As a 17 year old who is taking his driving test this Wednesday, I was very interested to see what they would be up against in the challenges. However the first problem that I saw was the budget. ?2500 is a lot of money, and I would class it too high. I would have set it at ?1500 - that would have shown them a better challenge. My worry of what they were to do with the insurance problems was answered by the budget. I shan't be complaining to the BBC just yet.
As for the challenges themselves, they had me in tears from step one. The combination of the childish hilarity of them gluing May's stereo to be playing the most horrendous kind of noise possible added to the unexpected brilliance of Clarkson destroying the rear window of his Volvo (in a wonderful deja vu moment from when I was in Dublin leaving a music gig, in which a door was removed from our hired Hiace by a bollard and a window was broken) left me on the brink of actually wetting myself.
The finale was an amusing way to stereotype all 17 year olds as chavs, as was the whole idea of the challenge to be honest, but I'm more intelligent than listening to the kind of out of tune blank noise coming out of James' Golf.
Frankly this film came across to me as being one of the best they have ever done.
The supercars in the desert was brilliant in its own ways, however I would class that Murcielago as nothing less than a hypercar. The race was a nice feature with a nice ending - not the usual 'and I've won' but 'BRAAAAAAAKE!!!'
. A slightly disappointing time I must say, although maybe I was expecting more from what we're always told is the best of the best of the best supercar in the world. I, however, won't miss the Lambo.
Stephen Fry's interview wasn't quite as long as hoped, and maybe not quite as interesting either, but whatever. We know that the nearest 'grinder'
lmao
to Topgear is 9 miles away, if you ever wanted to know that. Another slightly disappointingly slow time, and the man himself looked less 'good' thanks to the weight loss, but more to me of 'ill' - maybe also in a mental state; but lets hope not.
The final race was kind of shoved in, and should really have been integrated in with the other segment. But a nice race nonetheless. A sort of expected victory, but to me a less expected massive jump off the line from the McLaren.
Overall, this series is (and I'm pretty sure this is said about every series every time) shaping up to be an excellent way to spend the license payers' money. 9/10.