[12x07] December 14th, 2008

[pepitko]

overall an excellent episode for me (9/10), just a few highlights:

loved the marina bit, and the morse code (to excite the interweb)

clarity review was excellent, very well written and also funny (beach girls ), Jay Leno's car collection is full of awesome and I liked his point about eco-cars saving fun cars.

Tom Jones disappointed, at first I was excited that a "big" celebrity was on the show, but he was so boring, and was there for plugging anyway...

[eizbaer]

Originally Posted by Spectre

Hydrogen is easily and cheaply made.... if you have nuclear reactors. It can even be made in your home!

hydrogen is NOT easily and cheaply made...
the amount of energy you put into making the hydrogen renders the whole deal inefficient. besides: nuclear power is not infinite. current calculations say that nuclear power will not last much longer than oil. most of the hydrogen available today is produced from fossil-fuel-energy... it doesn't work...
not yet anyway... nobody can predict the future... maybe there is a way hydrogen can be produced more efficiently and from neutral energy...

topic:
I was also disappointed by TJ. quite a boring bit of a chat...
better have less famous people on who make for good entertainment!

[negitek]

Seems like the Tesla section wasn't what we were told.

http://blog.wired.com/cars/2008/12/top-gear-fudged.html

[bmw745ion19s]

The touring car bit was cool as was the piano smashing the old junker

Other then that I think this is the worst Top Gear episode in a while. The execution was good but the products they chose to feature were absolute junk to me. BMW has had hydrogen powered 7 series around for years. I dont know many people who would chose an accord over a 7 series lol

I found myself at the end of the show asking when the real segments were going to begin.

5/10

[nate_bartlet]

just watched the episode this morning and enjoyed although it wasn't as spectacular as the previous episode. Enjoyable and interesting to watch.
The Touring Cars Anniversary thing was ok but since i'm not a fan of BTCC as clarkson said previously "put its hand down my trousers and have a little rummage."
The news was good and the bit with the One Show had me laughing. The Cock with the Audi rings had me in hysterics and the pork sword. great stuff.
The Tesla review was interesting but i kept thinking "he's going to hate it" not because its a eco-car but because in some reviews they start with the pros and then give the neg's. I'm not denying that its impressive stuff but its still at the forefront of cutting edge technology and can't be expected to be everything.
The attempt to break the Fifth Gear Caravan jumping record barely kept me interested only to see if Top Gear could beat Fifth Gear, don't know why they bother really since Top Gear beats Fifth Gear in every way (don't want to flame but its just my personal opinion).
The SIARPC was barely interesting and one of the few times in Top Gear where i skip ahead.
Finally the Honda Clarity, now before posting in here i had seen the other posts about this and quite frankly i'm going to side with James May on this one. Between this and the Tesla i'd have the Clarity. Purely on the grounds that its more practical. Much like what i said with the Tesla, this is cutting edge technology and much like the Tesla i'm sure the technology will be refined and made more practical. Like i said before in another post, Fossil Fuels will run out and its good to see that some people are thinking ahead and what's next rather than waiting for the fuel to run out and then run around cracking skulls open and drinking the gooey stuff inside.

8/10, good episode. not as solid as last week but still good entertainment.

[evoWALO]

The Clarity is so so much better than those stupid hybrids. It is a genuine step forward rather than a Hollywood fashion statement.

[tgbuddy]

I didn't like how Hammond taunted Clarkson about him liking Will Young during the awards segment.

Still, it was a good episode, especially when May tested the Honda Clarity, which looks and drives like a proper modern car despite it being run on hydrogen. (Not that is a bad thing)