[01x02] November 25th, 2016

[01x02] November 25th, 2016

  • Total voters
    170
highharti said:
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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I remember someone in the old serie who built a car in his kitchen and they had to destroy a wall to put it out. It was pretty cool, more stories like that I agree.
 
I commented in a different thread, might as well repeat myself here. I pretty much liked the episode. Yeah, the tent stuff is still a bit weak -- I think the whole thing that bugs me is "playing to a crowd," rather than "talking amongst themselves," like they used to do with "the news." Still, it's nothing as horrible as Top Gear 23 was.

I liked the Jordan bit, especially May and Hammond shooting each other, and Hammond having an opportunity to bash Clarkson upside the head with a shovel. Also Clarkson and Hammond trying to have an elegant lunch before May got shot again. Slapstick comedy, whatever, but it's just good fun with the guys. I see this all less as a "car show with the guys" than as a "show with the guys playing around with cars." It's about the guys, not so much the cars.

I'm not so tough on The American as some other folks here are, but it's just not really working well at all. If we have to have a talking Stig, could we get a driver who appreciates the cars he drives? Would that be too much to ask?

Room for improvement, but I'm happy so far. 8 out of 10.
 
Everything was great except for the Jordan bit, I didn't even bother watching the last 15 minutes.
 
Haven't seen the episode as yet - so obviously keep that in mind! - but just looking at the various reviews, you'd wonder if they maybe could have started the series with a stronger episode?

OK, ep 1 - the supercar trinity. Absolutely fair enough.

But would ep 2 have been better as a strong cheap car challenge I wonder?

One of the great things about Top Gear was how varied they could make the show, even while knowing that not everyone would like every episode. So I remember the supermarket sweep/hot hatch challenge in series 22 (I think) which was very British-orientated (and specifically, 80s British orientated). I didn't get half the references, which took away from it a fair bit, but I appreciate that's not a reason not to run with the idea.

The Jordan piece is sounding like that kind of slot - but would they have been better scheduling something universally strong early in the series I wonder?

Anyways, look forward to watching it whenever I can find it.
 
The first time in ages I actually disliked an episode of a show they've been doing. Was hard to keep watching it and almost skipped it after the first 5 minutes of Jordan. They are neither great comedians nor actors and they should've realised that by now. Something like that _can_ work but the pacing is wrong, the lines are delievered awkwardly...The Aston bit was okay, but overall, this was at best a 5. Dissappointed.
 
First of all I want to comment on the incredibly poorly design system this website has. It took me 3 days to activate my account. You need hours for an e-mail to be sent, then the link to activate the account from that e-mail has already expired. After a lot of frustrations it finally worked.
Secondly let's talk about the show. Honestly so far I know no one wants to say this, but it's rubbish. Absolute rubbish.
It's great to see the three again, but the show itself is just boring as all hell. It's not funny, it's way to scripted. The old Top Gear was scripted as well but never like this.
Top Gear was successful because of the three "fighting" with other, arguing is more appropriate. Moments that were not written on a piece paper.
The Top Gear that we knew is truly dead. And it will never be brought back to life.
This Grand Tour turned Jeremy, James and Richard into actors. Because that's what it tries to do.

These first two episodes were completely forgettable, unfunny, boring, dull, predictable and of course way too scripted. It's well filmed but that's all it has going for it.
The music they used thus far is atrocious, plus it's so low you can barely hear it at least in the second episode. The celebrity thing is so stupid, it wasn't funny the first time. It wasn't funny the second time and it's not going to somehow become funny. The American driver is just annoying; stereotypical nonsense. I understand that they can't just redo The Stig, since the license belongs to the BBC. But come on.
The studio/tent parts not interested. The whole military thing they did in this episode was meh at best.

I'll give it another shot because the trailer for the third episode looks ok. But so far the essence is dead. And as soon as people will get over the "OMG Jeremy, James and Richard are back together. OMG. OMG OMG OMG. In your face that guy with that annoying voice from the BBC that replaced Jeremy" nonsense. People will see lose interest in it quickly. And so far this show will only run for the 3 seasons that they signed on for. If they actually get a third season, Amazon will probably cancel it by then.
 
You realize that you're practically alone with your opinion and thus none of what you predict will ever come true?

Nobody said it'd be perfect and The Grand Tour still needs to find its pace - as almost every single TV show I've ever watched.

But it definitely is still a lot better than what the BBC has done to its oh so precious brand after the trio left.

I am just glad I have my weekly dose of bickering between three men of my age back, occasionally interrupted by something with cars as a subject.
 
Mac, I am really glad you are enjoying this, but he is not alone. Take a look at the poll. Roughly one third of the votes are 5 or less.
 
@Mac Alone? No, man. Not even close. Go outside this forum and see what people actually say. A lot of people right now want to cancel their subscription to Amazon, if it continues like this.
Granted most are really mad at the second episode. But the thing is the magic is gone. It can come back, and I really do hope it will. But right now it's gone. And if continues like this then the show will be as well.
And to get it back, it's really easy. Make the show less scripted. Again even Top Gear was scripted but never to this level. I would say that 80% of Top Gear was scripted, this is 100% scripted. Get rid of what they wanted to be a funny stereotypical American racing driver. Get as they said The Ben Collins. And either get rid of the celebrity part entirely or actually have one. Not "Ladies and Gentlemen, I give you Brad Pitt. Look he's arriving by helicopter. Whoa hold on a second, it seems that Bruce Wills is coming to the show as well, it appears he's in a jet fighter. It would seem that Bruce Wills locked on to Brad Pitt's helicopter. He just fired a missile. Bruce Wills terminated Brad Pitt." nonsense like this.
 
There is a difference between voting one episode 5 or lower and stating that the whole show is rubbish after just two episodes - which he did.
 
The words so far were attached to that.
 
To be honest, he has points, good points at that. TGT starts where TG from season 16-18 has left off and I don't think it'll get any better soon, judging from the trailers and the fact that Amazon has given them a massive budget to blow things up. For some reason the limited budget forced them to be creative to a point where TG became so famous that the BBC gave them more money to blow stuff up, which can be funny once or twice. But TGT has been a proper dissapointment so far, and only the first couple of minutes of Episode 1 brought some water into my eyes, the rest of both episodes left me cold. Let's see how it will be tomorrow.

You know how they always say, what they have is the best job in the world? I don't think so anymore.
 
GRtak said:
Mac, I am really glad you are enjoying this, but he is not alone. Take a look at the poll. Roughly one third of the votes are 5 or less.
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And considering how voting has worked here in the past, even voting a 7 means "mediocre".
 
I thought the Jordan part dragged on too much, especially when they kept showing them doing the same ops over and over again. This in particular with James trying to go get the Renault.

Though I thought it was overall a good episode.
 
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