[12x03] November 16th, 2008

[stange555]

I agree with Crash Biker, it was okay.

Does anyone remember when Jackie Stewart taught JM to go round a track in a TVR? Not that it matters but he said to Mika that it was "last year".

The Finland segment was easily the best part of this show.

[SPG900]

Avantime Great that they brought this car back on the show. And the last stig lap looked stunning.

Actually I loved the entire show. And that's been a while...

[Aston Martin]

James that shirt again FFS.


Boring episode up until the Avantime... final lap, second to last corner.

[Dan9-1]

i think what happened with this episode is that hammond's veritas piece was too long (wasn't that meant to be this week) but the wheelchair was too short and they had to fill a bit so they got clarkson to do that bit of blending.

pretty good apart from whaleberg

[SPG900]

Originally Posted by Aston Martin

the Avantime... final lap, second to last corner. :O

yup, that was some great driving. you won't ever see an avantime going through a corner on three wheels again either.

[Wyvern]

Thank goodness it wasn't just me, I had a feeling I was going to be in line for an arse kicking if I said what I felt about tonight's show - but now it's clear that I'm not alone

First of all, I don't think any segment of the show was particularly bad and I thought James's trip to Finland was actually rather good. He seems to be breaking away from his "Captain Slow" moniker this season, and I look forward to seeing the promised power test later in the series. The blender bit did make me laugh, I'll admit, but it felt a bit out of place. Good to see the power chair thing finally making it to the screen (it was in the series preview in episode 11:1), though it might have been better shunted to another episode so there would have been room for at least one car review tonight! I quite enjoyed the challenge too, though worryingly, the Avantime did look quite appealing. Marky Mark was perhaps not the best SIARPC they've had, but I'm sure there have been worse.

And yet...

The whole thing felt bitty and cobbled together, and I'm finding the running gags a bit wearing (in the case of the jackets, no pun intended). After what I considered a near-perfect episode last week, this was a bit disappointing. However, I must remind myself that these days Top Gear is very much an "entertainment" show rather than the car show with funny bits it used to be. It just felt that the whole was less than the sum of its parts this week.

[Smörgåsbord]

The only thing I had a real problem with was the Dacia Sandero gag - I loved it but now it should be done already. Overall I gave the ep a 9.

[Ironlord]

File this one not under good, not under bad, not under ugly... but under that fourth heading called "strange".

The Toyota wheelchair: as soon as I saw that I figured it'd be the leftover bit from the series 11 preview. If it was filmed in Japan, where stayed on to have the Nissan GT-R smash him to pieces at Fuji, and ferried a couple of sumo wrestlers in a fake Roller, then, logically, what was up to at the same time? And when he said "you know, we've already had this in the UK..." did anyone else think of a Sinclair C5? I wonder if Sir Clive himself saw this episode?

Originally Posted by RichW

Very Tomorrows world which was also cack!

Go back and watch some old clips of Philippa Forrester again and then tell me it was cack. I win a hundred and twenty-twelve pints of stout if you can't do it.

Finland: in short, watch out world of motorsport, is coming to beat you all up. Unless you're Finnish. I was actually hoping Mika would get something wrong and shout "Perkele!" into the cameras with it getting through uncensored due to the prodteam having no idea what it means, but it was not to be... I'll have to go back and watch the ending of Learn Finnish With Bastards for my fix of Finnish road rage.
And, what is this business with giving his first "supercar review" (if that's how they put it); does his 252 mph run in the Bugatti Veyron not count? And what are they going to let him loose with?

The V8 blender: did this remind anyone of series 1?
Clearly, has been watching Bottom rather a lot ("the Bloody... Awful!") which countered with a half-reference to Red Dwarf ("it's put hairs on my eyeballs!") A further hundredandtwentytwelve pints of stout says 99% of watchers missed both of those.

Mark Wahlberg: didn't mention Rock Star once. Bugger. I was also hoping we'd see footage of him destroying the Lacetti the way David Soul and Lionel Ritchie did with the Liana.

Avantime: who was it who was moaning about them spending a load of the budget on brakes, tyres and suspension? Go back and watch 's The Good, The Bad, The Ugly video again and see which of the two Mustangs was faster round the track: was it the Shelby with its enormous power increase, or the Roush with its not-so-enormous power increase but uprated brakes and suspension? Answers on a postcard to anyone but us.

Stig's Morse Code message: ...and I had the spectrogram all set up and ready to record one. Bah.

I would have posted this sooner, but I was doing something as out-of-the-ordinary as this TG episode: I carried on watching the Dragons' Den behind-the-dragons programme afterwards. Mainly because it involved Levi Roots and his Reggae Reggae Sauce.

Originally Posted by Wyvern

Thank goodness it wasn't just me, I had a feeling I was going to be in line for an arse kicking if I said what I felt about tonight's show - but now it's clear that I'm not alone

***SARCASM*** "I don't agree with you! Have negative reputation!" ***SARCASM***

But seriously, it'd take the mother of all cataclysms to make me burst forth with an all-out "This is shit!" For instance, if anyone remembers the time some meddling busybody tried to turn TG into Third Gear and only ever talk about road safety and slowing down and saving fuel and praising speed cameras and... if they actually did this instead of pointing and laughing, as we'd expect them to...

[Aston Martin]

Originally Posted by Ironlord

I would have posted this sooner, but I was doing something as out-of-the-ordinary as this TG episode: I carried on watching the Dragons' Den behind-the-dragons programme afterwards. Mainly because it involved Levi Roots and his Reggae Reggae Sauce.

Yep, I hate Peter Jones though... soo far up his own arse.

[freefall]

Cool, cool, cool.
Solid 10/10.
All charming and not blatantly scripted, fun and nice.

This is a Top Gear episode after series 8 that I definitely will be rewatching some day. That says a lot!
Thanks for this, I thought this will never happen again.

[MXM]

SIARPC was weird and didn't fit the show at all.

Finland

Sadly no proper reviews at all this week. They need to keep the reviews damnit!

[ahpadt]

- The driving chair thing had no purpose for the episode tbh. They could've scrapped the video for all I care.
- The Finland bit was pretty good. Nice to see James getting involved in some racing for once - looking forward to his "power test" in a few weeks.
- All the studio stuff wasn't that great tbh. The news had no cars and that v8 blender bit was a bit ridiculous, but hey, thats prolly what it was ment to be. I don't know.
- SIARPC was pretty good. He didn't seem like a big petrol head tho, despite his Maybach and Merc.
- Renault Avantime improvement was quite interesting for a change. Too bad they didnt reach the target - even though it was a pretty insane target to reach with a car as boxy as that. If I had a big family, an Avantime like that would be wicked!
- No. Reviews. WTF?

[Donington]

Originally Posted by Ironlord

did anyone else think of a Sinclair C5? I wonder if Sir Clive himself saw this episode?

It was indeed my first though upon looking at it. A reversed C5 with the wheel at the back and a touch of Ipod.

I 'drove' a C5 once for a laugh, and it was shit. I'm sure the Toyota will catch on though, just like those segways we all ride to work, eh?

[DH777]

what did Hammond whisper after he drank the V8 smoothie?

[evans]

Hahaha, May interviewing Hakkinen was absolutely priceless - had me laughing for minutes

Overall a great episode I think, but it is quite obvious now with season 12 that the Top Gear of old times, which was mainly about cars and road testing and the occasional fun challenge has died. Like Jeremy said in an interview lately, it's an entertainment show with cars in it, not an entertaining carshow.

[Kangaroo]

Originally Posted by corradoboy

Actually, I had £2k of suspension mods on my otherwise standard 260bhp Impreza, and mates with 400-500bhp could not keep up with me either on track or on the road, unless there were big straights where their power could be used. Mind you, not many of them can keep up with me now either, even though I now drive a diesel Skoda

Although it should be said that the TG track is a power circuit.

I don't know why, but I just wasn't impressed by this episode. The walking chair bit was.. boring to say the least. And that intervju that Richard wasn't "able" to do was just bad. It just feels like TG is becoming a imitation or maybe even a parody on its former self.

The news, good as always. The Sandero was fun last series, not now. Drop the jacket thing. Cap'n Slow powertesting? I need to see that! The blender was sort of fun, because of James' face. Otherwise.. nah. Not TG in my world.

The Mika part was really fun to watch. Loved seeing James and the scandinavian flick plus Mikas facial expressions. It was interesting and gave me a view of how Finland can be so good when it comes to racing. Even though you need to drive in the dark and also on a skidpan here in Sweden, it's not really the same. Too bad, in a way.

The SIARPC was just.. bad. But still, Ross is off, so what to expect?

Trying to make the Avantime go faster was really fun to watch. It's actually an idea I've had for a while to, in the future, make a sort of wierd, comfy car in to a track car. Just to be sort of original.

Anyway, not an hour well spent of Top Gear time and effort. And except of the SIARPC the whole episode made me laugh or fascinated me in some way. But it wasn't put well together, unfortunately. But I suppose I was expecting too much this time. 7/10.

[Angry Swede]

That was fantastic!

The blender! Oh my god, the blender. I don't care that it was bloody stupid filler crap, I loved it! So funny.

I must say though that Mark Wahlberg was ok. Obviously completely without a clue as to what Top Gear was, and quite bored with the whole thing, but he was ok.... For an amerkin.

The Avantime speedy-uppy bit was hilarious. I know it might be a more or less scripted catchphrase but I can't help laughing whenever Clarkson wants to solve a problem with "a hammer!" Also May stealing the line was wonderful

9/10 'cause it was great, but didn't blew my mind.

Also: You go to the useless Finns and the utterly pointless Norwegians when there is a clearly superior country right between them! I demand this egregious error be corrected as soon as possible, Top Gear Team!

[DH777]

I'd liked to have seen a bit more of that "brazilian job"...

[Luca]

Someone put the review back into Top Gear please. Top Gear has always been funny. It's funny now too, but at a lower level.

[broben]

They should have taken the V8 blender and put it in the Avantime. Then they might have had a car that could manage a hot lap.