[20x01] June 30th, 2013

[20x01] June 30th, 2013


  • Total voters
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Chemistry is so important in a format like Top Gear, so I hope we see more examples of witty banter to supplant the three together doing crazy stuff.
 
Lots of people will say that you can't please everyone, and that is definitely true. However, the polls don't lie. The most selected rating is a 7. Only 15% gave it a 9 or a 10. For Top Gear, that's bad.
A 7/10 score means about 3/4 of us thought it was only 3 points from perfection - far from a dismal score even for TGUK. I think many using the scoreboard leave little room for the occasional Botswana, North Pole or Reliant Shuttle, so they dish out 9 and 10 far too regularly, IMHO. There's effectively no points left to differentiate the great from the good.

This episode hardly deserves to share a spot with Botswana, etc., but some have scored it the same. Others thought it was down there with the India special, which most agree was awful. So I think the polls do lie a little - there's no rules on how we're supposed to score.

As for the TGUS vs TGUK - that's a personal preference that's far too dependant on your country of origin and what TGs you've seen before. A long time TGUK viewer has bouts of deja vu watching TGUS, while it's all funny and new to most of the US audience. It's something best debated in another thread.
 
Lots of people will say that you can't please everyone, and that is definitely true. However, the polls don't lie. The most selected rating is a 7. Only 15% gave it a 9 or a 10. For Top Gear, that's bad. Most of us have echoed the same feelings I had about this episode - The hatchback test was the only thing people consistently said was good. Lacking in information, yes. But, it's now a worldwide show so facts and trim options are meaningless talking points because they aren't universal around the globe.
The Final Gear forum polls tend to cover a very limited subset of the viewing audience, mainly those who have a well above average interest in cars and the show.

Besides, whilst only 15% of the polled audience gave it a 9 or 10, add in the 8s and that figure jumps to 40.66%. Add in the 7s and it goes to 75.46%. In other words, 3 of every 4 people thought it was worth a 7 or more. The average score was 7.19: not absolutely amazing, but not a disaster either.

And, interestingly, people seemed more tolerant of this scripting level in 2006!
 
The problem is the production. Before, it was just the three of them doing stupid stuff and it was fun to watch. Nowadays, there are thousands of people working on the show, among whom writers, art directors, comedians, lawyers, award-winning filmmakers and god knows what else.

If they were to remake the US special from 2007 half of it would just be a bunch of scenic shots in high definition with a background of cheesy hipster music and a bunch of scripted lines.

I can't imagine how you could possibly enjoy yourself when there are hundreds of people watching over your shoulder and telling you how to do your show.

The presenters are still great. Hammond's James Bond DVD was brilliant and everything May does outside of Top Gear is fun to watch.
 
Not a bad episode to me, but it isn't very standout either. I don't regret watching it, but I don't see it becoming a hit in reruns and rewatching. It will just be one of those episodes that fades into history, rarely recalled.
 
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a.ka "most distracting audience member" thread
 
The parts of James on the Oracle Team USA yatch was pretty funny the bits with Jeremy was pretty lame in parts but some of it was pretty funny I liked the bit at the end with James and the blue car now being a red car
 
Boring episode. I thought the episodes earlier this year were quite good. This one was a stinker. The SIARPC picnic bullshit thing is tired out. Just introduce the car to the audience and get on with it. These skits are tiresome. 4 out of 10.
 
I'm going to give TG the benefit of the doubt and assume I was in a bad mood at the time of viewing for this ep and 20x02 because I thought it wasn't that entertaining.

Plus I was hoping for Jeremy to be doing the race in (or on, considering how they are over there) a crazy-Kiwi backyard special like the trio of Rexy-based vehicles TGA used in the Race To The Sky.

I'm giving it a 5/10 for the hot hatch comparo.
 
Did anyone else notice Freddie Prinze Jr's doppelganger in the audience near the end of the show?

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6/10

What I liked: Hammonds-Hot-Hatch-Hooning. Despite not agreeing with the verdict - a good piece. Cars of interest, compared. Sounds like a winning forumla, note to Top Gear: DO MORE OFTEN.

What was bad: Celebs on the track.

What was sort of meh: New zealand challange & the news related segment.

Not a promising start to the series.
 
8/10

I'm so damn easy.

I loved Hammond's hot hatchbacks review -- best part of the show.

The news: seen better, but got some chuckles here, too.

The NZ race: Scenery fantastic, James getting battered by waves got major sympathy points, but I am more than a little tired of Jez doing the old "fossil fuels vs. eco-power" stuff. I'm not sure *he* even believes it anymore.

The RPC picnic: I actually enjoyed it a lot. Didn't think I would, but Charles Dance was a nice surprise, Warwick Davis (once he and Richard worked out the accommodations) did a nice job on his lap, and Hammond running away from Mike Rutherford was a complete LOL moment.
 
8/10 as well - apparently, I'm also pretty easy...

While the hot hatch review did have a touch of "who let the film students go nuts with the visual effects" about it, I enjoyed it. It's always fun to watch little cars like that do their thing, and do it well. The enthusiasm that Richard (and later, Jeremy) showed for the Fiesta seemed quite genuine - when was the last time that those two both gushed about the same American car? (And, no "American cars corner like crap" jokes for once - quite the opposite.)

The news was...over quickly, and unremarkable. I agree with those who wonder why it was so short, given that it's the first of the series and presumably would need to cover more ground than news segments in later episodes.

New Zealand is lovely, no surprises there. I'm one who would rather have seen Jezza beat the bejeezus out of an ordinary car than baby a supercar over those roads - I know those are fragile, but I liked seeing how far he would push the Corolla. The "accidents" were obviously anything but, which was somewhat jarring. Spouse was looking forward to seeing the Oracle boat, as he's recently become a yacht-racing fan. Poor James...as we watched him get the stuffing knocked out of him for hours and hours, I thought back to his balsa-glider Toy Stories special last year and the easy sailing he had in that. He looked as if the wetsuit was the only thing keeping him from collapsing into a pile of goo at the end, so I don't mind his complaining about the ride - he certainly earned it.

Breaking in the Astra was very similar to the previous iterations of new-RPC, so we pretty much knew what to expect. Yeah, I grinned like an idiot as soon as Brian Johnson showed up - he's a lot of fun to watch on this show. Warwick Davis was good watching, as well, and his parts were solid. But this segment was where the forcedness seemed to be most obvious; Richard's awkwardness around Joss Stone and hiding from Mike Rutherford was a bit much. (Rather have seen the three of them jamming with Jeremy, honestly.) It was nice to see Charles Dance again - I've been a fan for decades.

So, a solid, if unspectacular, episode for me. Still happy that it's back!
 
Average episode at best.

I havent understood this part about the race when Jeremy was mentioning couple of times how he is using the fastest car in the world etc.. for a while I though there is some kind of catch involved, but it end up nothing...
 
[...] I havent understood this part about the race when Jeremy was mentioning couple of times how he is using the fastest car in the world etc.. for a while I though there is some kind of catch involved, but it end up nothing...
It?s a hire car thing. Because it?s not yours, people don?t worry about them and generally hoon them around. Like he said somewhere at the beginning "when did you just take your own car up to the red line?" ... with a hire-car, no problem. You don?t worry about the sort of stuff you would with your own property.
Also the reason why people tend not to buy second-hand hire cars ... because you just know they probably have been "abused" ...
 
It?s a hire car thing. Because it?s not yours, people don?t worry about them and generally hoon them around. Like he said somewhere at the beginning "when did you just take your own car up to the red line?" ... with a hire-car, no problem. You don?t worry about the sort of stuff you would with your own property.
Also the reason why people tend not to buy second-hand hire cars ... because you just know they probably have been "abused" ...

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I'll have to go with the flow and say "average episode." Not bad, just average. The NZ segment certainly had lovely scenery, but as a race it didn't work. On one side you have an uncomfortable James going hell-for-leather in a boat piloted by an obviously dedicated crew; on the other you have Clarkson larking about and taking his time with staged accidents, detours, and frequent stops. A race doesn't work if the tension is only on one side. And it really doesn't work if you're left wondering whether the side that lost might have won if they'd taken the whole thing a little more seriously.
 
This would have been a better episode if they hadn't done lots of what they did before already.

- the series montage is fun as always, but Jeremy always introduces it the same way, which is getting old. In my humble opinion they should either make this a running gag or a tradition. Now, it's a piece of the show they hope of that you don't remember last season's version.
- hot hatches was good as an idea, but I wished for a longer segment with more content (and more cars?) and less eyecandy. It was beautiful to look at, but the visual effects reached a level where they prevent you from actually seeing what's going on. Also, there was little content. It was like a news flash about the stats of each contender, then Richard having a spin and saying which he likes most. It was like they sold us a preview for a review.
- news was not bad at all even if there wasn't much car talk. I liked it, it didn't feel as badly scripted and penis-joke-y as in earlier seasons
- I understand the point of the boat vs. rental car race, but the execution was a bit lame and felt too scripted for Jeremy's part. James was "excellently miserable" if you know what I mean, he was good. But Jeremy's part felt very forced. I'm sure they could have squeezed much more out of this idea if they had wanted to. It leaves me a bit disappointed regarding they went around the world to do this.
- the introduction of the new reasonably priced car also was too much of a carbon copy of the previous event of this kind. I must stress that with a proper indroduction of this piece, it wouldn't feel so painfully obvious. Also, I don't think an Astra is the right car - why not go for a Dacia since they're the bang-for-your-buck-kings right now and Top Gear is making fun of them anyway?

Overall it was okay, didn't feel as badly scripted as the previous seasons. All in all however, it was a bit boring because we've seen most of this done in almost exactly the same way. 6/10.
 
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i enjoyed this episode so much i actually fell asleep during hammonds segment, in my opinion hes nothing without the others, most of it was ok, i liked the starpic and the news was hit and miss. I gave it a 5 pretty much because i fell asleep, and the thing is, i wasnt even tired.
 
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