[16x00] December 26th, 2010 [Middle East Special]

[16x00] December 26th, 2010 [Middle East Special]

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Was a decent episode I guess, but nothing like I had hoped it would be. Just didn't do it for me.
 
I'm going to refrain from saying too much here for the next while, as earlier I kind of did what in forum-world is known as a self-destruct.

10/10 A+

Funny, thrilling, controversial and is something that could be watched again and again. Can't get much better than that.

Edit: Religious jokes will pull the overall score down, but there is no denying that this episode deserves at the very least a 9.

Here is some George Carlin, so that I may garner more neg-rep because religious jokes get a lot more serious than the light-hearted approach taken by Top Gear in this episode.

 
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mpicco said:
TomCat said:
...The whole "crossing the desert" part...
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Yes. Obviously
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The fact that they drove James to the hospital rather than airlift him out probably means they were no more than some minutes from the nearest highway (and quite obviously close to a city with a proper hospital.) There was no necessity for them to be driving far away from civilization, so they would have found spots and shots that would just give the impression of it, such as the one you posted.
 
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It will likely dissapear very soon, but enjoy while it lasts.

 
hughJ said:
They blew off another 10 or so driving off-road for no reason (other than to have the necessary 'oh no i'm stuck' moment).
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This one pisses me off so much. "Going off road for no reason". They never have a reason other than the challenge.
Remember the beloved africa special? It was awesome and epic. But according to a lot of people here, they should have stuck to the A30 or the A3 here:
bc3o1.jpg


hughJ said:
The fact that they drove James to the hospital rather than airlift him out probably means they were no more than some minutes from the nearest highway (and quite obviously close to a city with a proper hospital.) There was no necessity for them to be driving far away from civilization, so they would have found spots and shots that would just give the impression of it, such as the one you posted.
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True, but if you watch the area they were driving around, it's not really the middle of nowhere. There are plenty of what seem highways or routes going around there and while it was obviously planned to go off road, I don't see a reason to get "intellectually insulting" cos they came up with some weird reason like they wanted to hide. It's more amusing than just having something on a white overall handing them an envelope saying "From this point on you have to go off road".
My point, they were gonna go off road anyway, they decided to deliver it some other way than the usual golden envelope with instructions.
 
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mpicco said:
This one pisses me off so much. "Going off road for no reason". They never have a reason other than the challenge.
Remember the beloved africa special? It was awesome and epic.
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A good example of it being done properly. They drove across the salt pan with the angle that no one else had done it, and while doing so would get some likely great shots. They showed on a map where it was. We knew where they were driving from, what they were driving through, where the destination was, and legit enough reason why they were doing it. There was a definite A -> B that was communicated to the viewer.

The off road segment in this middle east special there was no such setup. There was absolutely nothing to suggest that they did anything other than turn off the highway, drive around in circles for a few hours, and then drive right back on where they left. The only conclusion that I can make as a viewer is that they did exactly that.
 
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it started off very slow and i was thinking the whole time that it reminded me of the other journeys they have done and that it would be to predictable. i very much expected them to conclude that "the best roadster in the world is the back-up car" but they didnt. i was thinking 7/10 the whole time or even a 6 but the end came totally unexpected and the whole trip made sense. epic. the rebirth of Stig after a journey to Bethlehem (and to think that up until that moment i actually thought Tg was going to honor Jesus or something, lol) was a great idea but does anyone else think that this was the folks at TG saying that they want us fans to know that they are taking this stig thing just as serious as the fans? i know its just a character on a show about cars but its an important piece of this wonderful little world of top gear. to see them drive across all that desert in all those areas that most wouldnt dream of going just really proves to me that the fans really mean something to this team of presenters as well as this entire production team. im not trying to over read the intentions of the eppisode like some star trek fan at a convention asking "Kirk" about why he did something in an eppisode but i truly am just impressed. i really feel that this one was truly for the fans, the hardcore diehard fans and that includes 95% of the people on this forum. Thank you Andy and the rest of your team. lets now move on to a new era with a new stig and forget about that Ben Collins fag. this ended with a 10/10.

Does anyone else think that the first intro for the new stig will have something to do with "some say he doesnt know how to write a book..."

well, i think it would be fun to try and predict the opening intro for the new stig. anyone else got any ideas for what it could be? :)
 
hughJ said:
A good example of it being done properly. They drove across the salt pan with the angle that no one else had done it, and while doing so would get some likely great shots. They showed on a map where it was. We knew where they were driving from, what they were driving through, where the destination was, and legit enough reason why they were doing it. There was a definite A -> B that was communicated to the viewer.

The off road segment in this middle east special there was no such setup. There was absolutely nothing to suggest that they did anything other than turn off the highway, drive around in circles for a few hours, and then drive right back on where they left. The only conclusion that I can make as a viewer is that they did exactly that.
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I understand what you're saying, but my question to you is simple. If they had a similar setup to the Africa special, wouldn't you be complaining about that?
It just seems to me that people are hell bent on Top Gear getting worse, that they go with the pre-desposition of someone who's gonna watch something that's awful, and then leave disappointed but glad they were 'right'.
And if they drove in circles you could tell by the shadows... please... it's not that basic. They know people are not that dumb
 
The mix of the moods was interesting. From terror, to laughter from disaster. Indeed classic Top Gear, and right before the moment of baby stig... I said to my brother (who was watching with me) "watch that be a baby stig" then the laughter ensued.

Good episode, a bit slow on the delivery but still very well put together.

9/10
 
mpicco said:
I understand what you're saying, but my question to you is simple. If they had a similar setup to the Africa special, wouldn't you be complaining about that?
It just seems to me that people are hell bent on Top Gear getting worse, that they go with the pre-desposition of someone who's gonna watch something that's awful, and then leave disappointed but glad they were 'right'.
And if they drove in circles you could tell by the shadows... please... it's not that basic. They know people are not that dumb
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i totally agree, i have said it before, people stopped watching TG because it was fun to watch and they wanted to be entertained for an hour and started watching it looking for fuckups and flaws to come on here and bitch and complain about (and give me neg rep for bad spelling). and for the 1 milionth time YES NOOBS, ITS F*&^ing SCRIPTED!!! SHUT UP ABOUT IT! (not you mpicco, lol)
 
9/10 for me, although I couldn't argue against giving it a 10. Didn't see the baby Stig coming. The ending just wasn't something I was thinking about. I was wondering how'd they handle the Iran thing since it was obvious they'd have no chance driving through there. James' spill was scary the way he knocked himself out with his arm sticking straight up. Must have been a hell of a thing to walk out of hospital staring at Clarkson and Hammond in burkas. Beautifully filmed. Can't wait for the DVD with a bit of commentary to detail the behind the scenes of it all.
 
loved it, absolutely awesome all the way through.

laughed till my stomach hurt when jeremy tried walking on water haha
 
mpicco said:
I understand what you're saying, but my question to you is simple. If they had a similar setup to the Africa special, wouldn't you be complaining about that?
It just seems to me that people are hell bent on Top Gear getting worse, that they go with the pre-desposition of someone who's gonna watch something that's awful, and then leave disappointed but glad they were 'right'.
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But there were a lot more things that I think were wrong with this special compared to the Botswana one. The pacing, theme and overall direction felt a lot more muddy and unclear. The whole Israel portion was crammed into about 5 minutes, virtually all of which were spent on the lake shore. And that was essentially the climax to the segment. The nativity scene was tacked on after they had already wrapped up.

I don't slam Top Gear just for the sake of it and I don't start watching each episode expecting it to suck. The fact is I didn't enjoy this show as much as the Polar Special, Botswana, Bolivia or even Vietnam and I've just been articulating points as to why. The others were just better plotted/written/directed, imo. I enjoyed last week's episode enough to re-encode it to my phone and play it back several times to co-workers. I've probably seen that episode now 4-5 times. I probably won't bother copying this episode to my phone, even though i was planning to prior to watching it. It wasn't crap, but considering the locations they were visiting, they could have done a better job on several levels.

And if they drove in circles you could tell by the shadows... please... it's not that basic. They know people are not that dumb
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I would argue that it could be that basic. They haven't gone to the trouble to hide sun location discrepancies in the past. It's not a huge deal, so long as they do a well enough job to not jar the viewer back to reality. Considering the terrain they were driving on, it would be completely reasonable to need to do complete 180s to drive around hills, etc so the shadows would be all over the place whether it was legit or not. The only thing they need to get right in the editing booth is the time of day really.
 
Was it me or did the Astra's "Adam's Family" look shopped? And what is this Adam's Family.

I felt bad because I laughed at James falling, but then I felt bad after I found out about it.
 
I don't know why, but this special just didn't 'wow/grip' me like the other ones, like that the danger they where trying to present wasn't there. No time in that film where they in any real danger or trouble. Poor James as well.

But as usual it was very well produced, gorgous stuff, but so did most of the other specials. 8/10
 
OH, I am Crazy, I am gana do it! Ill do it!

http://img696.imageshack.**/img696/3179/59709406.png

Told you!
http://img406.imageshack.**/img406/5370/75686924.gif
 
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