[10x04] November 4th, 2007

Agree with the folks saying it was better then the American episode, though I love both this one's better IMO, and has slightly less scripting I think. Plus, driving across the spine of Africa is a lot harder then driving in South East USA.

Just hope the next one isn't a downer.
 
Fantastic episode... This wasn't the first time when JC bought the car that broke down all the time of the three. Remember the cheap Porsche challenge?
Looking forward to reading Hammond's article about the challenge in the magazine, although I have to wait for a month because the Top Gear magazine is delayed here by a month compared to the one in the UK.

I would think that the African Stig could be LH.

Looking forward to the normal Stig on public transport...
 
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Trollbooth said:
It didn't feel epic. The polar special and the American special felt epic. At the end it felt like you'd been on the trip with them. There'd been a slow, natural evolution. This one felt forced. In the American special Clarkson gave his speech about loving the camaro late in the show. He'd been through a lot with it. We had reason to love it too. With Hammond's car it was loved and named within 5 minutes. It felt forced.

I also wish we'd seen a bit of them searching for the cars. Get a sense of what they had to pick from.

I also wish we'd seen them doing more to get their cars fixed up after tearing them apart. The build process, and Clarkson's imaginative use of materials, would have made it a fun piece to watch.

I felt the music didn't live up to the cinematography. It looked great. It didn't feel great. You need good editing with good music to turn good cinematography into a great film and it didn't happen here. I think the R8 review is a good example of what I'm on about and how a good piece of film becomes great with the right editing and sound.

The ending was limp. You need a good 30 seconds to conclude the film in a way that makes me feel it was epic. Think the ending to the Veyron/Jet race or the search for the best driving road. Or the American special with it's review of the cars over the course of the drive. Something to sort of cement the feeling that this was epic.

That's not to say it was horrible. It was fine. It just didn't feel epic to me and I've come to expect that from TG. I'm just spoiled, I guess.
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This is an absolutely spot on review. That's the feel it was missing; it was not epic. I also got the sense that it was forced too. I completely agree, at the end of the American special, it felt as though we had been sitting right next to the boys and were as attached to the cars as they were. With this special, everything felt very forced. They were in some ways trying to re-kindle the magic of the American Special, but I just dont think it was possible in this special. For example:

Randomly writing on the cars with paint. My take on this was them trying to re-enact the famous challange from the american special, except this time they did it completely randomly and for no reason at all.

Slamming in to each other as they drove on. Again, one of the funniest things about the american special was Jezza and Hammond relentlessly slamming in to James' boat. It seems they were trying to get the same laughs in this special but it just wasnt there.

Being attached to their cars from the get go. By the end of the american special, they were in love with their cars, but it was because they were on a fantastic journey. In the african special they were going on about them before even really spending a lot of time with them.

Being in paradise with their pals at the elephant water hole. This reminded me of the camp scene in the american special, where they were saying they were having a great time out in the country with their mates. This time it felt very forced and it seemed they were just saying it to say it.

It's very possible that I'm reading in to all this way too much as I havent slept in a good while now :lol: But oh well.

Take no offense Top Gear, it was still a great episode, but I dont think you can re-capture the magic of the american or polar special with out really taking a good look at what made them so special in the first place.
 
As opposed to some other people here i think it was EPIC. It was funny as hell, the guys were brilliant, the cinematography was amazing as always and it really did feel special, especially the salt plains bit. No TV show made me laugh so hard for a long time and I just adore this show! love it to death.

God that was a good episode!
I'm gonna go watch this episode about 15 more times now.
 
For the most resent three years (in a row), the TG car of year are all won by car from VW VAG.
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Golf GTI, Veyron and Gallardo Spyder?

I love the way in which that Beetle was always lurking, smugly, in the background, like a die-hard Nazi... Comparison is in order because, as it seems, the British see them as Hitler's car.
 
my english is not that great, but did hamsters said that moskvitch was based on kadett that he was driving? if so, he is wrong, its the earlier model that russians
stole the plans and machinery from opel during WWII and made there own version..
but "oliver" was great!
 
vikiradTG2007 said:
Golf GTI, Veyron and Gallardo Spyder?

I love the way in which that Beetle was always lurking, smugly, in the background, like a die-hard Nazi... Comparison is in order because, as it seems, the British see them as Hitler's car.
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I loved that also, almost made the car seem alive. I guess that's called personification, see I did learn something in English class.

As for the VW Beetle, besides being Hitlers car. I have a friend who owns several of them and describes them being like cockroaches, no matter what you do they just keep going, you can't kill them. I think that was represented very well in the video.
 
I think it was a good episode, not the best but it was worth watching. Unfortunately, I didn't see the American special(btw. is there a torrent for it?), so I have nothing to compare. Episodes like that make you really think about buying such cars :lol: But you wouldn't be allowed to damage them here, or should I say, make them less heavy... and that's the funny point about it.
Well, all in all it was a very nice Sunday evening again. I'll miss it when the series is over.

Cheers.
 
I was surprised that Hammond picked the Opel Cadet, and more surprised that it basically won. I thought the 40hp wouldn't be nearly enough for this. But I guess the African deserts are pretty much flat, so as long as they have a reliable car it would work. Clarkson should've picked a 2WD Nissan or Toyota truck, it would've been much more reliable and the bigger tires would cope with the salts a lot better. Overall, good ep.
 
Polish said:
This is an absolutely spot on review. That's the feel it was missing; it was not epic. I also got the sense that it was forced too. I completely agree, at the end of the American special, it felt as though we had been sitting right next to the boys and were as attached to the cars as they were. With this special, everything felt very forced. They were in some ways trying to re-kindle the magic of the American Special, but I just dont think it was possible in this special. For example:

Randomly writing on the cars with paint. My take on this was them trying to re-enact the famous challange from the american special, except this time they did it completely randomly and for no reason at all.

Slamming in to each other as they drove on. Again, one of the funniest things about the american special was Jezza and Hammond relentlessly slamming in to James' boat. It seems they were trying to get the same laughs in this special but it just wasnt there.

Being attached to their cars from the get go. By the end of the american special, they were in love with their cars, but it was because they were on a fantastic journey. In the african special they were going on about them before even really spending a lot of time with them.

Being in paradise with their pals at the elephant water hole. This reminded me of the camp scene in the american special, where they were saying they were having a great time out in the country with their mates. This time it felt very forced and it seemed they were just saying it to say it.

It's very possible that I'm reading in to all this way too much as I havent slept in a good while now :lol: But oh well.

Take no offense Top Gear, it was still a great episode, but I dont think you can re-capture the magic of the american or polar special with out really taking a good look at what made them so special in the first place.
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I agree as well. Overall it was a good episode and certainly had its funny moments, but it felt lacking somehow. I wanted to see them in their quest for a vehicle in Botswana. Would have been curious to see how that worked considering their selection there was not going to be as good as it was in Miami.

I say they should try this one more time, but this time do Australia and make it real epic and go from Sydney to Perth. It'd be a good mix of the American and African specials. They'll have plenty of car selections and maybe more to do (Botswana seemed real sparse despite the incredible landscape) and a very rugged road trip across the continent with more incredible scenery.
 
Hammond says in the magazine that he picked Oliver out of an African edition of Autotrader. It was a different format this time, so they did things a different way. Live with it. :p
 
speedometer said:
my english is not that great, but did hamsters said that moskvitch was based on kadett that he was driving? if so, he is wrong, its the earlier model that russians
stole the plans and machinery from opel during WWII and made there own version..
but "oliver" was great!
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No, he named several other cars that were inspired by the Opel, not the other way around. :)

mautzel said:
Fill us in, please as I won't get my hands on the current magazine! :) (Perhaps with spoiler tags - just in case)
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He fell in love with Oliver, and has arranged for him to be shipped to the UK. At the time of writing the article, Oliver was due to begin his journey in a few days, so he's probably arrived by now. Hopefully he won't find the British autumn too much of a shock after all those years in Africa. :)
 
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