[01x02] October 6th, 2008

[01x02] October 6th, 2008


  • Total voters
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Well, it was slightly better than last week, but still very tatty.

All the track stuff is quite frankly a waste of my time and everyone else's. Introduce it properly and for Pete's sake get your cameras sorted. My father-in-law takes better videos with his Digital8, and he invented ShakiCam...

The GT40 was nicely shot but the script was as bad as Cox's ability to deliver it convincingly. Sounded like a yobbo reading out poetry whilst racked on blow. A few details... like why this particular car had 800 ponies rather than the standard 550... or why the car's doors cut into the roof as they do, wouldn't have gone astray. Despite all their anti-anorakism TGUK manage to get across useful facts like power, torque, weight, 0-60 times and top speed without it coming across like they're reading off the spec sheet. TGA need to learn to do this.

News was rushed. Star-in-a-shitty-car was worse than last week. Steve Bisley sounded unwell. Cox is a terrible interviewer.

Gold mining utes was actually pretty reasonable. After initially cringing the moment Pizzati opened his mouth at the start of the show he was actually watchable/listenable in the segment and indeed OK in the Smart Hearse segment later on. Cox was still unbearable and OTT, Warren is consistently funny and likeable. The concept was certainly unique and very Australian, and while they managed to get some interesting facts across about gold mining they again failed miserably with the cars themselves. There were so many dead sections where the guys could have offered some info about their utes, but no.... the Nissan was 4WD, expensive and had a stupid tray, the Falcon has 2 doors and is 'Australian' and the Proton is cheap, small and FWD. Thanks guys. No idea how much they cost, power, etc.

The concept did fall apart at the end. Christ knows how they did the math to figure out who won, and the whole draw thing was stupid too... the whole point of a challenge is that someone should win. Even if you have to rig it. Also, it would have been nice to mention just how much the big truck's cost as part of the equation.

Ford vs Holden. Should mention first I don't buy into this knuckle-dragging bogan bullshit. Which is fortunate, because if I did, I would have been bloody disappointed. No useful info (again), very limited 'tests', and a lot of fairly pointless "warming of the tyres"... that joke was funny the first time only. Worst of all, it was a total cop out, the whole "they both win". Have some balls, pick a winner and stand by it. Half the appeal of TGUK is that they'll slate a car mercilessly and stand by their decision even in the face of popular opinion. They should have just said that despite the turbo lag the Falcon was the better car... or that even though the Ford was faster they preferred the Holden... and just revelled in the ensuring riot.

The Smart Hearse was quite amusing. Shame it was utterly pointless. Please do not waste Warren's talents on things that make absolutely no sense in the future, SBS. He's your trump card, play him wisely.

I'm not sure if Cox has it within him to be a decent presenter. Maybe if he calms down, keeps his hands in his pockets and learns to talk to the camera in an amusing but natural way, rather than reel off a script like he's on a Kid's TV show, he'll turn out ok. Otherwise, I think the Jason Dawe comparisons are fair; well, to be fair Jason wasn't that bad, he was just boring and fat. Might be time to start hunting for Australia's version of a long haired Bachelor with a Bentley T2...
 
I haven't gotten through the whole thing yet, but already I can say that this is much better.

They really should have led off with the segments in this episode, it would have been a much better way to start with a bang. The Ford GT review is much better than that first Porsche review, and the Ford v. Holden, while predictable, is far more entertaining than that "softroader" segment was.

The one thing that still isn't quite there is the chemistry between the hosts. You can't really fault them for that as they simply haven't known each other that long. When my friends and I were shooting our film, that was one thing we didn't have to worry about because we've all known each other for years and years. It's amazing how much of a difference that chemistry can make -- it can make up for shortcomings elsewhere. TGA didn't seem to have this initially, but it seems there are getting there.
 
Not surprising. It's a bit disastrous to start a bit weak. Everyone watched, expecting greatness, and everyone was disappointed. I knew this would happen, I've had heaps of people telling me it's crap and they won't watch it, but I've just told them to give it a chance - hopefully I'm right.

I hope you are right as well, and if it keeps improving each week then it will start getting more viewers.

As much as I hated the first ep I would still like to have top gear aus and usa become viable viewing alternatives to tguk, it would be nice to be able to download new eps of top gear for most of the year :)
 
This week I gave the episode an 8. Much improved over Episode 1.

There are two cars in this world that I would give my left nut for. One, as you can plainly see is the Nissan GT-R. The other one, would be the Ford GT, and that black one was a GT lover's wet dream. I agreed with everything they said about it, including the door design. Personally, I think that should have a 'what were they thinking' segment. I have to wonder what Jeremy Clarkson is thinking now that they have right-hand drive models coming out.

The Holden vs. Ford segment was great. Two racing drivers going out and mucking about in a couple great cars. This is an element that TGAU has over TGUK in that none of the TGUK presenters are actual racers, while TGAU has two of them. I think they can get a lot more out of cars than even Clarkson can get out of them, with all due respect to Jezza.

The only pointless part of this episode I found was the Smart Hearst. I laughed my ass off at it, but seriously, what was the point? Hopefully it was just to get a laugh out of us, and if so, it certainly did it's job. But other than that...'what were they thinking'? lol ^_^
 
I agree completely with Rommie. I'm guessing someone told the three lads to tone down the enthusiasm a bit, which has worked wonders.

They've definitely stepped up with the quality of their segment editing as well. Hopefully the quality curve is reaching TGUK levels before too soon.
 
That's nothing special, that's the doors of the Ford GT.

I know that (thanks to TGUK) but my fianc? doesn't. Would have taken 10 seconds to explain that they were in the original race cars to aid getting in and out of such a low slung vehicle. They should have mentioned it when discussing all the classic details, maybe finishing with how "it's one detail from the original car that should have stayed in the 60s" or something.

Funny how Clarkson, who's 6'5", never mentioned being decapitated by his GT. Then again, he had bigger issues with it.
 
Well, that was better. Not so over-packed, still a bit light on actual content but better than before (the GT article was WAY better than the Porsche one last week) and I laughed out loud more than once. It's still early days, and I really hope the ratings pick back up again because the potential is starting to shine a bit now and I'd like to see it get a fair go. It's coming together, and given the time scale, and what it has to live up to, that's not bad going. Still far from perfect, but Steve and Charlie were much more controlled and the material was just... better.

Now, if only Charlie could keep his hands still...

I'm still enjoying it :)
 
I know that (thanks to TGUK) but my fianc? doesn't. Would have taken 10 seconds to explain that they were in the original race cars to aid getting in and out of such a low slung vehicle.

Ah, gotcha. Good point, Sir.
 
It seems that the pilot episode has killed ratings, they were hoping to crack the million viewer mark this week but instead they went backwards from 800,000 to 600,000

http://www.news.com.au/entertainment/story/0,26278,24459517-5016681,00.html

Im very happy with that

TG has a giant potential but they have to rework it a LOT

So either that kind of number are gonna make them think about what they are doing wrong or just cancel it wich will not be a big loss anyway
 
Good to hear that most of you here are finding improvement from Ep1 to Ep2.

I only hope that the total viewing figures don't keep declining or it will be unlikely there will be a second series.

Freehand have done an excellent job considering the difference in budgets, and once the presenters find their feet and get a better rapport, hopefully we'll see some more entertaining, humourous, and honest reviews.
 
when Ford Aus's v8 and turbo 6 both make over 410hp, why would you bother :lol:

No way it'll be profitable to tune and modify the Aussie engines to conform to US emission and fuel standards. The Mustang V8 is all certified and ready, and 300hp is more than enough to make that car/truck fun. They can always put the GT500's V8 in it if more power is needed.
 
Freehand have done an excellent job considering the difference in budgets...

Can't say I agree with that. I reckon they've blown it badly.

Budget shouldn't be an excuse. All the things that are wrong with TGA are no-budget items. Better stories, scripts and endings all happen up on the whiteboard. They've simply rushed the process. And the Flapper Cox syndrome is really just bad direction, and/or casting.

I reckon they believed TGUK was all about camera-work and TGUK clones, when it was really about the stories.

As I've said, if it were Working Dog producing the project...

:)
 
In today's paper -> http://www.news.com.au/mercury/story/0,22884,24459795-12531,00.html

Can't quite believe how much press coverage TGA is actually getting here... I think this is the third story in The Mercury since last Monday. The last time the papers' paid so much attention to a TV show it was Big Brother, and then only when some guy rubbed his ballsack over a girl's face.
 
Funny how Clarkson, who's 6'5", never mentioned being decapitated by his GT. Then again, he had bigger issues with it.

He did an excellent demonstration of his head coming off in the original GT40 in S4E8, about 42 minutes in.

Given that TGUK have done 2 reviews specifically on the GT plus the super car road trip to Millau, I'm wondering if TGAU felt that the car enthusiast audience knew enough of the technical aspects of the car and they wanted to do a lighter, more fluffy piece to try and pull in the casual viewers - less about the numbers and more about how it makes you feel to drive, i dunno.
 
....I'm wondering if TGAU felt that the car enthusiast audience knew enough of the technical aspects of the car and they wanted to do a lighter, more fluffy piece to try and pull in the casual viewers - less about the numbers and more about how it makes you feel to drive, i dunno.


Good point, however, this one was no normal GT.

It was supercharged, which would mean there would be more differences between that one and a normal one.

But still, not much point.
 
Good point, however, this one was no normal GT.

It was supercharged, which would mean there would be more differences between that one and a normal one.

Err, the GT is supercharged in stock form...

But yes, 800hp is most definitely not stock, so it would be interesting to know what tweaks it had received.
 
Err, the GT is supercharged in stock form...

But yes, 800hp is most definitely not stock, so it would be interesting to know what tweaks it had received.

Haha, gah...I meant to say that...didn't know how to though lol cheers.
 
TGAU needs to assume the audience is sophisticated and value add with humour and inside info. SmartHearse: brilliance! (Off topic: fastlanedaily.com impresses for a daily car news.)
 
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