Duel - discussion thread

[WillDAQ]

Oh come on, it had the Ferrari California being ragged round a track.. everything else is just a niggling after thought.

[ALXBWSCREW]

At the start of the DVD he said it would be for us petrol heads. And when mr clark wants to do something serious it turns out brilliant. Unfortunately it was the usual rubbish. The only parts I like in fact were the ones with Tiff and the Drifting. The rest is just rubbish to fill up your time with. 3/10
Also, Clarkson's repetead praises on Aston Martin are dragging me up the wall and as a result I know hate Aston and most of the british car manufacturers. They just aren't presented objectively.

[nolimitz]

I did not really like it..only the california part was nice, I expected it to be better.

[Donington]

Another thing, I just hate seeing the Defender get blown up. Not only was it the nicest out of those off roaders (although I was happy to see the Niva survive) but IMHO killing a Land Rover Defender is right up there with kicking a bulldog while pissing on a picture of the Queen. Just.......NO!!!

[nameless1]

the dvd was so bad that i regret for not paying the whole price in the first place to not watch it at all

[RedAero]

Can we get a poll up?

[SVTWANNABE]

It just felt too much like Supercar Showdown -- mainly because of the soundtrack and the venue (namely the Ascari track).

I got a kick from the Off-Road Celeb and Tiff/Vicki segments.

Still, a decent car video.

[Aston Martin]

Bring back Da-da-daaa da-da-daaaa da-da-da-da-DA-daaaaaaaaaaaaaahhhh.

[ninjacoco]

Meh. Wasn't the best, wasn't the worst--and it still beats 99.99999% of the car shows here.

Hated the music. Thought a couple segments dragged on a bit (the Scorpio and powersliding bits) and needed to be edited down shorter. The title slides during the Lambo race looked like they came out of a freshman film project where someone's just learning Final Cut. Some of the bits seemed predictable and a bit too obviously scripted (all shows like this have some scripting, but the point is to do it so folks don't notice), but overall: still kinda fun.

One of my profs said that peoples' attention spans tend to drift off after about six minutes on one topic in a presentation. I think that bit of advice might've helped Duel out a bit--change topic or add some kind of twist in every six minutes or so, or at least when it starts to lag. It shouldn't have taken that long to drop the Scorpio, for one (and for pete's sake, the Taurus from a few years ago would've been a much better, froggier, looks-like-it-melted-in-the-sun kind of candidate for a Ford drop).

I, too, would've liked to see more happen with the Fifth Gear vs. Top Gear bit. Yay for a Tiff and Vicki appearance! Hahaha, Vicki's tits to the rescue!

The off-road segment was fun. I didn't actually expect the cars to explode at first, but then I remembered: duh. Clarkson.

Not sure I would've bought the DVD, though. DVDs need rewatchability, and this...nope. Lacked a bit in the epic duel department. For one, the whole "which car is the best for powersliding?" bit seemed a bit off since they used new, apparently unmodified cars to do it. I was hoping they'd show some of the kookier homegrown drifting setups like a Hachi-roku or a Lada with that. Also, I guess what I miss from Clarkson's DVDs is the banter back and forth with the other dudes on Top Gear. They kind of help temper Clarkson's biases towards certain cars a bit (...like Astons).

5/10.

[AshDav]

I thought the same as most of you guys thought of it.
Very poor music and poorly written.

What i did notice in particular though is that it was pretty much exactly the same as supercar showdown.
Same Ascari track, same music, starts with a lamborghini murcielago and he raves about it but then the 4wd system lets it down, a few cars, explosion, destroy stuff, ferrari, lamborghini gallardo spyder so on so forth.
It was basically the supercar showdown template.
There was also faaaarr to much repetition of jokes and stunts. The top gear vs fifth gear was exactly the same as the tg vs germans bit.

i'd give it a 5/10
it kept me watching, but it was poorly written and i didn't walk away knowing anything new, other than not to wear flippers while driving.

[TomCat]

I just finished watching it.

I seriously thought I had accidentally downloaded an older Clarkson DVD by mistake. Wouldn't have been the first time. It started and I was convinced that I've seen this before. I almost turned it off. It's hard for me not to be a troll about it and complain. I watched the whole thing and got a few giggles out of it. I understand the show is about entertainment, but I'm not sure repetitiveness can be entertaining.

I thought the offroad test was pretty cool at first, but once the explosions started going off, it was ruined for me. I like segments that at least feel real. The offroad test did that wonderfully in the beginning. But once that poor Land Rover bit the dust it was plainly all fake. Obviously they had it all planned out who would finish and who would not. They wouldn't pack explosives into cars being slammed around a course like that by famous celebrities. It's a shame really, it was a promising segment and it was ruined by a few pointless flashy explosions. Why spend extra money to ruin the segment? I don't get it.

The rest of the DVD was exactly the same typical stuff we've all seen many times before. Could have been good. Or it may have been horrible, I'm not exactly sure anymore. I think the problem is how easy it is to become desensitized by the predictable nature of the show. Had this DVD come out 5 years ago, it may have been absolutely brilliant. But it was basically 1 hour of rehashed TopGear. Is the idea pool dry and empty? Did TopGear peak? I sure hope not, but it's hard to stay optimistic. TopGear is easily the best car show ever made, it would be a shame to see it's slow demise.