[03x02] October 26th, 2010

[03x02] October 26th, 2010

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    Votes: 1 1.7%
  • 9

    Votes: 4 6.7%
  • 8

    Votes: 18 30.0%
  • 7

    Votes: 16 26.7%
  • 6

    Votes: 8 13.3%
  • 5

    Votes: 8 13.3%
  • 4

    Votes: 2 3.3%
  • 3

    Votes: 3 5.0%
  • 2

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    Votes: 0 0.0%

  • Total voters
    60

TroyWK

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I'll keep starting one of these if the mods don't mind since they are busy sleeping. :p

Ok I will save my review til the ep has actually ended. But so far so good.

That V8 SC, even though i'm a Holden man- just awesome.
Hill climb i thought was good.
Studio stuff seemed better, especially how the thing fell down during the interview and they just improvised.
I enjoyed, ya pretzels.
 
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We saw more of the hosts mugs than scenery or driving during the hill climb - same as their Isle of Man drive. Wouldn't be so bad if they had something interesting to say.
 
YA PRETZEL.
YA PRETZEL.
YA PRETZEL.
YA PRETZEL.

Fuck I wish Shane Jacobson would shut the fuck up.
Not just the pretzel bullshit, but his voice is just irritating.

Apart from that, major improvement after last week.
Noticed they added in the news too ;-]
 
YA PRETZEL.
YA PRETZEL.
YA PRETZEL.
YA PRETZEL.

Fuck I wish Shane Jacobson would shut the fuck up.
Not just the pretzel bullshit, but his voice is just irritating.

Apart from that, major improvement after last week.
Noticed they added in the news too ;-]

Get over it ya peanut. :p

Edit: that was a joke... but swish.
 
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It was good, but there was very little interaction between the hosts.
It was good to see the SIARPC segment is a lot shorter, I don't care how Michael Clarke is doing that much, just see him drive
The news was meh, too short to be anything special
V8 Supercar in surburban Sydney - yes please.
The Chevy segment also felt very rushed
The hill climb was good, but nothing special.
 
Definite improvement over last episode. 8/10
Thought the hill-climb segment was good even though they were driving miss daisy. Prototype cars were interesting but would have preferred normal cars.
Reckoned the V8SC daily drive was great, 1hr warm-up was a bit of a shock. Also thought Ewen's Calder segment was ok too. (they should get rid of the lap time for it though, since it's NOT a roadcar)
Vette segment did feel a little rushed and as Steve mentioned, would have liked some turning done with it. After seeing winterbottoms car doing the lap the vette look way slow.
Good to see the news added and SIARPC/UTE shortened.

Hopefully the remainder of the season is at least as good as this.
 
You know what the problem is? They're not shooting whole shows all at once. I was there for the filming of Clarkie's interview and the news, but none of the other things. It makes the show seem very choppy and not at all smooth. And the hosts just aren't connecting in the studio. It looks like lots of different shows stitched together. Still too many ads, and thus very short segments which make a waste of some of the opportunities they have to embellish their stories more. I was really excited by the hillclimb but it seemed to fall flat. I still enjoyed what little they showed of it, as well as the V8 supercar segment, again Ewen's enthusiasm saves the day, but this episode just felt like it was lacking some spit and polish. 5/10.
 
Yeah, I know what you mean melbournian.

When I went to a taping they told us that the stuff they were filming in the studio that night would end up in 5 different episodes.
 
Looks like they'll be wearing the same clothes every week.
 
The UK boys seem to change clothes each episode. You might remember Jeremy once made a big fuss about suddenly wearing a different jacket (and, I think, its lack of remembrance poppy) when they used a previously recorded SIARPC segment.

But that's just like them, isn't it... treating their audience as intelligent, and making a joke about the situation ;) The TGAU boys probably swipe a bit of Brut 44 over their pits with a "she'll be right" attitude.
 
While I do think the new season is certainly much improved on the first season (I haven't seen the second), there is still a lot of missed potential.

I wouldn't call TGUK sophisticated, rather it is (usually) clever and treats the audience as intelligent. It appeals to a wide audience as the content is multi-layered.

TGA on the other hand, as has been noted here and on their blog, suffers from audience alienating "bogan-isation".

An example is Shane explaining he was going to use some 'boffiny satellite space thing' to measure his Corvette ZR1 0-100 times - why didn't he just get a VB swilling sheila named Shazza to call out, "one-fousan'n'wonnn... one-fousan'n'toooo... one-fousan'n'ummmm...."

As far as Quite Interesting information, I find the pre-episode posts on TGA's blog more informative than the show.

As Ewen regularly reads and responds to their blog, I started writing a comment - but after reading through previous comments with none of the coherent and thoughtful critiques addressed, thought I'd post it here instead:

For Race to the Sky, where was the brief history lesson? Its origin? Defining moments?

If host face footage is going to dominate these segments, why not use that opportunity to impart some knowledge? Sure Isle of Man may have fogged in, but grimacing faces can only stretch so far. Take a cue from TGUK: when they show us a face, that face tells us something interesting and/or humorous, all while the outside whizzes (or slides) past in the background.

So you're driving up a dangerous hill in NZ. Don't keep bleating that it's dangerous, we got that idea at the start of the segment: "It's dangerous... you'd have to be a crazy nutter to attempt it... certain death."

Show us stark images of those sheer one kilometre falls. Tell us how many lives have been claimed in pursuit of perfecting the peak. What about tales of impossible survival? You mentioned Possum Bourne in the pre-episode post, but nothing in the show.

And instead of sprouting lines like, "I wish you could be here experiencing this," why not act like we're in the car beside you?

Was the V8 Supercar noisy? Why not show us the neighbour's breakfast teacups rattling and local cats scuttling from the unholy howl as you fired it up? The toddler in the stroller with her fingers in her ears was cute.

Ever seen that Shell television commercial featuring the evolving line of Ferrari F1 cars driving on public roads? The NY cabbie and his coffee jump as the F1 car screams past; the Brazilian beach-goers snap their heads towards the sound of the screaming eight cylinders.


That's what we imagine a race car on city streets acts like, not 'Driving Miss Daisy' down the road at 40km/h. And just when you got on to Anzac Bridge and open it up, and it started sounding good, you were right back off it again, down into the slow streets of Ultimo.

And reverse parking outside the school isn't suspenseful - certainly not like Red Bull's NASCAR pit stop between traffic light changes in Times Square.



That's as far as I got. I was going to ask what was the point of the Corvette ZR1 segment. At the end Shane endorses it as "the best Corvette yet." Thanks mate, didn't know you knew your Corvettes in and out, but how do you buy one in Australia? What else should I be considering spending my $300,000 on? Not in a boring facts & figures Fifth Gear way, but an entertaining Top Gear way.

Again, I think they're doing an OK job, and I know it's not easy putting shows together... but there's still lots of room for improvement.
 
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I really enjoyed the new episode. Much better then last weeks. I see potential for much better episodes in the coming years. This episode almost reminds me on TGUK series 2 when May joined.
 
It was alright, watchable, but there's plenty of room to improve.
It's well made and the hosts are certainly progressing, but where's the substance?

The ZR1 review was somewhat pathetic in my opinion. It was just a creative interpretation of the press release. It was fairly obvious that Shane is not a journalist and hasn't had a career of reviewing cars. This is fine, and i'm not judging him based on his past experiences, but he's got to remember that secretly we want to learn interesting things, and not just hear deeply grumbled one liners. Why is it better than a 599? If it's a Ferrari killer because it's got more horsepower, then he's really taking a top-trumps shallow approach to car reviewing. I imagine his voice will get quite tiresome after a while as well. Too many one liners and grins. For want of a better phrase, he's acting cooler than he really is.

The hill climb segment lacked substance too. There was a lot of potential in that segment to talk about the roads and the cars, but all we really got was some footage of their faces and some nice shots of the cars driving. Again, too many one liners, not enough insights into their experience.

The V8 segment was very good. I learnt something and it was a quirky fun film. Ewen still needs some time to act naturally in front of the camera, but that'll certainly come with experience.

I feel Steve's doing fairly well nowadays. Originally I couldn't stand him, but he's a lot more comfortable in front of the camera now. One small criticism, he needs to stop saying things that jeremy clarkson would say. A few times he said something and left me thinking 'that's a Clarkson quote', or was putting on a clarkson-esque character that didn't quite seem natural.

One final thing - Stop playing up the situation. It's actually becoming quite laughable to hear them banter on about how dangerous everything they're doing is. The word death was thrown around a fair bit. By all means express the danger of the situation at the start of the film, but don't base an entire story around the sudden death you're constantly facing. It actually gets quite tiresome.

Other than those small things, I've got a fair bit of confidence in the show. Slowly they're getting better, but they just need to remember that we want substance, and not just pretty pictures and one liners.
 
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6/10

Not bad, I actually enjoyed the Supercar piece. First time ever for TGA.

I can't believe how much I got to see of Fawlty Towers in the ad breaks.

:)
 
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