I found the episode felt like it was over fairly quickly, however, as a review here I go:-
Starting off with the Bentley review of which I quite enjoyed. The sedate first few minutes of the review going over the details along with the humorous overview of the materials and time it needed to be built with then focusing the next few minutes of frantic powerslides and speed.
Moving on though, the news felt quite short in length - although unlike other episodes I did appreciate that the lead-ins to the next feature had been preserved (rather than just talking about it and a sudden cut to the film as in the past two episodes, no doubt for time).
The SIARPC section was somewhat boring, as others have said the stars didn't really have anything to say nor any real promotion of what they were doing (although I know it's oft been stated that they can't promote anything due to BBC rules and regulations, but remember Simon Pegg's interview from series 9 with that brief clip of Hot Fuzz?) - however I persevered and found it to be funny. But not
that funny - I was certainly happy it was over and back to the challenge.
And ah yes, the Alfa challenge. It started out quite well, with James actually buying one in fairly good condition and that it worked, Jeremy for buying one that was reasonable but looked to me as boxy as a Volvo 240 saloon and Richard for buying one in a crap condition simply because it was a Spider.
I also liked that they done something different with the challenges, the track day was quite interesting...but I'm sorry...no wait I'm not sorry, because I really do quite detest Jeremy & Richard bashing into James' car. It was funny a few years ago, but it isn't now and personally I'd have done more than simply unhook Richard's car when they were on the way to the concourse (although just before this I was "telling" James through my PC to unhook Richard's car!) - yes, I was definitely on the side of May.
Y'see, the thing is though this wasn't a case of the White Van Man test or the even older "buy a car for less than ?100" test where it didn't matter what the vehicles looked like so long as they worked...or "worked" depending on one's point of view. James probably would have won if they hadn't crashed into him so many times and the cheese incident was just childish and insipid.
It's the same every time "lets play a prank on May!", I didn't like it in the last series with the Africa special and was highly amused in the African special when the cow's head ended up in Hammond's tent (hah! A taste of your own medicine!) - it's a very tired and cheap way to get a laugh.
Overall, my distaste for the May bashing taken into account, I did spot Oliver as well in technology centre (with his "all adders are puffs" painting on it - which it didn't have in the last episode of series 10 during the awards if I recall correctly) and I did like that Jeremy and Richard's Alfa's were miserable failures and the dig Jeremy got at Richard for the burnout and no crashing was involved.
Rating: 7/10.
With regards,
Yickle.
