[13x01] January 21st, 2008

[Viper007Bond]

I gave it a 5. Very average.

[acabinian]

eh, OK episode, not great. glad to see plato and tom recovered from their injuries, though

[DrJustice]

Lacklustre. Not a good start for the new season. They absolutely have to drop that celeb BS - bores me to tears every time. It can only get better form here, though (I hope...).

DJ
--

[awdrifter]

I don't know why every hated the ep so much, I thought it was good by Fifth Gear's standard. The Exige S and Caterham 7 is insane. I'm actually looking at sites for those home built Caterham replicars after watching this ep. (I doubt I would ever build one though) 260hp in a car that light is just insane.

The Laguna vs BLS is ok. At least now they drive it on the road. I know they won't like the BLS though, even though it's just a Saab 9-3 under the skin. But considering the price difference, I do see why.

The Citroen C-Crosser review is ok, but I was expecting the 2CV to put up more of a fight. The C-Crosser is just a Mitsubishi Outlander under the skin, I was actually kinda surprised it did so well off-roading.

The C63 Black Series is pretty cool, but the lack of a manual still sucks. But for $30k more than the standard car, it's definitely not worth the money.

I basically skipped the celebrity bit.

[Shawn]

Just thought I'd let you know that I've now viewed the show and what I said before stands.

It was a pretty good episode by Fifth Gear's standards. We all know Fifth Gear has always taken much of its inspiration from Top Gear, that's no reason to hate on it.

Originally Posted by James May's Hair

Good grief...

[Viper007Bond]

It wasn't a bad episode, there was just nothing... special I guess in it. Average. There have been much, much better and interesting Fifth Gear episodes.

No worries though. It was worth the watch and much better than watching nothing.

[Handonam]

Originally Posted by rhaitz

the knife thing first, freaking a copy of the apple on TG,

No. he clearly said it came from the japanese

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[Wizegui]

It wasn't that bad. That 2CV segment just sucked (even more that the celebrity segment :O), but at least I've got something new to watch on Mondays. I gave it a 7.

[Ottobon]

Now you guys make me feel bad for giving it 8/10. Dono, I haven't really watched any Topgear or anything lately, so on the basis of "I haven't seen a car show in weeks" it was worthwhile.


Would love to hear reasons as to why people think it sucks, instead of just "SEX T0YZ LOLEROL"

[jaguarmark]

Watching that chef trying to cut that cucumber was mind numbing. He may have been having fun but i wasn't. Why don't they just go all the way and cook something in the back of a car and have done with it. Fifth gear is a weird programme they have one good feature and you think that the show is getting better then you see a show like this and think no I was wrong it's still full of nonesense.

I still haven't forgotten sporty spice when asked "What do you listen to in the car?" her reply was "Actually my new album". I really wanted to show her some boy power with my size ten's when i heard that. After today's show I'm dreading what crap they have thought of for the next celeb. I gave it one out of ten because it featured cars.

[Vette Boss]

On a pepper hotness scale, this is a sweet bell pepper. Not really exciting in any way.

[wooflepoof]

It seems like they're becoming a bit more TG in style and camerawrok(I've just only seen the first sgment so far)

[MadCow809]

First off, Lotus Exige S segment was quite nice, didnt know it has such an insane launch control.

I actaully enjoyed that celebrity segment. it was far better than some boring ones TG have.

CLK BS review was good, pretty much what i expected from Jason.

Overall.. i rekon a 7

next week looks promising : ) M3 v.s C63.

[blaznee]

I quite enjoyed that.. Most of the annoying Café antics were gone. I still don't like the "it's new, but is it any good" part, but that's about it.
Shootout was fun.. Trackperformance of real track cars - excellent
C-Crosser review.. Johnny is good - review it wasn't
Black Series.. It's Plato - not looking like a burn victim!
Heston in his 4th! M5 .. I like the celebrity part FG has come up with. It's a necessary evil IMO, and they've done the best they could..
New used car segment.. I quite liked that - especially if they keep up finding really neat cars at good prices like that.
I wish the Ecclestone part had been longer. There were some awesome cars there.

Compared to the last 2 seasons this deserved the 9 I gave it...

How to make it better? Let Plato do the shootout, Tiff the dreamcar and VBH the celeb part (Tiff is utterly wasted there - and VBH can instruct just as well). Johnny and Tom supply the wacky stuff and the info reviews.

[klutch]

I think Tiff should go back to Top Gear for their performance comparo's, since Jeremy is the only half-decent driver on the show.


As far as this episode goes...I don't give a rats ass about 'sensible' cars placed in the context of a marketplace; noone is going to watch this show for informative purposes towards a car purchase - they watch these for entertainment. Ditch the whole used cars/buyers guide nonesense. If you're going to feature sub-$20K cars, at least do something interesting with them, instead of babbling about interior quality and warranties.

[Shawn]

I'm sorry, but I wholeheartedly disagree. The only reason Fifth Gear has survived 13 series against the new Top Gear is because of the informational reviews they do.

Top Gear is all about awesome challenges and stunts, and they're good at it. Fifth Gear tried copying them and becoming more of an entertainment program, and it failed miserably. Now they're going back to doing less entertainment and more sensible car stuff, and that's the only reason anyone would watch FG while TG is still around.

Originally Posted by klutch

As far as this episode goes...I don't give a rats ass about 'sensible' cars placed in the context of a marketplace; noone is going to watch this show for informative purposes towards a car purchase - they watch these for entertainment. Ditch the whole used cars/buyers guide nonesense. If you're going to feature sub-$20K cars, at least do something interesting with them, instead of babbling about interior quality and warranties.

[Viper007Bond]

Yeah, Tiff's more boring. Not in a bad way really, but he's more to the point than "POWERRRRR!!!!111ONE".

The current line-ups are quite good.

[Jimi Hendrix]

Originally Posted by Handonam

No. he clearly said it came from the japanese

Before reading this I was going to post the same video. TG hasn't invented everything guys, even their cheap cars challenges were done by Car magazine years before Top Gear "mk II" started.

I liked this episode, specially the AMG review and the 2CV, that is a car I like a lot. TG is funnier (although is heavily scripted and repetitive these days) but in one show FG has as many reviews as TG in one season.

[Austere]

I really liked this episode. I think it was one of the best Fifth Gears I've seen in quite a while.

Is it just me or does Vicki not usually wear make-up or something? She looked different. Slightly hotter than usual. (yes, I know most of you loath her but I think she's lovely)

I liked the test of the Lotus and the Caterham. The shoot-outs are good fun. That Caterham walked all over the Lotus and I think it would have beaten it by even more if the track had have been dry. Seeing Vicki 'enjoying herself' in that Caterham made me go kinda firm.

The new Laguna looks very cool. I didn't even know there was a new one. Shame Renault are going to leave the Australian market again because their cars seem to be really improving. The Cadillac looks pretty woeful tho...

The Bernie Eccelstone segment annoyed me because nobody smacked him in the mouth even tho plenty of people got close enough to do it.

I liked the idea behind the 2CV vs Other Thing Who's Name I've Already Forgotten but Johnny just didn't quite make it work. He made the segment seem a bit slow when it could have done with being a bit more fast paced and snappy to mask the fact that it was pretty stupid. He has a very slow and measured way of speaking which dragged the pace down.
I swear he could have picked a better line when he tried to get the 2CV up the hill - I think it could have gotten further. it also would have been cool if he reviewed the car a wee bit more.

The Audi TT segment was informative. Can't really knock it for that. It's a shame that they gave that Ferrari to someone who wasn't me. Even more of a shame is the fact that the woman who won it looked like she'd never even left her house, let alone driven a car.

Vicki looked good in this episode.

The Mercedes-Benz CLK 63 AMG Black Edition has a pointlessly long name. The review was good and informative and full of good opinions and everything but meh, it was still kind of boring for some reason.

The celebrity segment in Fifth Gear is way better than the dead-boring SIARPC twaddle that Top Gear is peddling - If you must have a celebrity segment at least make more out of it than an opportunity for the viewer at home to go take a leak or fix themselves a snack, which is pretty much what SIARPC is.
I have no idea who that chef was but I enjoyed watching him learn to drift. And those knives? I want them! When was the last time Top Gears guest brought his own freakin' knives?!?

And no, they didn't steal the cucumber idea from Top Gear - Tiff himself said they stole it from a Japanese TV show.

I liked the whole thing! Some parts could have been better but overall I've got no major complaints.

So I really liked an episode and all the rest of you hated it... this is weird... it's usually the other way around... this is like backwards topsy-turvy world or some shit.

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[Handonam]

wtf twilight zone

anyway yea, they didn't do anything TOO embarrassing at this point. I think that's a good sign because it sounds like they might not dick around so much. Never know, though.

I'm looking forward to the tiff vs. jason h2h battle though.