at the same explained for beginners to Cycling, some cool camera shots though

 

[bNator]

Many of us watched it, but noone will admit

I think it's a good thing for the sport even though it's over dramatic and over simplified (which was to be expected from the netflix documentary). I like how Pog got a bit of a Villain status due to UAE not participating in the documentary so his story got to be told through the perspective of TJV. And I like some new high quality drone shots and rider close-ups which appear to have been taken specifically for the purposes of the documentary...

 

[yaco]

There was gaps in the TDF storyline with Netflix only following eight teams - For example if they covered the Groenewegen stage win this tied in beautifully with the Jakobsen stage victory - Overall, it will appeal to non-cycling fans and could attract new viewers.

 

[Potomac]

I'm only partway through the series, but I think a lot of race footage is amazing.

I fast forward through the gratuitous massage scenes.

 

[Barnacle Bill]

I had seen some complaints beforehand about the 'over-simplified' aspect of some of the analysis, so that didn't surprise me - and is understandable if trying to attract new viewers, perhaps future seasons will move on in that respect. Overall there was just enough of interest to me to keep watching.

I thought the first episode was the weakest, not great if trying to hook viewers. Sure, the Tour started with the Prologue and a sprint stage, but instead of leaving the GC contest until later perhaps they could have started with a brief overview of how the 2020 and 2021 Tours had gone, then some scenes of JV training ahead of the Tour with the thought of taking on Pogi again, then spend some time on those initial stages.

That episode on the French teams was tough to watch at times, with sad Pinot and injured O'Connor.

The narrative around Wout was interesting, even if we were only seeing glimpses of the discussions that the teams allowed, much like the forum discussions at the time the cycle from 'selfish Wout' to 'hero Wout' brought back some memories!

Enjoyed the Pidcock descent footage again and the look into his team situation, quite a different rider to the average cog in the Ineos machine. Also thought 'catastrophe Philipsen' came across well. But spending the second-last episode just on the Gaudu-Thomas fight for the podium was a bit much imo, then the last episode had to fit in the rest of the JV-Pogi contest and the Champs sprint and wrap-up. I would have preferred a bit less on Gaudu-Thomas and a bit more JV-Pogi at that point.

All in all, agree with the above about some of the great footage, and some of the glimpses behind the scenes, clearly it wasn't aimed at the average visitor to this forum but if it helps the teams attract sponsors or the sport get more viewers then it's obviously a good thing. Getting UAE on board would be nice.

 

[bNator]

I also liked how the suffering and digging deep concept was presented. This is something that us regular cycling fans often forget as we understand cyclists as watts-delivery-devices and whoever has more watts to deliver, wins. But how do you get to the point where you unleash those "extra watts"? It has a lot to do with psychology, motivation and suffering tolerance. The state of mind which allows a certain cyclist on a certain day to "dig deep" - that is something which is often overlooked but yet plays a very important role when determining the outcome.

So even though it sounded overly dramatic I think it actually was spot on - the way it was presented in this documentary.

One more thing: The effect this kind of exposure can have on generaly publicity I think is enormous. I used to be an F1 fan. Watched every race no matter the time zone. Terrorised my family on Sundays when I was a kid to the point my dad just gave up and let me watch the race instead of taking the family on our regular Sunday trip. I completely stopped 10 years ago and haven't watched a race since.. Up until the Netflix documentary. I watched it for old times sake and look at that - I have F1 subscription again for 3 years now

I don't know if it's just ractivating former fans or those who are kind of in between or if it's going to attract new viewers that were not into cycling at all. But I hope it's going to have a massive effect on the sport, the money influx and the increase of regular road bikes which could lead to higher awareness of other traffic participant regarding the existence of us cyclists. The former may not be an issue in some other cycling-developed countries like Netherlands - but here in Slovenia, we desperateley need that...

 

[kingjr]

Not interested at all

 

[RedheadDane]

I'm passively interested. Meaning that I'll read about it, but I can't be bothered to get Netflix in order to watch it myself.

 

[Red Rick]

I watched some of it, but it was all very lethargic. MVP for me was Nierman losing his *** on the cobbled stage.

 

[Gigs_98]

I haven't finished watching it, but after 3 episodes it's about what I expected it to be. And tbh episodes 2 and 3 were quite decent, especially the parts about Pinot.

Now obviously it's incredibly overdramatic and I always find it a bit funny how as a fan of the sport you immediately notice when the producers try to bull**** the new fans. But "Drive to Survive" has done absolute wonders for the growth of F1 so I completely get why they are doing what they are doing and if it brings new fans to the sport I'm not gonna complain.

 

[search]

Now obviously it's incredibly overdramatic and I always find it a bit funny how as a fan of the sport you immediately notice when the producers try to bull**** the new fans.

yeah, I mean, even the French "live commentary" from the stages is made up, and re-recorded afterwards to add a bit of drama and fit into their script of the stage.

Personally I stopped watching after two episodes. I just found it very boring tbh.

 

[gunara]

I only watched the first episode so far, and yet to have any desire to watch the second. So I will only comment about the first episode. It feels lacking in some ways.

I don't think the decision to give biggest parts to Bisseger and Jakobsen for the early stages are bad, but it's going nowhere as I think focusing right away on two teams without giving much overview on the whole thing - who are the most important players, who has the highest stakes etc -makes it difficult to invest much interest.

As for being overly-dramatic, I can forgive it, I didn't expect for a gritty, in-your-face documentary from such project anyway.

All and all, I feel from the first episode that the show aren't really sure who it's aiming for. It certainly gives nothing new to serious cycling fans, while explains very little to non fans by putting them right away deep in the middle of what are not going to be the most important thing about the subject.

Not bad, just not arresting at all.

Oh, and I watched every episode of the two first seasons of the Movifarce.

 

[masking_agent]

I watched it all. It is for a non cycling audience. I didn't like how they were trying to drum up drama with tidbits from rider's convos. (ie Van Aert vs Jonas sequences) There can never be real "insight" to our sport as we know the truth's are behind closed doors and then omerta on top ;-)

 

[awavey]

I watched one episode of it and found it so annoying I wont be watching the rest of it, its overly simplified, overly dramatic and one of the many things that bugged me was theyve gone yeah that F1 series we did was successful, lets just copy the exact same format and it will be a hit too, and theyve not understood the beats or threads of the stories they were telling in the F1 series that made the F1 stuff interesting. I mean they bigged up EF Education for the TT stage, it was all or nothing, and they hit nothing and right onto stage 2, like hold on you arent even going to get a word from the rider about it, what they were thinking during the stage or anything, just move on forget about the fact it was supposed to be the end of the team.

race footage wise I thought TdF put all those on board bike shots out as a daily video compilation on youtube ?

 

[red_flanders]

Been watching. The intrigue with WVA and Jumbo was interesting, but pretty much what we saw play out live. Cool that they featured Pidcock's descent and win as that was truly special, and made for some great TV. They could have shown more of the descent actually! Deeply appreciated that they left Froome out of that coverage, he was just another guy in the break who had no chance of winning. I'm enjoying it fine, and it's good TdF hype and warmup. I thought the coverage of the stage to the Glandon was quite good, there was a lot of real drama there, and they captured it pretty well. Criticisms would be that there's way too much focus on EF, particularly Bissiger and Powless. Nice riders, but come on. No real story there.

Vaughters, as per usual, comes off like the douche he is.

Compared to the "Ronde: Behind the Scenes" stuff on YouTube, it's not nearly as good. I want to say it's because that series is geared more toward the hard core fan, but my wife thought it was really interesting. There's always this temptation to pander to a new audience. I think the Ronde stuff really did well with the mix of reality, understanding the sport, and the hype.

View: https://youtu.be/XFqfqO6CQko

 

[carolina]

The worst part about EF was spending two episodes on stages they didn't win and five seconds on the stage that saved their Tour from being a complete disaster.

 

[Mayomaniac]

I'm passively interested. Meaning that I'll read about it, but I can't be bothered to get Netflix in order to watch it myself.

Same here.

 

[RedheadDane]

I watched it all. It is for a non cycling audience. I didn't like how they were trying to drum up drama with tidbits from rider's convos. (ie Van Aert vs Jonas sequences) There can never be real "insight" to our sport as we know the truth's are behind closed doors and then omerta on top ;-)

Van Aert doesn't like the focus on the drama either. As he has pointed out; most of the time, he and Vingegaard get along great.

 

[theyoungest]

It's too bad, I think this series has missed its mark and it's reflected in the rather lacklustre viewing numbers. Okay, it's the most watched series in Denmark, but that's about it. And I think this is because the makers of Unchained underestimate the viewer. It's a way too dumbed down version of a cycling documentary, to the point that it's just stupid and (even more unforgiveable for a television series) boring.

I'm not one for French-bashing, but man are their contributions superficial and clichéd in this series. Steve Chainel, Marc Madiot, and the live commentators, not a single interesting word emanates from their lips. What's up with all these war metaphors? It's like they're watching the Gladiator and the rest of the world watches cycling.

The documentaries made by Jumbo's own embedded filmmaker are all way better. You can watch them on Youtube and the latest one on Amazon Prime. I'm convinced the general public would appreciate them as well, as they have when one or two of them were broadcasted on national tv in the Netherlands.

 

[triley36]

I agree that the target audience is not us: Those who follow cycling closely enough to chat about it on online forums.

I watched the entire series. Most of it was meh, but I did enjoy the episode featuring Pinot and Madiot. I thought it illustrated well the romanticism with which FDJ and Madiot specifically- the still stubbornly French team- take on a sport that has become ever increasingly scientific in the last twenty odd years.

 

[Ricco']

I still haven't seen it, partly because I don't intend to have Netflix and because of the reactions I've seen don't give me much interest in trying to find it in Pantani Bay, but have a friend who's a very casual fan of cycling (only really follows the stages where Almeida can feature or the Tour) who has asked me why I'm not watching it since it's a very cool series. Guess it's reaching the target audience.

 

[Me gal in da rain]

I underestand the critisism and it is not quite what i was hoping for after waiting so long.

That being said, my wife - (who has never shown any interest in my cycling or watching people that cycle well cycling) binge watched the entire thing in a day ... she wae engrossed and i think she will be wanting a bike forher birthday... i imagine she is one of many......


She was also spellbound by the scenery and i think has fallen a tiny bit in lust with tibaud pinot........

 

[saunaking]

I had seen some complaints beforehand about the 'over-simplified' aspect of some of the analysis, so that didn't surprise me - and is understandable if trying to attract new viewers, perhaps future seasons will move on in that respect. Overall there was just enough of interest to me to keep watching.

I thought the first episode was the weakest, not great if trying to hook viewers. Sure, the Tour started with the Prologue and a sprint stage, but instead of leaving the GC contest until later perhaps they could have started with a brief overview of how the 2020 and 2021 Tours had gone, then some scenes of JV training ahead of the Tour with the thought of taking on Pogi again, then spend some time on those initial stages.

That episode on the French teams was tough to watch at times, with sad Pinot and injured O'Connor.

The narrative around Wout was interesting, even if we were only seeing glimpses of the discussions that the teams allowed, much like the forum discussions at the time the cycle from 'selfish Wout' to 'hero Wout' brought back some memories!

Enjoyed the Pidcock descent footage again and the look into his team situation, quite a different rider to the average cog in the Ineos machine. Also thought 'catastrophe Philipsen' came across well. But spending the second-last episode just on the Gaudu-Thomas fight for the podium was a bit much imo, then the last episode had to fit in the rest of the JV-Pogi contest and the Champs sprint and wrap-up. I would have preferred a bit less on Gaudu-Thomas and a bit more JV-Pogi at that point.

All in all, agree with the above about some of the great footage, and some of the glimpses behind the scenes, clearly it wasn't aimed at the average visitor to this forum but if it helps the teams attract sponsors or the sport get more viewers then it's obviously a good thing. Getting UAE on board would be nice.

I'll stop here because i dont want too many spoilers but have seen 3 episodes.

Spoiler alert
Really cool tidbits/takeaways-

Vaughters being interviewed before Granon saying that the stage was a huge opportunity to attack Pog but that JV is not a risk taking team implying that he doubted they would try something.

Geriant Thomas' amazement at how brilliant and effective Jumbo were in the Granon stage

AG2R's management really pressuring Ben Oconnor to race while injured

Bob Jungels looks just like Biff the bully from Back to the Future

Wout taking a bit of criticism from his directors about not helping Jonas better

EF's big commitment to Bissinger taking yellow in the stage one ITT

Every time we saw Primoz in the first 2 episodes, he was sitting in the Bus and they show his face but dont introduce him or anything. Like 4 times over 2 episodes
it was quite funny before we finally meet him. And he says 'this is so stupid' before filming the interview

I probably forgot a few, but loving this and looking forward to the rest

 

[Ilmaestro99]

Netflix is ***. Keep netflix out of sport!!