[04x01] August 30th, 2011

[04x01] August 30th, 2011


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Viper007Bond

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Whoops. Since no rip has been found yet, I completely forgot to make a thread.
 
I actually enjoyed this.

Less "pretzel".
Some fun 'mucking about'.
The car review of the Volvo was good and quite funny.
Shane hijacking the land cruiser review was good too.

The presenters all seemed a bit more relaxed (which I also think about this season of top gear usa).

I'm thinking a 7 or 8. 7, I think.
 
Wait. What?? Channel 9 fail. Did not see a single advertisement for this... Ah well, shall wait for a rip. Hope it's less cringeworthy than S1...
 
Um. I'm thinking Hey! Hey! It's TopGear!

Witty banter is not a substitute for a properly thought-through story.

It's like they're STILL saying "Don't worry, we'll work out the story once we get to the location."

This lack of prep was no more apparent than on the surfing 'challenge'. There was nothing 'challenging' about it. They just drove up and did it. No drama, no suspense, no setup, no resolve, no interest. Shane's 'white-noise' banter didn't disguise this fact.

I know I'm a curmudgeon, but if I were directing this piece I would've found it very easy to wrap a story around it.

How about these variables to make it more interesting?

There's only enough distance to get the speed, otherwise she hits the end.
If she falls the water is only so deep, and she could break her neck.
The rope breaks on the first attempt. (There were no 'attempts'! What's with that?)
The 'rig' breaks.
The light is fading... "one last attempt at the record".
The first surfboard wouldn't allow the speed.
Take off speeds have to be varied.

I dunno, it was all simply half-arsed. Yet again.

The only thing I liked in the entire ep was the Vikings.

The litmus test, as always, is 'Would you pay for this ep on DVD?'

No. Sorry.
 
i totally spaced on it last night as well

though i have found a rip from another tracker (one that i use for local content). I should have it in about 20-30mins.

If someone wants to let me know what the best way is to share it with the FG community, feel free let me know. :)
 
i totally spaced on it last night as well

me three ... only saw the Volvo bit and was thinking what a waste of time the drag race part was (even my mother knows that a new Volvo would beat a bubble car in a race) before I got tired of all the hackneyed Volvo clich?s and went to iron some handkerchiefs (or something similarly mundane) ... very glad I didn't see the surf thing ... sounds (from Icedvovo's description) like they have learned nothing.
 
I KNOW this is not the place for it, but since it seems that no one was aware it exists, I figured I'd help everyone out. There is now a rip up on TPB. It's only standard definition, but it's the best seen so far.
 
You'll only get standard definition rip - stupid Oz government mandated until analogue signal gets shut off, that the TV stations have to exactly broadcast their main channel in digital and analogue, so this was not broadcast in high definition.
 
The surfing thing was not a "challenge" as Icedvovo put it. Ewen was looking forward to reviewing Toyota's new FJ Cruiser and Shane ruined it for him by making him use the car to tow Layne Beachley on a surfboard so that they could break a world record held by the poms. It wasn't a challenge, it was a short, humourous piece. I thought it was hilarious.

And yes, they did still manage to provide some information about the car.
 
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It wasn't a challenge, it was a short, humourous piece. I thought it was hilarious.

And yes, they did still manage to provide some information about the car.

Yeah I know. Contrary to the tone of my comments, I kind of enjoyed the ep in the same way as I enjoy, say, Car Sharks or Pimp my Ride.

I guess I just have to get used to the unique new 'flavour' of TGA, because it seems we're stuck with it.

Still doesn't taste like TG to me though. As I said, I get a distinct overtone of Hey Hey.
 
In the end, my opinion is they are trying too hard.

The rallying segment would have been good, but they turned the entire thing into one challenge. And then they had to go that one step further and blindfold the drivers, just to make it 'different'. Over the top, not necessary and didn't improve the segment at all. Where was the discussion about the cars, the modification scenes? Maybe more than one challenge? This was a problem in the earlier seasons as well. They really just aren't getting their moneys worth out of ideas, they go in with stupid gimmicks and ruin the whole thing, e.g. the caravan challenge. It would have been interesting and amusing to see them drive the off road track properly. But no, we switched the pedals around to make it Channel-9-Western-Sydney-demographic-Funniest-Home-Videos "funny".

The Volvo segment again was ruined by trying too hard and going too far. Why didn't they just put it against the S4 in the first place? Because they were trying to be funny, and just ended up being try hard and unfunny. A 911 Turbo beats a Volvo? Didn't see that one coming. A Volvo beats a Messerschmidt microcar? Wow, what other amazing surprises do they have for us? To me it feels like they are looking for things TG UK hasn't done. Only one problem, there's usually a reason they haven't done it.

FJ Cruiser thing? Good idea, ruined by execution.

My suggestions remain the same. Relax, give the viewer some extra credit, we're not all beer-swilling uneducated labourers from Penrith. Stop with the silly gimmicks, consider that maybe it would be better without them. They are meant to improve it, make it funnier and more exciting, but they don't work. Ditch them. When you do a challenge, actually see it through. Start at the beginning, and don't get held up being different. If it's something the UK show has done, that doesn't mean you have to set everyone on fire and make them race cars backwards to make it different.
 
FJ Cruiser thing? Good idea, ruined by execution.

Agreed. By all means break a world record, but exploit a strength or feature of the vehicle to do so. 4WD? Perhaps it could have been doing 90km/h over rough terrain in relative comfort.

I did like the Viking touch in the Volvo segment.
 
I gave up by the first ad break, and went and watched Top Gear America on the computer.

Ewen Page annoys me. What kind of idiot crashes an esky into the set, and then keeps going. If they have to have someone from the magazine, ditch him and get someone like James Stanford on. Stanford writes humourous articles already, and from the brief conversation I had with him when he was in Darwin with his postie bike running on metho for the the eco challenge, he isn't a complete nong!
 
What kind of idiot crashes an esky into the set, and then keeps going.

Yeah, that kinda shit me too.

I know one thing, if I was their public liability insurer there would have been a stern phone call.
 
A 5 from me. As Top Gear USA finds its own groove by trying not to be the UK version, TGA still tries to be the original show but fails very bad in doing. They try to look as they are improvising but they are not and therefore they look very fake. I got bored watching this episode.
 
They're doing the same thing to Ewen that they're on the verge of doing to Rutledge "Aw Shucks" Wood: turning him into the James May-style eccentric of the show. Yeah, Warren Brown did a halfway-decent job in that same role, and didn't give off too many vapors of Eau de May, but it's quite apparent that Ewen doesn't have the innate sense of humor that enabled Warren to pull it off. They need to let Ewen be himself, and if he doesn't have enough of a self in the first place...can someone tell me exactly why they ditched Warren if this is all that they got? A cast of Shane, Steve, and Warren would have been spectacular.

Oh, TGAUS, please don't travel down this path. This show has a metric buttload of potential. Please, find your voice the same way that TGUS is.
 
At least Ewen brings experience as a car journalist. I'm a bit annoyed they dumped Warren as well, but the issues are more than just who the faces are.
 
At least Ewen brings experience as a car journalist.

But car journalism alone doesn't cut it. James was an experienced car journalist, but he didn't do that great of a job on driven and Old Top Gear, not to mention his first two seasons on New Top Gear. Does TGAUS have enough time to allow Ewen the same opportunity that James had to mature in front of the camera?

I'm a bit annoyed they dumped Warren as well, but the issues are more than just who the faces are.

Agreed, and it's not my only reason for being dismayed either, but Ewen is the weak link among the hosts, and trying to turn him into James isn't helping things.
 
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