[01x05] December 19th, 2010

[01x05] December 19th, 2010

  • 10

    Votes: 10 5.1%
  • 9

    Votes: 38 19.2%
  • 8

    Votes: 67 33.8%
  • 7

    Votes: 41 20.7%
  • 6

    Votes: 15 7.6%
  • 5

    Votes: 9 4.5%
  • 4

    Votes: 4 2.0%
  • 3

    Votes: 8 4.0%
  • 2

    Votes: 2 1.0%
  • 1

    Votes: 4 2.0%

  • Total voters
    198
Wow, that was pretty decent, far better than what I expected after watching the first episode a few weeks back. The show actually made me laugh a little and was quote worthy possibly. Yes the main segment was a rip-off of the UK show but once I let that slide it was pretty solid on its own merits. This was also the first time I found Adam funny and I went from hating Wood in the first episode to actually liking him. Tanner gets a lot of slack but I like him on the show since he can drive bloody well, picks good cars, knows what a good handles like and takes a lot of slack form the other two.

Best parts for me:
Adam talking about his car at the start, he actually sounds like he knows what he is talking about unlike is SLS review.
"tanners a coke dealer" awesome!
Rutledge talking about the roadmaster, he was visually impressed and happy with his car in the intro.
When tanners car hit Adams, like it steered almost perfectly to hit it on its own?
Rutledge "O I got this" when he took on the 60%
"O its cold on the balls" in a girlie voice from tanner
when they tossed the cups on Adams car after figuring out who won in the soda challenge
"the breakfast club"
"you know what help me is a couple deep knee bends,get it right where you need it" best part of the show

Bad:
Studio segments were painful
egg fight, when they act like kids it seemed forced. On the UK show to me it never comes off that way.
Running into each-others cars, sorry but is uk's gag its pushing it a little too far when you copy that.
 
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Also, to everyone that keeps talking about how this was a copy of past TGUK episodes. That's kind of the point, you do realize that, right? If TopGear America was going to be all original, with original ideas, then why even call it TopGear? Why pay the BBC? The whole point is that they're making an American version of TopGear, so of course they're going to take advantage of it. They're going to look at all the good ideas TGUK came up with and take from them. It only makes sense, since they're paying for it anyway. The only hope being that TGUS survives and develops it's own identity, but that won't happen this season. Give it some time.

Exactly. This is very similar to what happened when The Office was brought from the UK to the US. The first season was basically an adaptation of the British version. This is to be expected from TGUS.

As for how to improve the show...dump the BSSC segment...it's horrible. Something has to go from the hour long UK version to the 45 min US version. I'd rather have the news and an extra car review or extended challenge then a short, disjointed, poor interview. Really, it's got to go.

Oh, and Rutledge is by far the best presenter. I know, I know...I'm surprised too. It's the complete opposite of what I thought would happen.
 
Holy crap, that wagon concept they showed at the end was absolutely gorgeous.

GM, please make this car.

I have to agree. I actually have owned a Buick which I loved. And to see it not only win, but actually drive away AFTER the water challenge was fantastic. :)

I know it was a rehash of the BL challenge, but I think they did it pretty good.

I was glad to see a news segment, but it should be longer. Having the show 90 minutes as said above to allow time for commercials would help.
 
I'm impressed at how well the Olds and buick held the water as well as held up to the weight.

I thoroughly enjoyed this episode. It's nice to see Tanner is no longer trying to act like "one of the guys from TG UK" and just being himself... which is just quiet most of the time. Shame Rutledge fucked up on the Camaro joke and ditches. Should have been "This is good news if you own a tow truck"
 
OK, I just spent an hour writing a reply, and the forum lost it. Strike two against the Finalgear.com forums (strike one was ignoring my request for access to the "greatest driving roads" section, my only reason for signing up to the forum in the first place).

I believe you have to be a regular poster on FinalGear before you can be accepted into that group. Otherwise they may as well list them all on the front page. Just be patient.

As for your post, if you're writing a mega long reply just make sure you've copied it before click submit, incase you've been logged out. In a topic like this however, I would try to keep things concise. Welcome anyway :).

Tomcat said:
Also, to everyone that keeps talking about how this was a copy of past TGUK episodes. That's kind of the point, you do realize that, right?
Understood sir, I just thought they could have altered it slightly. Even changing the order of the challenges would have been less deja vu. I also felt that the show was forming its own identity after the last couple of weeks, so I found the complete rehash suprising to say the least.

I also wonder if the TGUS creators are equally interested in the response of the TGUK fans, as they are of the rest of US public :|.
 
Understood sir, I just thought they could have altered it slightly. Even changing the order of the challenges would have been less deja vu. I also felt that the show was forming its own identity after the last couple of weeks, so I found the complete rehash suprising to say the least.

I also wonder if the TGUS creators are equally interested in the response of the TGUK fans, as they are of the rest of US public :|.

I guess the other thing to take in to account is that most of the audience (apart from those here on this forum) probably havnt seen to much of TGUK in the states - so to alot of them, it wouldve been a new experience

just my AUD0.02 ;-)
 
I guess the other thing to take in to account is that most of the audience (apart from those here on this forum) probably havnt seen to much of TGUK in the states - so to alot of them, it wouldve been a new experience

just my AUD0.02 ;-)
Yeah you're exactly right, which is why I still voted it a 7 - it just seemed a weird time to do it that's all. After they had a run of 2 or 3 eps where they did their own thing more or less. But as Tomcat said they may as well make use of all the TGUK bits they can. My only gripe with going down that path is that if they're gonna copy one episode, (on the basis that no one in their target audience has seen it) then why not remake an entire series? <_<.

I just thought it was a bit random, but I still liked it :).
 
I gave this a 6 because it was decent as a show, but I really wanted to give them a zero for wrecking what seemed like a perfectly good Roadmaster. I'm pissed.
 
Even though it was a rehash I enjoyed the episode. Just having a Fiero and a Roadmaster alone would of gotten it an 8. So far I am digging this show and I hope History orders a 2nd season.
 
The GM bit compared to the BL bit seems a lot less fake. The BL segment that TGUK did felt overly scripted, while the TGUS did not, heck even the fact that none of the eggs actually broke in the road master felt a lot more entertaining than the already leaky eggs on the BL segment.
 
All the episodes before this one left me with mixed feelings. Did some things well, somethings quite poorly.

This episode, however, was by far the best of the season. I enjoyed the episode from start to finish. Even Ferrara, who previously hadn't said anything interesting beforehand, was entertaining this episode. The episode borrowed the "ambitious but rubbish" sentiment but actually seemed to end up being useful. The roadmaster actually became attractive to me. The concept they finished with looked excellent and, if borrowing some ideas from european estate wagons, would be great for GM. Also, Tanner and Rutledge were great throughout. News segment was good, though far too short, and the interview was superb.

9/10
 
I'm more and more confident in TG US as a standalone show as they go by. The previous episodes were great and this one was surprisingly good given the fact that it was a rehash of TGUK's British Leyland episode. There were some weaker moments, but overall I enjoyed the show. Also Tony Hawk as a star :thumbsup:.

That being said, I liked the moonshine running episode with the mad Hennessey pick-up truck more, so 7/10 for this one.
 
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Finally verified on here.

This one was a 7/10 for me. Enjoyed it but others had been a little better.

Still think the show is sufferring by squeezing everything in a smaller amount of time vs TGUK, but maybe that is just an opinion of those who are use to the UK version.
 
As the former owner of 2 Fiero GT's I must say this was my favorite episode of the series so far. Wish the Fiero had won though, woulda loved to see their concept for a new one. The Roadmaster concept was great!

My first GT
http://img143.imageshack.**/img143/5987/gtforest.th.jpg
 
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On the last day of studio tapings, Rutledge tried to give me the Roadmaster. In fact, he begged me to take it, since it would actually cost them money to dispose of. I considered for about 5 minutes, until I realized just how bad the water damage was. Just sitting in the lot outside the studio it had at least 8 inches of standing water in it. Running or not, there was no fuckin way I was taking that thing, no matter how nice a piece of nostalgia it would have made.
 
I saw the new Top Gear UK episode just before this one. A mistake perhaps but god Top Gear America was awful in comparison. The "save GM" main segment was okey in parts but the end was just silly. "GM should make this car!" What? At least TRY to make it seem like you're kidding.

Big Star Small Car: They have really big stars, and not just "who is that English dude?"-stars like the UK version. Tony Hawk is famous everywhere but they still manage to make the segment suck! How is it even possible? That dude I've never heard about that directed Slumdog Millionaire was genuinely entertaining on TGUK, and the Tony Hawk interview was painful to watch. Incredible.

I'm surprised that TGUS isn't getting killed by criticism from my fellow FinalGears, guess there are a lot of Americans here... :rolleyes:
 
I had my doubts about the cast but it seems that they are working well together. First Ep, that all was right with the cast. The segments that lack are the New, Star in car, and anywhere that they are interacting with some one else other than themselves. They need to work on the fine details and eventually they could have a huge hit on their hands in a couple of years.
 
I'm positively surprised about US Top Gear. I had serious doubts they could pull it off, since Australia obviously failed so far.

I gave it a 7, because it was a rip-off and there is still some work to do with fleshing out the characters and their differences but I really like what I saw in the first 5 episodes.

Top Gear USA definitely has the potential of becoming a cult show, like Top Gear UK.

Now if they only can come up with some ideas on their own...
 
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