[01x05] December 19th, 2010

[01x05] December 19th, 2010

  • 10

    Votes: 10 5.1%

  • 9

    Votes: 38 19.2%

  • 8

    Votes: 67 33.8%

  • 7

    Votes: 41 20.7%

  • 6

    Votes: 15 7.6%

  • 5

    Votes: 9 4.5%

  • 4

    Votes: 4 2.0%

  • 3

    Votes: 8 4.0%

  • 2

    Votes: 2 1.0%

  • 1

    Votes: 4 2.0%
  • Total voters
    198
Sik Pony said:
YES! i forgot to mention that. GM wont make the car because it would be a nice car and they stopped doing that years ago! :)
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Same here, that concept sketch was really quite good looking. If GM ever made something like that, I'd seriously consider buying it.
 
Pretty great episode. My family's owned wagons our entire life, and the roadmaster is the ultimate wagon anyone can get. I was extremely happy to see it not only mentioned, but also winning!

What does disappoint me though is that there was no mention of the CTS-V wagon at the end. Aside from the 8 seats, it ticks every single box they mentioned. And is fast as hell to boot.
 
Also, on that wagon concept at the end.
I don't know whether that was an actual car conceptualized by GM themselves, or merely a sketch by the TGUS staff, but if I had a few kids I would definitely purchase that car for family transport. Totally beats a minivan or SUV.
 
I had some very good laughs out of this episode.

Is it just me, or did they tone down the annoying fakeness of the audience by a whole bunch this time around?
 
Great episode worthy of a solid 7-8! The chemistry between the hosts during the challenges is improves with each new episode. The studio segments still feel a bit forced though. The interview, news segment, the jokes they make, and the canned audience reactions still seem a bit awkward. The concept drawing at the end was also looked really slick. Seems like they essentially drew a crossover. (Toyota Venza, Ford Edge, etc) The show is coming together really nicely and I really hope it's renewed for another season.
 
Sik Pony said:
At first i didnt like Tanner but im starting to see his role show and i think him and Rut will mesh very well...
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Aha! I knew you would come around :p.

I agree about Adam, but I'll reserve judgement until I see this weeks ep.
 
I'm abstaining from voting in the poll because I have a hard time with judging this episode.

If i'm judging it soley on its own, prolly 8/10. The segment with the GM's was good, no complaints, the news was a bit short and Tony Hawk wasn't the greatest guest (I think he'd have done better if Adam was doing SIARPC this week and there was a bit less "OMG! I HAZ YOUR VIDEO GAME" vamping...Tony Hawk can be quite awesome occasionally).

If i'm judging it against TG S10E07 (BL Challenge), I'd only give it about a 3/10. It was a good episode, but you can't really make a bad episode when you rip off what is probably one of the Ten Best TG Episodes so they don't exactly deserve a good score.

If you're a teacher, you don't give a student good grades for copying their test off another student, you give them a Zero. This deserves a bit higher because it was still decent with using GM instead of BL and the 3 hosts, which is why i give it 3/10 in this case, but still....
 
I loved the way that Rutledge was tall enough to dampen the vibration of the colander with his head. I think what these fellas need is a seriously long foreign trip... say from Acapulco to Cancun in class 11 cars (or common taxi vehicles like the nissan sentra), or maybe a border to border run from Canada to Mexico. After a trip like that we'll truly see how these guys handle each other. One of the classic tenets of TGUK is dealing with sleep deprivation and boredom - I think that would be most amusing.
 
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jdhore said:
If you're a teacher, you don't give a student good grades for copying their test off another student, you give them a Zero. This deserves a bit higher because it was still decent with using GM instead of BL and the 3 hosts, which is why i give it 3/10 in this case, but still....
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But if the assignment is to write a certain passage in your own words you could still receive a 10/10. They aren't COPYING TGUK. They are taking great segments and ADAPTING them to the NA market.
 
The news section was pretty weak, I like the idea that they are going to include it as a part of TG America but they need to to find more interesting stories and have the presenters relax so it doesn't come off as a high school presentation.
 
So far this season I've thought each episode better than the last. And that continued this week. The cheap car challenge was, I think, the best since TGUK's police car challenge. I had tears running down my cheek from laughing so hard. Thats the sign of a good episode of any show, period. But what I liked, this time, was the news was cut down to only the "good" bits (still needs work) and the BSSC segment was trimmed down to only the essentials (*hint* TGUK!!!!). Honestly, thats the most fun TG has been (any format) in years. I'm ecstatic right now. 9.5/10 (only because I'm sure it will get better).

...to be honest, TGUSA has the ingredients to outdo TGUK (yes, I said it)


...admittedly I did have a vodka/coke and a gin/tonic...but so what I always do when watching TG...
 
Gyvon said:
Holy crap, that wagon concept they showed at the end was absolutely gorgeous.

GM, please make this car.
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Kaervak said:
Same here, that concept sketch was really quite good looking. If GM ever made something like that, I'd seriously consider buying it.
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They already make somehting similar down here...granted not 8 seats like Rutledge said, but a GM Wagon available with a 6speed and a v8

http://www.hsv.com.au/e3/showroom/default.aspx?ID=Clubsport R8 Tourer

or

http://www.holden.com.au/vehicles/sportwagon#/overview
 
drnick said:
They already make somehting similar down here...granted not 8 seats like Rutledge said, but a GM Wagon available with a 6speed and a v8

http://www.hsv.com.au/e3/showroom/default.aspx?ID=Clubsport R8 Tourer

or

http://www.holden.com.au/vehicles/sportwagon#/overview
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Yeah the Sportwagon is a really good car, I see a few around nowadays as well as the normal Commodore wagon.

As for the show, pretty solid - I just wish they didn't copy TGUK 10x07 right down to the egg colander/water test. I know they're not 'ripping off' TGUK, but they could have thought of their own challenges at least.

I wish the audience was more natural, at the moment it looks like they just laugh/applaud when the sign tells them to :rolleyes:.

7/10
 
It was a good ep ,but you can't really compare it to the original from TGUK. The audience is rubbish (no offense to anyone) and the news are poor. 7/10
 
OK, I just spent an hour writing a reply, and the forum lost it. Strike two against the Finalgear.com forums (strike one was ignoring my request for access to the "greatest driving roads" section, my only reason for signing up to the forum in the first place).

That... wasn't very good. There were no other cars featured, nothing put around the track. I'm glad there was a news segment, but three items? Surely there is more going on in the automotive world than that? Especially since this is only the second time this season they've had that segment, you'd think that would give them more material to work with. The items they did cover would have benefited from some media to illustrate the subject - a video of the Google car driving itself in traffic, a picture of the new Z28.

It doesn't bother me so much that the three GM cars idea is a pretty sincere imitation of the TGUK British Leyland episode, but the fact that this is the fourth time out of five episodes that they've used a TGUK idea is disappointing to me. The writing for this show seems pretty weak all around, and when it is good it seems like it's usually because they're knocking off the Brits.

I'm holding out hope that this show will turn out to be awesome, and reminding myself to compare it to the first season of the new format of TGUK. It's not even holding up to that comparison, though. I hope it survives long enough to come into its own.

Quoth Clarkson in TGUK 1x05: "When you're taking on an institution like that, ... you can't be just as good, you've got to be 20 times better." They're not even managing "just as good."
 
I give this one a solid 8. Best yet for improved chemistry, a respectable reincarnation of a good TGUK challenge, and a decent interview. There's room for improvement but Rome was not built in a day. Keep up the sarcasm in the news section too.

It was the first time I watched TGUS with some buddies and we were all LOLing. The GM challenge hit home because I used to drive an old boat (Olds Delta 88) and know how much of a pain it was to bring a drink in the car and not spill it in my crotch on the first turn, because that's the only place you could put it. That bit really should resonate with a lot of Americans since we all owned or at least knew someone who owned one of those cars or their chassis-sharing cousins. I guess we should all also have an interest in seeing a successful GM again.

I don't knock the writing staff for copying and re-formatting a TGUK challenge. Fundamentally, it worked. Pick some old blue-collar beaters that either you or someone you know can reminisce about and put them through their paces. Do some things in them that maybe you shouldn't do in your own car. You get the entertainment value of it but you don't wind up with spilled Big Gulps or egg on your face (literally and figuratively).

I'd like to add that if we are the show's most critical audience, and we're being tough on our ratings, I wonder what your average Joe would think about the show after just surfing into it. You know, the guy who hasn't got a clue about TGUK but regularly watches Myth Busters or something, and just decided to check out TGUS. Would be interesting to read such a review.

Can't wait to see next week's race to Key West...
 
chooie said:
I loved the way that Rutledge was tall enough to dampen the vibration of the colander with his head. I think what these fellas need is a seriously long foreign trip... say from Acapulco to Cancun in class 11 cars (or common taxi vehicles like the nissan sentra), or maybe a border to border run from Canada to Mexico. After a trip like that we'll truly see how these guys handle each other. One of the classic tenets of TGUK is dealing with sleep deprivation and boredom - I think that would be most amusing.
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you know what? i was thinking that alot during this eppisode. an "epic" trip would do so much. im sure they are waiting ill they know if this will work before they spend that kind of money. thats a huge operation to put that together. would be very big for the show
 
I thought this was the best episode so far that attempted to tap the vein of the UK show. I fully expected a slow start to the series because it had a lot to live up to. It needs to find the balance of appealing to US viewers (not just US fans of the UK show) and keeping us, the shows real solid base, wanting to come back.

The studio segments are hard to watch and seem rushed through. But I think it's mostly the lack of audience involvement or maybe them not knowing why they're there. The hosts lines feel TOO obviously read from a prompter and need that ad-lib feel to them.

The hosts themselves I'm still on the fence about. Tanner is obviously an excellent driver but doesn't seem to know how to review a car creatively while flogging it. Adam seems like the car guy who loves cars enough to know basics but that's it. And Rut seems like the same but with the redneck angle. Both seem to getting more comfortable off each other enough to throw jabs and make it entertaining. But I see one of them getting dumped eventually.

What the show is lacking that I don't think we'll ever see, or at least not till the 2nd season, is that polish the UK one has. We're never going to get the amazing depth of music the UK one brings because of licensing here. But the videography needs to improve badly. I don't just mean every shot needs heavy vignetting and gradient filters, or a few passes through the program Magic Bullet but an actual eye for creating those amazing establishing shots and creative angles.

People say "Well, look how the early Top Gear UK shows were before coming back in '01." shouldn't be an excuse. They know what makes it work after 10 years of experience and just need to carry that over. They almost have it here.
 
They had such original idea full of potential and then ruined it by doing challenges that had nothing to do with the topic. It should have been them comparing those old cars to GMs new cars or something like that. Now they just did "hey lets see how many food fights we can start"
 
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