[14x02] November 22nd, 2009

[14x02] November 22nd, 2009


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I was watching the Reliant Robin Space Shuttle episode last night, and I noticed a few things:

They seemed to actually want it to work. There wasn't a deliberate attempt to obviously sabotage the end result. There was obvious cocking about that was scripted (May in the windtunnel when they said they thought it was "self use", the RC airplane hitting the window), but it was funny and few and far between the serious bits, which were 10,000x more hilarious. Hammond seemed legitimately shocked when he found out the Robin wasn't a quality rocket part, even though it was "pointy".

You just don't get that feel, that meshing vibe that they want to work together. It doesn't feel like me and two of my friends giving something a go. It feels like TV, and that is why it isn't fun anymore.
 
Geoff: not one of Top gear's best, to put it lightly. Like Whappeh said, it feels like they want their electric car to fail. Reminded me of the cheap car challenges from season 13. And that's not a good thing. But the green stig with the solar panels on his helmet gave me a laugh.

News: not bad, but the penis bit got repetitive.

ZR-1/R8: Good, very good. But 2 (or 3, if you count Geoff) cars in a motoring show?

Overall, a let down after ep. 1. 6/10.
 
I know I'm echoing what many people are saying about the episode, but I too didn't think it was that great. Waiting for the download to finish, I kind of felt disappointed...maybe more something was missing feeling to me.

The cocking about has become predictable and just not that funny. If they had to build anything and drive it somewhere, there seems to be a formula:

Each of them takes care of something
Clarkson does a horrible job at his task
May miscalculates something
May takes a wrong turn
Crew has traffic jam
series of challenges for reliability
etc

Maybe I just like the older episodes, and the older races, such as the Aston DB9 train race or the epic 100 UK pounds car challenge (Cheap Car Challenge). Those, even though they were scripted, you can tell they were having genuinely having fun. Now it just seems like they are overacting. What I once enjoyed has just become monotonous to me.

Even the news had a great bit, but still, there wasn't really any news this time. I kind of enjoyed watching that being from the states, they always had some great information. This is usually a hit or miss though each week.

I like the head to head challenge between the corvette and R8, that was the best part for me, mainly because they do not normally do that, and I wish they'd do that more often. Kind of like the old Fifth Gear shootouts that I enjoyed. *gasp*

Oh well, 7/10 just because of the car review which carried it. Otherwise, it would of been worse.
 
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I believe the main problem is they've got too big a budget.

Ever since Hammond's crash, and the subsequent ratings explosion, the show has been flooded with money, and it looks as if the presenters are no longer involved in any of the actual making of the films. As someone mentioned above, I suspect none of them really did much of Geoff except the bits for the camera.
You can see in the earlier series that they really worked on their task, but now it just seems as if script writers have completely taken over, and the guys are playing caricatures of themselves.

Forget the scripts for once.

Why do you insist on writing comedy sketches, when no one expects you to do so?

Humour in TG used to come from the spontaneous interaction between the presenters: I miss the days when Jeremy and James tested Korean cars, Richard and May went on scooters driving drunkards around, and the three of them bought ?1000 Porsches.

I just hope all of us who were huge fans don't have to look for a new show to replace the 'Series 1-8 Top Gear'
 
I believe the main problem is they've got too big a budget.

Ever since Hammond's crash, and the subsequent ratings explosion, the show has been flooded with money, and it looks as if the presenters are no longer involved in any of the actual making of the films. As someone mentioned above, I suspect none of them really did much of Geoff except the bits for the camera.
You can see in the earlier series that they really worked on their task, but now it just seems as if script writers have completely taken over, and the guys are playing caricatures of themselves.

Forget the scripts for once.

Why do you insist on writing comedy sketches, when no one expects you to do so?

Humour in TG used to come from the spontaneous interaction between the presenters: I miss the days when Jeremy and James tested Korean cars, Richard and May went on scooters driving drunkards around, and the three of them bought ?1000 Porsches.

I just hope all of us who were huge fans don't have to look for a new show to replace the 'Series 1-8 Top Gear'
 
Electric car part was a bit... forced. But the slo-mo crash test head banging was hilarious.

I hate their news style. Why do they need to drag on the same joke for 5 minutes? We get it, don't explain it to us from 217 perspectives. Can't believe they had nothing to make fun of for that long. Could have shown pics of new hideous Honda or Acura crossovers and make fun of them instead. Penis jokes? Really? :rolleyes:

Audi vs ZR1 was great, but too short, and about cars that were already shown in previous episodes.

I always skip SIRPC parts so can't comment on them.

I still gave it 8/10, it was fun, but not a very fresh fun.
 
I think the problem I had with the last bit of the "electric car" segment was that the Eurocrat-fooling bits (the crash tests) wound up showing off the smugness of all three of the boys. And scenes of all smugness aren't particularly funny.

The bits that did work were May's explanation of his generator, the drag race against the G-Wiz and the runner, the Green Stig and the Autocar drop-off.

The ending was also off because plummeting into despair should be done during the film itself, not at the end. Had they mentioned that Autocar still rated the Hammerhead as their third favourite electric car (with the G-Wiz dead last), it would have ended much better.

Audi vs. Vette: it's not surprising that Clarkson still likes the Vette; he likes bad cars with character better than good cars without soul, and while he admires German cars, he's only admitted to actually "loving" American cars like the GT40 or his America-road-trip Camaro. It's also one of the few times, recently, that Clarkson's admitted to having only average driving skills.

News: well, they couldn't really discuss the Tokyo show 'cause it's old news now, right? It's going to be pretty tough to top that "Ploo" box that they did last week, in terms of entertainment value.

SIARPC: not too bad, really. Michael Sheen's what you'd call an up-and-comer, very good dramatic parts what with Frost/Nixon and The Queen. With a 2-billion audience, TG's become a part of the publicity circuit, and that's just par for the course. I'm expecting a footballer, a rocker and an F1 driver (maybe Jenson could do a return visit) for this series, which is a fair enough mix. (We've already had the foreigner.)

I'll give it a 7.5.
 
So...have they never heard of the Chevy Volt? James didn't come up with the idea of a generator charging batteries in an otherwise compeltely electric car.

Also, their first prototype had holes cut out of the front that were patched up with aluminum right where the bumbers for Geoff 2.0 were...but there was a front-end collision in there...
 
Meh-Cool-Haha. These were my three main reactions while watching this episode.

Meh:
The first part with Goeff was almost cringeworthy: Very generic, and I hate every moment of TG history when they are holding up traffic somewhere just for the sake of funny TV.

Cool:
Audi/Vette test was stunning eye candy. Great. That's why I love Top Gear.

Haha:
The second part with their electric box. The hilarious way they cheated that thing trough the tests had me holding my hurting belly and having tears of laughter. That segment was on "playing conkers with caravans" level. Highlight: "I'm gonna call him" *pushes RETARD button* :D

7/10.
 
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Also, their first prototype had holes cut out of the front that were patched up with aluminum right where the bumbers for Geoff 2.0 were...but there was a front-end collision in there...

Yeah, I wondered about those holes too. A bit convenient, to have patched holes in the original that later have a bumper sticking out in the sequel.
 
If the Geoff segment were cut down to just the first or last bit of the show and another piece put in, things would have been great. But the problem came up when they tried to stretch it out and we were left with quite a few bits that shouldn't have made it out of the film room. The R8/ZR1 segment was great and I didn't seem to mind the news as much as some of you did. SIARPC was fairly mediocre except for the lap itself.
 
I was watching the Reliant Robin Space Shuttle episode last night, and I noticed a few things:

They seemed to actually want it to work. There wasn't a deliberate attempt to obviously sabotage the end result. There was obvious cocking about that was scripted (May in the windtunnel when they said they thought it was "self use", the RC airplane hitting the window), but it was funny and few and far between the serious bits, which were 10,000x more hilarious. Hammond seemed legitimately shocked when he found out the Robin wasn't a quality rocket part, even though it was "pointy".

You just don't get that feel, that meshing vibe that they want to work together. It doesn't feel like me and two of my friends giving something a go. It feels like TV, and that is why it isn't fun anymore.
Wow, that sums up sooo much how I've felt about TG for a while. "They seemed to want it to work", "The meshing vibe", agreed. Sure they get along great, but that's not the point. They haven't lost it IMO. I think it's possible that they believe, all involvled that they are so big that they've lost the hunger. Don't get me wrong, in many ways TG is better than ever. However as far as the content/humor I think it's time they re-group and try to find new original material instead of just playing on what's made them to this point. I know that TG has played on-going jokes and humor for a while in the past, but this has gone on for too long. I enjoyed the episode, but I feel let down as I have since 13-1. Having seen all of the episodes I ask myself, will I like this season/episode more as time goes by? I hope so.
 
green Stig dying of smoke, etc

It happens when you're a vegemetarian. Swiss labs have proven eating meat

Drawing a penis on somebodies face is not funny.

Never criticise something you've not first tried yourself.

Not sure why everyone's so negative... it was a funny episode. Not TG at its most epic, and probably a notch or two below last week's effort, but still laugh out loud funny.

Audi R8 and Corvette were ace. I'm no fan of the Corvette (or any American car for that matter) but I have to say the rear exhaust shots almost made me tear up in pleasure.

News was hilarious... yes, rather in the gutter... but one can still have fun in the gutter!

SIARPC was surprisingly good... I only knew Sheen from The Queen but he turned out to be quite funny and he was mighty fast around the track too.

And Geoff? Yes, it could have been made better.... more build/less mucking about... or as someone suggested, all three should have made their own cars as a 3 way challenge... but it was still hugely funny in parts... all the penis-drawing reminded me what it was like to be in Year 7, and the dangers of having your Introduction Into Japanese workbook fall into the wrong hands.

Oh, I can't believe James doesn't like Belinda Carlisle. Shame.

I gave it a 9... probably a bit generous actually... thinking more 8 now, but certainly not a crap episode. Oh well, if you still feel hard done by, don't fear, Packed To The Rafters is on tonight... I'm sure you'll enjoy that!
 
I'm surprised at how spread out everyone's responses are to this episode. To me, it was one of the funniest Top Gears yet, but it still lacked that final bit of bite. Refinement as opposed to Innovation would be a good way to put it. It was funny, yet not really original, it didn't seem to have that real "Top Gear" feel, but instead it had more of a "One Off" style to it. Someone earlier put it best that this was like the Top Garden Gear Force special, in how everyone seemed so differently behaved, like caricatures. Not behaving unfunnily, just more like "Jeremy portraying Jeremy" sort of a thing.

I would give it a 6/10 myself. Well worth the watch, but I got my laughs out of it, and don't need to see it again.
 
I'm quite surprised, personally I quite liked it. For a petrol head it wasn't the best, but some bits of it were comedy gold. The way they cheated with the tests for Geoff in the latter part actually had me in tears laughing, and there were other bits too, like the "I'm gonna call him" - *pushes Retard button*. There was lots of cocking about but personally I don't see anything wrong with that. News was pretty good too, I laughed through quite a bit of that. ZR1 vs. R8 was a let down for me, fantastic cinematography but calling the Corvette plastic and unreliable has become a bit repetitive for TG...

8/10. Might watch it again just for the laughs.
 
Anyone else notice they reused an old "some say..." about the Stig? They said he was rejected from "I'm a Celebrity" because he is one. They used that in one of the past two or three series.

I thought Geoff was great. I never heard what kind of speed it got with the new batteries. At least 30 obviously from the braking test.

Finally got to see the R8 V10/ZR1 test.

News and SIARPC were a bit meh. 9/10
 
Anyone else notice they reused an old "some say..." about the Stig? They said he was rejected from "I'm a Celebrity" because he is one. They used that in one of the past two or three series.

12x05.
 
I really enjoyed it, 8/10
 
Geoff was dumb, unfunny and overly scripted.

R8 and Vette was classically pretty, but overly pointless.

Amen, a surprisingly weak show.

This was one of those episodes that feel as if they got nothing in it. And that's probably because it really didn't have that much in it: One review, one overly long, not terribly interesting or funny challenge and that's it. There are tons of interesting and hot new cars out on the market.. why not review those or use them for a challenge? Why not do another hot-hatch-review/comparison for example? With the new Golf GTI/R/GTD and Scirocco R you could do one of those with VW-products alone. Throw in some competition from Ford, Renault, Alfa, Seat or Mazda and you'd have a great shootout to fill an entire episode with. Or maybe do a slightly more serious take on the electric-/green-car thing with some stuff you can actually buy... TG, IMO, shouldn't be *all* about comedy. There should be a tiny bit of consumer advice and real-world-elements left in there. Otherwise they might as well review spaceships, aircraft-carriers or nuclear powerplants.
 
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