It’s been a whopping 15 years since Alton Towers had a TV programme dedicated to it. But in the year 2018 we have a behind the scenes look at the park once more with Inside Alton Towers. A definitive look at Wicker Man, a new thrill seeking ride being introduced to the park and the first ride to be built after The Smiler crash back in 2015.
This one-off Channel 4 documentary takes us into the work Alton Towers put into the design, building, staff training and implementation of the first wooden rollercoaster to be built in the UK for over 21 years!
We are introduced to many of the key members of staff who were involved with the rides design, building and planning and we are also introduced to members of the public who are die-hard rollercoaster enthusiasts, with one in particular having a ‘love of wood’ (his words not mine).
Inside Alton Towers gives us a glossy surface level glimpse of Wicker Man including test dummy footage, small construction videos and pyro test footage but that’s all. The rest is filler that feels stand-alone and doesn’t drag me into the documentary. It feels very purposely done and thus alienates the audience. We’ve tuned in to see a documentary going ‘inside’ Alton Towers but it’s no good if they don’t open the bloody gates to let us in!
It would have been great to see the carriages being made, more on-ride footage and rider reactions rather than celebrities who are usually paid to attend these events and give false opinions. I know the ride is great, I’ve been on it many times myself but something about how this has been stitched together feels very unusual as there is just so much missing from the end product.
To have a whole documentary about one ride and then for that documentary to not explore the ride in detail, well, it all feels rather pointless. Whilst the surface level content was great it would have been cool to see more insider footage, behind the scenes construction rather than a shot of three guys hammering some wood down and then cut to more talking. It would have been cool to understand the science of how the coaster works and then compare Wicker Man to other wooden coasters around the world in more detail.
Wicker Man is the first ride to combine wood and fire and it’s immense presence at the park is plain for all to see. I cannot for the life of me think of how a documentary about such an intimidating, intense and incredible wooden coaster made the ride feel rather like scrap wood.
-
Inside Alton Towers
Summary
Interesting but lacking this surface level documentary fails to grasp my attention for the duration and instead provides a rather pointless show that with more detail to the subject matter at hand would have been a more promising watch indeed.
