It's funny, it seems to have been a bit of an opinion splitter when it comes to the comments but people who have voted mostly seem to have liked it. Including me.
I had no idea who Shannon Noll was until I looked him up (and to my surprise discovered he wasn't a woman), but I really enjoyed him being on the show. OK, so Charlie's interviewing wasn't so much bad as odd this week, but I found myself laughing even though I know nothing about him. Enjoyed the R8 and the BMW reviews (though I hope to hear a review as negative as those were positive at some point - and I think I'll be waiting a long time for that - just to show that there isn't an editorial bias towards whoever lets TGA play with their cars) and it was nice that they came to conclusions - albeit "this car is great" in both cases - rather than fizzling out. Loved the Toorak Tractor segment even though it was completely pointless. Yes, it was staged, but no more so than TGUK attempting to reverse park their clapped out 70s supercars. It just made me laugh. In fact, I laughed more with this episode than any to date (and there were no signs to tell me to do that here at home
).
The camera work is improving on the track, or they're trying harder or something. And it's good that they've finally pointed out where you can get an overview of the track. The thing is, even though I've seen it, I still find it hard to relate what's happening to the layout. But they do seem to be getting there slowly.
If there was a weakness, it was the H2O. I'm not saying they shouldn't have done it, but the shortness of the show compared to TGUK really showed here. The segment could have done with being longer to give it more structure but I noticed the running time when they went into the second part and there was only about 4 minutes of the episode left. It just wasn't enough time to do anything with it - which was a shame, because I'm sure more could have been done with it, especially as they didn't manage to sink or crash into anything. And they seemed to have been surprisingly successful in making the car work, so it's a pity the segment didn't quite pull it off.
However, it did give me a thought - if an amphibious challenge becomes a part of each of the international versions of TG, wouldn't it be fun to see an international TG regatta?
More solid work from Warren and Steve, and I'm still warming to Charlie, though I do think he's better out of the studio (see this week's SIABSC for evidence), though they all seemed a bit more relaxed and more free in the studio segments this week to me.
Overall... I still think it's getting there, and I'm enjoying it. That's what I watch telly for, so I'm happy