[17x07] December 28th, 2011 [India Special]

[17x07] December 28th, 2011 [India Special]


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Well, I have now seen it for the 4th time and all I can say is, When is the DVD out?
 
Are you one drinks coaster short too?

;)
 
i find it entertaining and enjoyable , maybe some people cant appreciate some cringe comedy lol
the rich- delhi, trade reception, and poor- indian labor, hill climb,exhaust cricket .. the indian reality -the dangerous traffic, highways, station & train ride, accidents, amazing scenery ..

Looking forward to monaco to portofino hmm
 
I think the most worrying thing about this was my family's reaction.

They also thought it was boring, too obviously scripted and un-funny. If you are failing to entertain non-car people and children as well the car enthusiast crowd you are failing entirely. To be honest if the next series is anything like this was I'll give up watching it, TG has already fallen from something I, and the whole family, would religiously watch to something I forget about and watch on iPlayer a few days later...

This wasn't so much a special or roadtrip as it was normal TG segments glued together that happened to occur in India, and they weren't even good segments!

MWF said:
I just worked out how they should have done it. After one large vodka and tonic. In about 20 minutes.

Go to India with ?2000 to buy a car.

Richard is the first to arrive in a Mahindra Jeep which is as close to a Jeep Wrangler as he can get and fits with his metrosexual personality. Naturally James turns up in a Hindustani Ambassador because, like him, it's from the 1950s. Finally Jeremy turns up and he has been clever because unlike the other two his car is brand new and he spent the budget hiring a Tata Nano on the basis that Tata owns Jaguar and therefore what he has is a baby Jaaaaaag. All stereotype expectations duly satisfied.

Cue a really good road trip with much funny derived from the fact that unless he looks after it Jeremy will lose his deposit etc etc etc while the other two don't care because they have to nurse theirs all the way from the start point to the Himalayas where they leave the cars to show the burgeoning Chinese car industry how to make great, cheap cars that will take whatever India and its roads can chuck at them.

And replace the Allegro with the Austin Montego which was built under license in India and is the epitome of BL shite. Forget the trade mission entirely or at least make it so that they are showcasing Indian cars and encouraging then to import to the UK or something.

Hey, Wilman, I can haz TopGear job?
That is exactly what I was hoping for, shame it never happened. Also you can (or used to be able to fairly recently) import a Hindustan Ambassador badged as a Morris Oxford and with a more retro interior from somewhere in Wales IIRC...

(Also I like the Montego idea simply because a guy I know with a Monty declared my Yaris "fucking vile" and proof I don't enjoy driving, when he keeps his car under a sheet in his front garden rather than driving it. :evil:)
 
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I know the term cringe-worthy gets used a lot here but as far as the India special goes. I think a few cringe-worthy moments were about as bad as it got.

I don't watch Top Gear to learn concrete car info. Combined with the fact that basically 90% of people only drive cars because they have no choice I'm not surprised the show's getting to be the way it is.

As James May said, "Top Gear is almost a sitcom" I agree and I think it could be a hell of a lot worse.
 
govt sponsored top gear anyone?

David Cameron: Isn't there anything British that does well in India?
Assitant: Well sir, there is one thing....
DC: ???
A: Top Gear sir.
DC: Oh hell. Get me Andy Wilman

With that setup I believe i would call what they did "ambitious, yet rubbish"

:p

6/10
 
the last 20 minutes were great, just some driving, countryside and a few funny locals, these things characterise TG specials normally...

The rest was just boring... i mean i get their idea of what they wanted to do, but why does it always have to end in a self-created mess? for example richards spin with the Mini, even a blind person could have seen that that was just fake... Give the boys challenges, fine with me, but if they make something they should try harder and do not plan it from the very fist to the last minute...

a diplomatic 5/10 is my choice, i have to watch the Africa special now, just that i don't forget that these things can be good...
 
It was quite bad this special. And I don't think they will fix where they went wrong, even though many people in this thread are pointing out the issue. The reason I don't think they will do anything is because they have done this type of episode before, people also complained, and here they are making the exact same mistake again. It's like they don't trust the guy's to be randomly funny anymore. There is no spontaneity. Instead of putting the guy's in situations that will force them to really react (and fail in a genuine, sometimes funny way), they have instead got them playing caricature versions of themselves, with every laugh and mishap planned in the office weeks earlier. This is "Top Ground Gear Force" all over again. It's like watching WWE wrestling.

I do think Top Gear can be salvaged though. It doesn't have to be the end. Clarkson, May and Hammond are funny people. Let them be funny. I love to watch them when they are themselves. Not when they act a version of themselves.
 
And I don't think they will fix where they went wrong, even though many people in this thread are pointing out the issue. The reason I don't think they will do anything is because they have done this type of episode before, people also complained, and here they are making the exact same mistake again.
Yeah, but there are lots more complaints this time than anything before, as MWF pointed out. I guess the garden-party humor wears thin after a while for everyone. (Though you could try to watch it four times. :) )
 
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There was nothing wrong with the show and on an average, for a Top Gear fan it was an awesome show. But (this is in Clarkson's way) however there are few gripes;
1-you can rename this show as "Harold and Kumar goes to India!"
2-What is the extend idiotic reflection of Hamster are we going to see by the "The Producers" of the show? remember the Bolivia Special??? where Toyota 4x4 was left to roll down by hamster as he forgot to put the Parking Brakes. Same here this time, where the Mini was ripping apart like transformer due to the winch rip-cord. and offourse the flag of india he painted.
3- the bright side is hamster turned out to be a good actor.
 
Yeah, but there are lots more complaints this time than anything before, as MWF pointed out. I guess the garden-party humor wears thin after a while for everyone. (Though you could try to watch it four times. :) )

I just saw what you drive. Thread in Post Your Car, waiting!!!
 
some bits were good, some bits were painful - seems like they have a joke sheet they pull out every episode now

i notice they didn't crash into each other as often - but they still ruined 3 very nice cars
 
...they still ruined 3 very nice cars

That's getting less funny every time.

Especially when so many peeps are finding it hard to make ends meet these days, the idea of destroying something that most can't afford becomes repulsive.

Guess that's what happens when you eventually have too much money. You lose touch.
 
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gave it a 6.

if it wasnt for the scripting..wouldve probably be a 9 or so like the amazon special.though that could be a 10.

:)

looking forward to this years supercars.

thanks for keeping up the updates and forums and such!

and happy new year people!!!!
 
Hello. New here. Been watching Top Gear since the first season of new Top Gear.

I found this EP entertaining because it was actually funny. At moments cringe worthy. The scripted sequences were horrible and the only true magic moment was the cricket bit.
As a top gear episode it wasn't particularly good. As something to laugh at I quite enjoyed it.

One episode of the newer ones I keep returning to is series 12, episode 6, with the communist cars, more of those.
 
This only thing disappointing about this episode is all the whining and crying in this thread.

Seriously? You can't laugh at "Eat English Muff"? I think the only thing the low scores say is that people need to stop playing old top gear episodes on loop and trying to find faults with an episode as if it's some kind of scholarly pursuit. Just CTFO and enjoy the show. :/

Now, the faults I can find with this episode is that the cars are way too generic, and the James getting lost thing isn't funny anymore. But the first attempt at bannering, the lawn mower, the water fight, the uphill race etc. made me lose it. They were scripted? So just like... any comedy routine? OMG

I feel really sad that people on this forum have come to be so jaded and unreasonable in their expectations.

9/10
 
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Seriously? You can't laugh at "Eat English Muff"?

Forgive me for rambling a bit, I promise there is actually a point....

Another show I'm very, very fond of is The Goodies. In this show, you'll find lots of gags reused over and over again, particularly throwaway sight gags. Same ones, over and over again. And they got away with it, and were awesome, and the audiences ate it up for a decade.

But, that show was made in the 1970s. There was no means of re-watching an episode once it had aired unless you lucked into a repeat, so you could get away with recycling gags blatantly. In fact, re-using an old gag that worked was doing fans a favour, because they had no opportunity to re-experience the pleasure of the original performance.

But, that doesn't work with modern programs. The audience can and will record it ourselves, download it, torrent it, Youtube it, mash it up with My Little Ponies, make demotivators out of it... and relive the good bits over and over again. So today's program makers don't have the luxury that the Goodies had in being able to mine their back catalogue.

I laughed at 'penis' and 'arse biscuits' on the side of the Silverston car, and the lesbian hats on the rear wheel drive ice race cars, and the various other times it's been done. And the British Muff was funny, in itself... but since it's not a new joke and a lot of people saw it coming, I don't think it was worth spending all that time on the train when they could have been off doing car stuff which could have generated some genuine, unscripted humour.
 
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