[13x04] July 12th, 2009

[bahamut]

Originally Posted by Holiace

No season 10 though.

that's the point! After season 10 the level of the show is dropping and this series 13th is the weakest since the season 9 as someone have said. Really sad

[the Interceptor]

For certain the weakest episode of this season (which I like a lot) for me.

The Ford vs. Megane was very good. I loved how JC reviewed the RS, and all of a sudden, they just chucked the R26R in. Of course that was planned, but I didn't expect that. Great review. Oh, a pedantic bit: the magic about the RS's front axle is the construction itself (Revoknuckle), not the diff.

The Panamera vs. Royal Mail was ok, if a bit vacuous. I had the feeling it was shortened too much, there should have been more info on the car. Otherwise, they could have used pretty much every car for this, the Panamera didn't seem to have an actual point.

I didn't like the SIARPC guest, but that's just me. He was too much of a bigmouth to me. Maybe you need to be if you're as successful, I just can't stand such people.

And the Evo vs. Army was just weak. Scripted from beginning to end, and basically just an advertising film for the army. Using a lowered Evo on this kind of terrain was pointless, as the car demonstrated often enough. Also, seeing a perfectly good car being destroyed was painful. Okay, it would have been crushed otherwise, but come on guys, you can do better than that!

Overall a 6/10 from me.

[faluu101]

A solid 10, 500HP Evo getting shot at by tanks armed with live ammo, only way to make the episode better is if the tanks were driven by babes in bikinis.

The Usain Bolt bit was a let down, was expecting him to be more Jamaican, maybe he can learn a thing or two from Michael Phelps.

[controlspecimen]

Richard Hammond is really starting to annoy me. He speaks so quietly you can barely hear him, and his comments are getting progressively more inane and stupid.

Anyway, the episode was pretty lackluster. Again promising, but the execution left me cold. The Panamera race was particularly disappointing--I was expecting an epic race crossed with James and Richard in the Smart a few years ago, but no. No real funny comments, not much chemistry between the two, and Richard mumbled through the whole thing again. And we didn't get enough info about the car.

[cookiebun]

We need to be able to give half points!
Pretty good ep. I'm wavering, 7 1/2 to 8.
I thought it was great that they brought Richard and the Renault into the Ford review. Opening review with just Jeremy has become a bit too predictable.
Even I realize those two cars aren't comparable to one another: the Ford's a real road car tweaked up to be fast & powerful. The Renault's a road car that's been striped down to be a fast racing car.
News was good, James was a lot livelier than he's been in ages.
I liked the letter/Porsche race. I thought that Porsche was a pretty sharp looking car. James and Richard's banter/bickering was enjoyable.
Man, the British military has some pretty bizarre looking hardware
Jeremy was funny as always but I have to agree, the piece did seem to be a bit of P.R. for the army.
It did feature some music from one of my all time favorite movie sound tracks
The Fountain
http://www.amazon.com/Fountain-Clint.../dp/B000IU3YKU

[Ladamaha]

The army bit was plain rubbish. If you want to have a play with the awesome heavy machinery, why not invent something new, and not just recycle the old bits.... and live rounds and drug dealers, please...

[nuntius_deorum]

Apparently the drug dealer story was true...
http://www.lancerregister.com/showth...=271068&page=7

Poor evo

Liked the R26.R vs Focus RS, wish they'd made it a bit longer and more detailed, it was more worthy than the letter thing IMO

[newton]

I didn't like this episode. Nothing was interesting. And I still think the Panamera is butt ugly.

[Posmo]

I stoppped the video after watching 33 seconds and came here to vote the episode as a 10.

Quess why?

[Desertship]

Gave a 9.
Ford vs. renault was good and interesting. Prosche vs. Mail could have been better ( very few funny moments) but i quite liked it and some very nice views of scotland.
Sircap skipt after 10s.
Army bit, was extremly scriptet but i liked it,
So it was a 8 after all but i think a rated last week 8 and liked this more so a 9.

[Loomy]

Pretty average episode - 6/10. Focus vs "Renoul-t" was good, but the Porsche vs. letter race was disappointingly boring. Nowhere near the x-factor that Smart ForFour thing had.

Now on to the important stuff:
Holy SH*T! I can't believe the stuff about the drug dealer was true
What an utterly idiotic, caveman-like way of "punishing" someone. Why not sell it and give the money to, say, an anti-drugs organization? Not even Pakistan would do something as stupid as that, and they chop peoples hands off for stealing (or was that Saudi Arabia? Or Jordan? Anyway, you get my point). I'm just shocked by that, I really am. Here I was thinking it was a civilized country... Consider me disappointed.

[PettR]

I loved the episode! Even though the Panamera and Royal Mail bit was a bit too long and boring, I quite liked it. Probably because I'm working as a mail man now :p
I can't understand why no one else really liked this episode, the review of the focus rs and the r26r was lovely and much better than their last reviews of cars, (except the murcielago, but that was a bit boring :p) the news was great, especially when Richard said "carbotanium"

The SIARPC was fun, Jezza showing those pictures and quotes was great.
Really liked the Army bit, even if it was just the army showing off and wanting new recruits. Great machines. I've read a lot of Clarkson books lately and it's easy to see that he loves everything about the military, huge machines made to kill and stuff like that, so somehow all that information about Clarkson, and that I was thinking it was going to be as lame as when the army shot at him when in the porsche and the merc, but in fact was much better, just made it great.
10/10

[SpitfireMK461]

Carbotanium.

Titbon.

Entertained through the whole episode. That Focus is a beast, I'd love to get my hands on it. Putting the Renault in there was a good twist, especially as a way of showing how good the Focus is. Panamera grew a bit on me during that race. Definitely looks better in action than in pictures. Props to Bolt for a great lap. Of course that Evo race was completely staged, I knew it from the moment Jeremey said they'd use live ammo. But that had a chance to give a sweet car a proper send off when it was going to be written off anyways. A lot better than just giving a 20 second clip of Jeremey saying "The police gave us a drug dealer's Evo that has to be destroyed. So here it is *blows it up*". And that Trojan is

9/10

[be-ach]

For people going on about how the army bit was scripted, was I the only one who realized that was the case from the beginning, and understood the point wasn't playing British Bulldog at all but showing off some seriously kick ass vehicles? I thought they were awsome, and had they just done a bit talking about them and showing them wrecking cars or whatever, people would be complaining saying they should have been more creative. Take it for what it is, a segment about the technology in military vehicles. If you look at it from that point of view, it was a pretty cool segment.

The Focus/Megane review was really good. Even if I could get the Renault over here I would take that RS. Yeah it was two seconds slower, but I could also use it to get groceries. Not to mention those red decals on the Renault are pretty tacky.

The Royal Mail thing was good, has anybody been to that island off the south west where they started? It looked really nice. Also, discovering they've named a town after Piers Morgan in the Orkneys was interesting. That Panamara though I'd take the Maserati any day, or the M5. Or the GTR before any of them, for that matter. The Panamara is an ugly ass car. Reminds me of an old Chevy hatch back from the early 80s... can't place the name though.

Over all, decent episode. SIARPC was about what I expected, Usain isn't much of a talker but still reasonably entertaining. I gave it a 7/10.

[Torque]

6/10

Easily the worst episode this series for me.

Focus & Megane -- fairly decent as far as reviews go. I really liked the fact that they kinda unexpectedly chucked the Renault in there too; the bickering and racing was pretty good. Not the best bit of TG I've ever seen, but it's good.

News -- had some funny bits; I didn't really find anything horrifically wrong with it, although it wasn't really like the news segment used to be in the series that have gone by.

Panamera vs Royal Mail -- What exactly was the point of this race? The cinematography was pretty poor at best, all we got to see is Hammond and May in a car for 10 minutes. The car was barely even mentioned (I was under the impression it was going to be a proper road test), and honestly it all felt like it was rushed and done just to kill time. I would have rather seen Jeremy thrashing the car around on the track than this.

Usain Bolt -- Like his lap, not much else.

Army vs Evo -- what the hell is it with the army all the damn time? Also, the whole film was way too fake and dull to actually be interesting. Live bullets? Yeah, my ass.

I hope next week is better because honestly, I feel like this episode was a waste of an hour.

[jlmeyer420]

Originally Posted by be-ach

Reminds me of an old Chevy hatch back from the early 80s... can't place the name though.

Chevy Monza?
My uncle had one.

9/10 for me.
didn't care too much for the bulldog part
wanted to see the Panamera do a bit more than it did, maybe a lap on the track.
Good episode to watch though.

[stiggles]

Good episode, I think better than last week's. I think the race felt a bit rushed, they could've lengthened it a bit. Was a bit irritating how they teleported from Exeter to Birmingham, and from Manchester to Glasgow, but it was still excellently shot. Didn't care much for the car though.
Army vehicles were very cool, sneaky suspicion that the cool trucks would be of more use out in Afghanistan rather than fartarsing around on TV though. I hope the scumbag drug dealer was watching his car die.
RS versus R.26R was OK, standard JC/RH squabble.

Ps. Added a FG Wiki article, but it needs an appropriate screencap along with the sections for the news and the Bolt interview adding, because I wasn't paying attention then.

[waydee]

Focus vs. Megane made the episode for me, didn't really care for the rest and while watching Clarkson arse about in an Evo vs the Army is fine (even if a bit cringe inducingly fake) I can't help but feel they could have used the time for something better. It does seem like a stupid waste of a car, I'm all for confiscating ill-gotten assets like cars from convicted criminals but they should be auctioned off and the proceeds put back into the communities that may have been affected by the crime.

A decent enough way to waste an hour but hope this and last weeks episodes are the low point of the series.

[Donington]

Good, but the Panamera part fell flat for me. They expected to lose, and wow, they did.

[Tompie913]

Best so far in the series. Focus segment was very good, postal race was also very good, army segment was cool but not great. But the thing I like is that it's varied. The first two of the series weren't varied enough, and the last one wasn't as entertaining as this.