[01x02] November 25th, 2016

[01x02] November 25th, 2016


  • Total voters
    170
The Jordan segment was funny to me, for one reason. The repetition of them starting over again, and doing things exactly over again as filmed before was hilarious.

It's not a new thing to comedy but it always works. Here's a good example.


I even liked The American more this week.
 
I calculated an average of 6.1/10 for this episode for our forum.

On IMDB the average for this episode is 7.6/10.

All in all I'd say more people liked it then hated it. But humor is such a subjective thing... Oh and by the way: The highest rated episode with Chris Evans in Series 23 on IMDB was Ep. 3 with a rating of 2.8/10.

Then again: The India Special got a rating of 8.3/10, which I for instance cannot comprehend.

Numbers can be a bitch and of course lovers gonna love and haters gonna hate but amazon and CHM and Wilman can clearly rate it as a success so far, since the overall rating of The Grand Tour is currently at 9.6/10.

Probably many people are just far too happy to see the three guys back on TV, right? ;)
 
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Well, Ep2 on IMDB is a lot lower than Ep1, so after the initial happiness just to see the three of them back on screen people are going to start dissecting the episodes a bit more and being more critical. I've seen far more negative press in general on the internet for Ep2 than for Ep1.

I'n guessing the members of Final Gear are more likely to mark TGT down as they are more likely to be car or old TG fans that like a car show with some cocking about. The internet at large probably likes a cocking about show with a few cars thrown in. TGT is obviously the latter.
 
I'n guessing the members of Final Gear are more likely to mark TGT down as they are more likely to be car or old TG fans that like a car show with some cocking about. The internet at large probably likes a cocking about show with a few cars thrown in. TGT is obviously the latter.

Yeah, the forum is a bit fanboy'ish at times, especially when their favourite band doesn't make the kind of music anymore they always liked. If I was the band, though, I wouldn't let myself get distracted by that, if the overall appreciation stays the same.

I have seen too many crappy episodes of old Top Gear (Art Gallery anyone?) to panic the way some people seem to. I honestly read a review where a fan demanded the immediate stop of The Grand Tour and a return to BBC because otherwise everything would go to hell.

Some people, seriously...
 
This was a very weak episode.

Pros:
Intro
Aston review
Conversation Street

Cons:
The Jordan segment was too long and... unecessary IMO. Killed the entire episode.

PS: I think the Celebrity Brain Crash will be dropped after killed many celebrities. :lol:
 
I gave it a 10 because it was like putting back confortable old shoes. For the rest I agree with every post that MacGuffin made on this topic.
 
I liked the episode :dunno: It had me laughing multiple times. Like it was said before, I guess you need to have played CoD or such to be able to laugh at the Jordan part.

I'm just happy it's on - I have magazines to read if I need official and huomourless reviews about cars :p
 
I gave it a "6", because the Vulcan film was great, and conversation street was also quite good. The studio segments were all a bit better than in ep01.

The Jordan film... well... in case of the Jordan film, I don't really get the "it was so obviously scripted" complaints. This film was meant to be scripted. This isn't necessarily a bad thing. Movies are scripted, and there are some quite good ones. Comedy usually is as well. You very rarely here complaints like "oh come on, this whole story was totally made up, it never happend like that", when people talk about Monty Python. So I don't get this complaint.
However... I didn't like it. There were two or three jokes in it that made me giggle, but other than that, I thought it was quite boring and waaaaay too long to be funny. It was probably aimed at 8yo, which is strange, considering that amazon itself says it's good for "ages 12 and over".

I also didn't like the James May film very much. I might have liked it more, if they just sent James there to report from the local scene. But they sent him there, for the only reason that he doesn't like it. Knowing that they really just want to showcase Jameses disgust, instead of the local car-scene, somehow spoiled the whole film for me.

For me, the Grand Tour currently feels a lot like Top Gear S01E01. There is some good stuff in it, but over all, it's very rough round the edges.
 
PS: I think the Celebrity Brain Crash will be dropped after killed many celebrities. :lol:

I think the joke is that it will be on every episode but no celeb will ever survive long enough to get to the tent let alone play it. :D

I enjoyed the episode, although I don't think I'll look back at is as a favourite. I can't say I didn't like the 'challenge' or that I would cut it out, it just didn't work as well for me personally as the holy trinity segment last week and that's fine. The show has a wide audience and it needs variety.

Vulcan was ace, it's refreshing to see an AM design that isn't done by a photocopier and even in that horrible red colour (I don't like dark metallic red on cars, sorry Dan) it looked great. Conversation Street had much more content and I thought torturing James was a good way to add something in that GT or TG with those three probably would never get involved with.

American Man has the camera on him too much.

That is all.
 
7. Jordan segment too long and too staged, it seems they've gone full tilt towards a scripted comedy show here. Works a bit but it's not what they're best at.

Does anyone else think JM is being sidelined a bit? RH seems to be clamouring for attention so much that JM seems a bit of a passenger. That needs to stop.
 
Does anyone else think JM is being sidelined a bit? RH seems to be clamouring for attention so much that JM seems a bit of a passenger. That needs to stop.

Now that is a critisism I can agree with....haven't seen much of James at all....
 
All in all I'd say more people liked it then hated it. But humor is such a subjective thing... Oh and by the way: The highest rated episode with Chris Evans in Series 23 on IMDB was Ep. 3 with a rating of 2.8/10.


Ah yes, internet voting. That truly secure and ungamable format for gathering public opinion. And yes, IMDB, the Amazon owned site. Some wonderfully bias-free sources there.

If you look on Twitter, Facebook etc you will find a plethora of very angry young men who are furious that the "libtards at the BBC" fired "the boys". The anger around the new hosts of Top Gear was, sadly, inevitable and almost entirely unjustified. While I'll agree Chris Evans didn't work, the BBC had to do _something_ and it was never going to please those people who only ever watch the show for Clarkson.

It was quite clear that those same people would put weird amounts of effort into downvoting anything to do with Top Gear and visiting any video they could find on YouTube and writing "two minutes of this was more entertaining that new Top Gear".

As for the idea that "The Grand Tour" isn't a car show, well that just makes it all worse. Clarkson, May and Hammond might know about cars but they most certainly do not know how to make a general entertainment show. This has been proven time and again both on Top Gear and, now, The Grand Tour. In fact, I don't know anyone who could take a car format and turn it into general entertainment without pissing off one part of the audience or the other. But for The Grand Tour it doesn't matter, the audience is baked-in. Those people who spent their time trolling the new presenters on Twitter, using the hashtag #TopGear to moan were ALWAYS going to watch, and automatically LOVE the new show. Partly because it gave them what they wanted, but mostly because they were never able to see the decline Top Gear had been in for years.

So The Grand Tour has had some good bits so far, and there have been some dreadful bits. I'm not sure of the Jordan film is quite as bad as the India Special, but it was close for cringe-worthy setups. I laughed at the audience fight in episode one - it was genuinely funny. The celebrity death was old after the first two, and unbelievably shit in episode two.

The point of Top Gear was that the car was the star, and people enjoyed the interactions with the hosts around that. We knew that James was going to say "Good news" and then tell us about the Dacia Sandero. We knew that was coming, but it remained funny. The thing that made Top Gear one of the most-watched shows in the world was the relationship the hosts all had with each other. The humour came from those situations, but soon they realised that the audience was growing beyond its gearhead origins. Instead it became something else.

Top Gear, believe it or not, has the advantage here. If those three hosts stick around then we'll see them develop as a trio and a new show will emerge. The fact it doesn't get 9 million viewers is irrelevant, what will be far more interesting is how it builds on what it now has, now the people who were only watching for Jeremy's racist comments have gone. You can spot those people - they're the ones on Twitter who claim Rory is a "token black man" while niftily ignoring his credentials as a brilliant journalist and amazing TV presenter.
 
I totally agree with your thoughts on the new Top Gear. Yes, Evans didn't work, but he didn't deserve the mind-boggling shitstorm that he's got. People just wanted to smash up the BBC and smashed up him instead. These people are still around and very present when you read the GT-comments on amazon: many of them don't go like: "Nice episode, I liked it", but more like "bam Top Gear, you bastards have had it now!!11"

I think the new Top Gear has good potential. I really liked some of the new faces. There will always be Clarkson-fans who like whatever he's doing, just because he is doing it. But for me, I'm not entirely sure yet, if the Grand Tour really turns out to be better than Top Gear in the end. I'll certainly watch both shows for a while.
 
I liked it, I enjoyed the Jordan film because it was a bloody good laugh. Sometimes you just need to switch your brain off and enjoy something because it's plain daft. I thought it was hilarious, especially knowing you were about to hear James get shot again. I also loved Richard's face when James pointed the gun at him "Oh really?".

I learned a while ago that you can't take these things for any more than slapstick humour - and I'm okay with that on the odd occasion. Next week will probably be car heavy again. The major downer of the show for me is that test driver. Although I have a theory why Ben Collins is not on board. Shame they couldn't have got someone like Ken Block, if Amazon insisted on an American.
 
I liked the episode :dunno: It had me laughing multiple times. Like it was said before, I guess you need to have played CoD or such to be able to laugh at the Jordan part.

I'm just happy it's on - I have magazines to read if I need official and huomour'less' reviews about cars :p

But its not even unofficial humor filled reviews about cars :dunno:

CHM at heart are petrol heads and their talent shines best at goofing off in ridiculously expensive or just plain ridiculous cars. I don't want hard nose automotive journalism from them just the same gold they are the best in the world at (or atleast something closer to that than this previous episode as I understand this is no longer TG)

Excited to see what next week will be all about. Back in London (right?) so I think the boys could be back to form!
 
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The Mercedes C9 interview was good, I just wish it had lasted longer and that they had given a bit more information about the car. Maybe showing some comparison photos between the replica and the real thing.
That was when I really thought: "oh look, TopGear S01E01 is back"
This segment was soooooo pointless. "Look, this local has built a replica of a Mercedes, and his wife loves him anyway... now let's go on with..."

I don't mind having some local stories in The Grand Tour, but you have to tell these stories properly, and not just show a car and its owner in the studio.
Send James to this mans home, show the garage in which he built this thing, talk about some difficulties that occured, ask the man, why on earth he did that. Make him tell about the dreams he must have had, when he saw Jochen Mass hammering down the straight at leMans, back in the 80's. Cut in a clip of that original cars moment. Tell the story of the original car. There is always some tense rivalry in racing stories. Now back to the man. Did the man fit an engine? What sort of an engine is it? What does he think about his work, now that he's finished? Does he drive around in it? Does he plan to do another replica of something? What is James' opinion on the car and the passion of this man? Maybe it gave him a flashback into the old times, when racing was man and machine only, without all the electronic nonsense...

They could have made a very interesting film out of this. I always felt that TopGear was absolutely brilliant at telling stories from the past. Remember the Saab story. Or the Maserati Story. Or the Lancia Story Or the Ayrton Senna tribute. This one could have been epic. It was pointless instead.
 
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That was when I really thought: "oh look, TopGear S01E01 is back"
This segment was soooooo pointless. "Look, this local has built a replica of a Mercedes, and his wife loves him anyway... now let's go on with..."

Worth remembering that they have to some extent performed an Etch-A-Sketch shuffle on themselves and as they've frequently said themselves, been forced to "re-invent" a show, much in the same way they did from old-old Top Gear. It does have a sense of "try-this-try-that" but that's to be expected, non?

Funny, it did remind me of the really early episodes of CHM (or even CHD) in the sense that they were somewhat scratching around for a... style? Whatever, they'll have got it figured out by season 19, by which time they can re-do the Old People episode, but this time they won't need the extras.
 
I think the new Top Gear has good potential. I really liked some of the new faces. There will always be Clarkson-fans who like whatever he's doing, just because he is doing it. But for me, I'm not entirely sure yet, if the Grand Tour really turns out to be better than Top Gear in the end. I'll certainly watch both shows for a while.

I'll almost certainly watch both for the foreseeable future. The good thing is - no one has to chose one or the other, which is what the morons seem to forget.

- - - Updated - - -

That was when I really thought: "oh look, TopGear S01E01 is back"
This segment was soooooo pointless. "Look, this local has built a replica of a Mercedes, and his wife loves him anyway... now let's go on with..."

I don't mind having some local stories in The Grand Tour, but you have to tell these stories properly, and not just show a car and its owner in the studio.
Send James to this mans home, show the garage in which he built this thing, talk about some difficulties that occured, ask the man, why on earth he did that. Make him tell about the dreams he must have had, when he saw Jochen Mass hammering down the straight at leMans, back in the 80's. Cut in a clip of that original cars moment. Tell the story of the original car. There is always some tense rivalry in racing stories. Now back to the man. Did the man fit an engine? What sort of an engine is it? What does he think about his work, now that he's finished? Does he drive around in it? Does he plan to do another replica of something? What is James' opinion on the car and the passion of this man? Maybe it gave him a flashback into the old times, when racing was man and machine only, without all the electronic nonsense...

They could have made a very interesting film out of this. I always felt that TopGear was absolutely brilliant at telling stories from the past. Remember the Saab story. Or the Maserati Story. Or the Lancia Story Or the Ayrton Senna tribute. This one could have been epic. It was pointless instead.

You've nailed it. That's EXACTLY what they should have done and it would have played to James' strengths rather than just seeing him standing around looking cross at the spinning.
 
Ah yes, internet voting. That truly secure and ungamable format for gathering public opinion. And yes, IMDB, the Amazon owned site. Some wonderfully bias-free sources there.

If you look on Twitter, Facebook etc you will find a plethora of very angry young men who are furious that the "libtards at the BBC" fired "the boys". The anger around the new hosts of Top Gear was, sadly, inevitable and almost entirely unjustified. While I'll agree Chris Evans didn't work, the BBC had to do _something_ and it was never going to please those people who only ever watch the show for Clarkson.

It was quite clear that those same people would put weird amounts of effort into downvoting anything to do with Top Gear and visiting any video they could find on YouTube and writing "two minutes of this was more entertaining that new Top Gear".

As for the idea that "The Grand Tour" isn't a car show, well that just makes it all worse. Clarkson, May and Hammond might know about cars but they most certainly do not know how to make a general entertainment show. This has been proven time and again both on Top Gear and, now, The Grand Tour. In fact, I don't know anyone who could take a car format and turn it into general entertainment without pissing off one part of the audience or the other. But for The Grand Tour it doesn't matter, the audience is baked-in. Those people who spent their time trolling the new presenters on Twitter, using the hashtag #TopGear to moan were ALWAYS going to watch, and automatically LOVE the new show. Partly because it gave them what they wanted, but mostly because they were never able to see the decline Top Gear had been in for years.

So The Grand Tour has had some good bits so far, and there have been some dreadful bits. I'm not sure of the Jordan film is quite as bad as the India Special, but it was close for cringe-worthy setups. I laughed at the audience fight in episode one - it was genuinely funny. The celebrity death was old after the first two, and unbelievably shit in episode two.

The point of Top Gear was that the car was the star, and people enjoyed the interactions with the hosts around that. We knew that James was going to say "Good news" and then tell us about the Dacia Sandero. We knew that was coming, but it remained funny. The thing that made Top Gear one of the most-watched shows in the world was the relationship the hosts all had with each other. The humour came from those situations, but soon they realised that the audience was growing beyond its gearhead origins. Instead it became something else.

Top Gear, believe it or not, has the advantage here. If those three hosts stick around then we'll see them develop as a trio and a new show will emerge. The fact it doesn't get 9 million viewers is irrelevant, what will be far more interesting is how it builds on what it now has, now the people who were only watching for Jeremy's racist comments have gone. You can spot those people - they're the ones on Twitter who claim Rory is a "token black man" while niftily ignoring his credentials as a brilliant journalist and amazing TV presenter.

Everyone is entitled to their opinion. I respect yours but don't share it. Maybe the voting on IMDB isn't one-hundred precent representative but it's good enough for me and many serious media. Also such a huge difference in ratings isn't just the doing of a bunch of internet kids. If you believe that, you should seriously think about removing your tinfoil hat ;)

The main reason why Series 23 of Top Gear failed is (as I repeatedly explained here on this forum), that it was a too blatant copy of what was done before, sometimes even to the point of repeating stuff that had been done on TG years ago - only better. If it wouldn't have had this acrid smell of a poor copy, if the presenters wouldn't have tried mimicking the presenting style of Clarkson, Hammond and May so obviously, it might have had more success.

What I said repeatedly on this forum way before S23 started on TV, was that Top Gear is doomed if they try to cling to the old recipe. Everything that even remotely reminds of CHM, should have been thrown overboard. A clean restart. With new ideas and a new crew. A completely new concept for the show. Everything else was (and is) doomed to miss its claim.

Matt LeBlanc has potential as a presenter. But I doubt he is willing to put his life and health on the line in the way Clarkson, May and Hammond did. They proved to a world wide audience that they will go through jungles, deserts, mountains and even the polar ice for the sake of entertainment. They were willing to put their lives at risk and humiliate themselves while doing it. The audience felt and saw that and respected them for it. And that is where the huge fan base comes from - not from some provocative, politically incorrect remarks every now and then.

If you think that the shitstorm is generated by racist fans of Jeremy Clarkson who blame the BBC for the end of the Top Gear they loved, you haven't understood the show at all.
 
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