[11x03] July 6th, 2008

[jo-jo-action]

I love the Episode! solid and fun.
BTW, Oliver spotted!!:
46.05 and following minutes!!

[Holiace]

Originally Posted by jo-jo-action

BTW, Oliver spotted!!:
46.05 and following minutes!!

YAY

[mitza4rally]

+ YouTube Video

[Viper007Bond]

I voted 8, although it's more an 8.5 or maybe a 9. I was laughing my ass off all through the Alfa bit, but nothing truly epic deserving of a 9-10.

Great, great episode though!

[Desertship]

The Episode was quite cool, but i think the worst of the season. The Brooklandstest was good but as said not approriate to the car to test it on a track. The alfa challange was a disapointment I laught a lot, but they didn't even tried to win the challange specially Jeremy just bought a rubish car. And the hole "I crash my mate"-thing was still funny but they should looking for new jokes. I think the last episode, was a lot better, because they also did idotic things, but they were doing it about cars! In the Sum it was a 7.5

ps: Sry for my language didn't use my english activly for month
pps: Didn't mis the TopGearStuntman

[MacGuffin]

It was a solid average episode but I cannot shake off the feeling that they had their best shots in the past and continue repeating themselves. The part on the track day was overlong and the challenge as a whole looked uninspired and lacked originality. It would have been much more fun showing how the judges inspected the three cars more closely. By the way: Was the Stig ill tonight or why wasn't he involved?

The show lost a lot of its spontaneity, too much looks staged and the SIARPC section lost its charm with boring guests. So far none of the guests of this series had anything interesting to say.

I have the distinct feeling that they need to do some major changes of the concept, maybe go back to the roots again, when they were actually just petrolheads doing petrolhead talk with some real road testing involved and not celebrities who are constantly looking for a role to fit the image they developed in time.

[Holiace]

Originally Posted by MacGuffin

It was a solid average episode but I cannot shake off the feeling that they had their best shots in the past and continue repeating themselves.

Yeah, true. They overdid it. Good thing taht James got sick of it!

Originally Posted by MacGuffin

The show lost a lot of its spontaneity, too much looks staged and the SIARPC section lost its charm with boring guests. So far none of the guests of this series had anything interesting to say.

Also true, they have had interesting guests on before (one or two ever season)

Originally Posted by MacGuffin

I have the distinct feeling that they need to do some major changes of the concept, maybe go back to the roots again, when they were actually just petrolheads doing petrolhead talk with some real road testing involved and not celebrities who are constantly looking for a role to fit the image they developed in time.

Yeah, they need to change the show a bit, even since 2002 (when the first season was aired in the new "style" it was very different from what it is now!).

Maybe be a bit more like then and a bit less... SIARPC.....


ALSO: They could've gotten alfas in much better condition for £1000 if they'd have gone for a "normal" model. But you know, ambitious but rubbish!

[taxicity]

This was the best one so far in the series. Alfa challenge was superb, I laughed my lungs out. And I just want that Bentley (and I'm not old ). Even though I think they should present at least one more car, that's a perfect 10 from me.

[Wizegui]

Gave it a solid 8. Rob was just not as funny as he was when he first starred as a guest, and the fat guy really annoyed me. The Alfa challenge was a bit too similar to the other challenges, but I liked the Bentley Brooklands review. I just wished they had more segments. I think the Alfa challenge segment took up too much time.

[Cobol74]

Strong 8, yea.

[klankymen]

damn, I wanna watch this ep... but I had to work when it was aired, and iPlayer isn't working, and the torrent is going really slow (no wonder, with 104 seeds, but 11600 leechers)

[epp_b]

7/10 for me.

The Brooklands review was pretty good, classic Top Gear

This "Internet" thing Clarkson has going on is becoming a classic in the making. I also love May's "Great News" thing.

The Alfas segment was somewhat predictable, but defintely good for some laughs.

[aerodynamic]

Could anybody tell me what is that Jeremy is showing about the "internet image"???
From people's reaction seems quite heavy.

Anyway, i loved this episode and as many others.
James reaction is understandable, his car is always hit by the other two.

[epp_b]

Could anybody tell me what is that Jeremy is showing about the "internet image"???
From people's reaction seems quite heavy.

I know there are people here who attend the live showings, so they ought to know!

[Ottobon]

I'm happy i watched it and all, and there were good moments through and through, but I'm quite bored with the failure in the cheap car challenges. Part of that might just be that i like Alfas. Wish they would have at least tried to show how nice the 75 sounds, o well. Might also be worth mentioning that when i saw pictures of the 3 at the concourse event and then read Jeremy's Porsche Boxster article describing the ordeal it made me think they were going to have a epic part about how nice properly kept Italian cars can be, but that never happened

Honestly, when Jeremy said (at the end) "As a car lover i can't think of anything i'd like more" i wasn't sure if i was supposed to laugh at sarcasm, or take him seriously, or. I don't know.

My biggest problem was that the show didn't make me feel one way or another, i honestly wasn't sure 1/2 the time during the Alfa Challenge if something was good, bad, funny, right, wrong, etc. When the Alfas ran they should have done everything possible to make me feel elated, and when they finally fell apart the opposite should have occurred, but honestly i felt like nobody gave a rats ass one way or the other.

EDIT:After reading Wilmans blog i think i may have just been being a scrooge.

[Hussar]

Best of season so far. Even fairly good guests.

[LurkerPatrol]

10/10 for me, but I'm hoping that some other episode in this series will trump that.

Loved the Alfas, the vid for the brooklands was beautiful, and the SIARPC finally wasn't boring! Woot!

[YicklePigeon]

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.

[Ilpav]

Pretty good episode, but not the best of the series.

The Bentley review was pretty good. The news was great, as always. The Alfa challenge was really funny, but not the best cheap car challenge. The SIARPC was the best of this series, but still nothing special.

I didn't miss the TGSM, but I did miss the Stig. Is this the first episode where the Stig wasn't involved at all?

I gave it a 8/10.

[skylock]

9/10

It ended way to soon. I wanted to see more.

Oh yeah, James clearly won.

And Hammond is lucky to still be alive.

Was the Hammo on Hammonds helmet on purpose?

After reading here today, I wasn't expecting much, but I laughed out loud. More than once.

I think that Bentley will be a good seller for diplomats and presidents of small countries.

Stars in the Car. Oh Dear. For a part that I usually like and have defended several times, I have to say, I do not like either a) the stars they are pairing up or b) the fact that 2 just don't really work.