[12x03] November 16th, 2008

[12x03] November 16th, 2008

  • Total voters
    574
jayhawk said:
:D

Too right! At 16 I was driving the twisty snow covered roads in Western Wisconsin in a gigantic RWD sedan, and that is why Scandinavians are so good at racing; driving in the snow requires so much concentration, patience and fine adjustments that dry pavement is a breeze after that. Well, that and Scandinavians are just vastly superior. :p
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Ahh, I remember I had Drivers' Ed training in the winter. My alma mater's kind of in a wooded area so there's some twisty roads that you have to drive on. So here I am in the winter, trying to drive the car back...and promptly ditch the damn thing 'cause I have no idea where the road's at!

(no wonder it took me three tries before I got my license.....in the summer no less.)


I haven't seen the ep in its entirety yet but I saw the V8 blender on YouTube. I guess there's the weekly Daily Fail "Let's Piss and Moan About Top Gear Again" segment. With added vegetabilist complaints!
 
Anyone else having problems playing this week's episode? Obviously plays fine in VLC, but needed ffdshow for WMP and is completely unplayable on the PS3 (where I watch Top Gear every week on the big screen!!!).

What's the deal?
 
Not a bad ep at all. seemed really quick though, over too soon. Wheel chair bit was rather meh, but the finland bit was ace and marky mark was pretty good. the Avantine bit was very good but i wish it had been longer. 9/10. not narly as good as last weeks but still better than all other TV ever
 
Pretty good episode, not epic like the last one, but pretty good.

Also, Finnish driving tests are AWESOME! Seriously, do you have any car accidents there when you have a driving tests that requires you learn to drift?
 
I think that was probably one of the best of the series.

Toyota Chair thing - Kind of interesting. I like that whole, you tell the chair your going for coffee, it tells all the other chair people that your going for coffee. Neat

Finland Driving - Wicked. I'd love to be able to drive as well as H?kkinen

Star in a reasonably priced car - This is the first SIARPC I've watched since ronnie wood. If they could get stars as good as this I'd watch it every week.

Renault Challenge car thing - I love the Avantime. Loved the segment. I was really pulling for all the changes to work.

I think for me to give this episode a 10 it would have had to have a super car review in the beginning. Otherwise it was awesome. 9/10 from me :)
 
i think this was the best episode in quite some time,... not that i didnt like the previous once, but this one was really really good :_)
 
Didn't think this episode was as good as episode 1 for me (I LOVED that episode...I guess I'm in the minority here)

Tried watching SIARPC segment for once since I know who the guest was, but I thought it was very dull...

Maybe my expectations are too high

overall, 7/10
 
For my drivers lic I went on my 15th b'day. I took a test consisting of 20 questions asking me to pick out the shape of a stop sign, yield sign, and a speed limit sign. Then a drive around the block, (where I did not meet one car I might add) park outside the building, went in, took my picture and it was handed to me. BUT I have never had an accident and I drive in large cities all the time and have driven in more than a few foreign countries. So not too bad.

I can understand James' confusion on the Finland driving requirements or he may have just been given the wrong information by someone else who was confused.

Personally I would prefer a much stricter test.

A few years back my lic expired and I didn't notice for about a year so I had to do the test again. They wanted me to give them $10 for a book to take home and study first because the test had changed and was supposed to be harder now. I asked if there was a penalty for failing it, they said no, but the test was really really hard and noone had passed it without studing the book first. I said I would give it a try anyway. I got 100%. The test was super easy and my concern was all the people that are driving around me daily that had trouble with it.
 
I have watched TG since the begining of this show years ago. But, tonights episode was boring. The Toyota chair was okay and i kind of enjoyed the race with james. The interview with MW was trash. Sorry, but i had to say it. Just not funny, or a lively interview. Then the end was okay, but the over all show just felt boring. I really hope next weeks show is a hole lot better.

Please if any body from Top gear skims this post, please watch some of your old show like in series 9-11. Those shows put TG on the international map instead of a british scale.

Keep up the great work TG and i know that next weeks show will be back to form.
 
toyota chair - was good in parts. i quite liked it

race with james was awesome, love that sort of thing.

siarpc - didnt watch... the blending thing, that shouldnt happen again. the car modification bit was good...but, and i know this sounds somewhat against the point. but i wish that had chosen a better benchmark and picked a more exciting car to get there. it was good. but i felt it could have been better.
overall, i gave it a 7
 
Started downloading from mininova at 4:30 PM, it is now 1 AM and it still has 15 minutes to go. What the fuck, the internet is giving me the shaft tonight.

Going on nine hours and still no Top Gear, arghghh. I can fly to England in eight hours.
 
I've gt to say. This was certainly not one of the best episodes...Every episode can't be good because it's Top Gear. That's just silly. I saw the polls and I feel you people are a little too nice. The Finnish segment was definitely not bad. A little insightful and I will say refreshing. 8.5 I'm going to say, because it was enjoyable.

The toyota chair bit, short yes, boring I felt just a little out of the current tune of what BBC has been doing with the show as of late...I'm going to say a 6... just kind of a blah segment honestly.


The SITRPC, good choice in guest, finally one I know besides Jay Kay and Simon Coelle (can't spell his name), man he can't drive so lt was entertaining.


The Evo thing, honestly just did not have the same energy like the other challenges. It was missing that ooomph the show usually has...it kind of felt rushed and put together with little thought. I wanted more frankly. Now, I'm sure many will differ on this, burt I feel some of you will feel for me when I say this episode just did not have the energy and thoroughness of the last 2.

P.S. that blender spot was absolutely stupid. Filler, filler, filler. C'mon, I know the boys and the brilliant minds at the BBC can do better than that.

I waited all week for this? I hope the 4th will be better.

Sorry guys, this is just how I feel. I'd say if I was going to give a score out of 10, I'll say a 7...it just simply did not grab me like the first 2 episodes and the last few seasons. It's okay to try something new, but you know you got to be careful when doing something like the blender thing...I'd rather have the cool wall. Could I take a guess the blender thing was Jezza's idea?
 
torqueless said:
toyota chair - was good in parts. i quite liked it

race with james was awesome, love that sort of thing.

siarpc - didnt watch... the blending thing, that shouldnt happen again. the car modification bit was good...but, and i know this sounds somewhat against the point. but i wish that had chosen a better benchmark and picked a more exciting car to get there. it was good. but i felt it could have been better.
overall, i gave it a 7
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Good to see a another mind who is looking at it evenly..it severely was missing the punch it normally has.
 
I liked it a lot, but it lacked continuity because there was no big film, which we've grown used to lately..
That said, it very funny and well done...
 
Well...

I voted and gave this episode a 9. Then I went onto Top Gear.com. There they now have a bunch of car reviews from the first several seasons. I watched one review in particular, the one on the M3 CSL (3x02), and it was brilliant. It made me realize how seasons 9-12, with the exception of the America episode, have been crap.

Top Gear is nothing like what it began as. As demonstrated by last week's Fiat review, they can't do a proper car review anymore, let alone an interview. 12x02 gave me hope that they may still have it in them, but I am concerned Top Gear is dying. It has moved away from its core purpose, to review cars in an informative yet entertaining way. It is now a show that focuses on entertainment based loosely upon cars.

My only hope is that the entertainment viewers will drop off, the ratings will plummet, and Top Gear will go back to its pre-crash self. For now, this episode deserves a 5.
 
They are still mis-representing what the dyno number is. The dyno number is the hp after drivetrain loss, and there's no way a maintnance can make that much power. 209whp factoring in 15% drivetrain loss is 240hp. So they actually did some n/a tuning that made 30hp, that's really good assuming they just did bolt-ons. If they were really serious and do some headwork and cams, I bet it would come really close to the Evo X's time. But still, the Avantime looks good with the wheels and suspension. If they would've started out with a Meganne it'll probably hit their goal. Overall pretty good ep. 8/10.
 
Red Suns said:
Sorry guys, this is just how I feel. I'd say if I was going to give a score out of 10, I'll say a 7...it just simply did not grab me like the first 2 episodes and the last few seasons. It's okay to try something new, but you know you got to be careful when doing something like the blender thing...I'd rather have the cool wall. Could I take a guess the blender thing was Jezza's idea?
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That piece had Jeremy written all over it. I remember seeing a clip from a show he did many many moons ago about trying to cook a chicken.

What really surprised me was just how interested James appeared in the whole thing. He couldn't get his taste of the end result fast enough. I actually found James' whole reacton to the thing made it enjoyable.
 
Hm, I think I'm somewhere between a 7 and an 8 for this ep.

I really liked the Finnish section, it was interesting and amusing. Best part of the show by a mile. I can't wait to see May's supercar test in a few weeks! :D

I found May's reaction to the blended stuff (mental, I wouldn't touch that. Think of the salmonella!) hilarious but it did seem to go for quite a bit.

The wheelchair thing had awesome lights on the back, but it felt like it belonged a bit more in May's Big Ideas rather than a TG ep.

MW came across as a bit of a wanker. I would've liked to hear more about his cars or him nicking stuff when he was younger. It felt like he was just on to plug stuff and he didn't really care about the lap. Also would've been good to see some of his offs.

The Avantime section could've been really interesting but it didn't really go in the direction I was expecting. I was hoping they'd drag in some tuning dudes and they'd get some advice, disregard it, tweak things, add a lot of power, change the design, etc. I don't know, it was missing something I guess.

I think I gotta stop reading the pre-ep threads because my expectations were a little too high this week.


EDIT: Who negrepped me for giving an honest opinion? C'mon, can't take criticism?
EDIT2: Thanks to the person who evened it up! :D
 
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