[14x01] November 15th, 2009

[14x01] November 15th, 2009


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The sad thing about that great road in Romania is that I will never get to drive round it.
I would never put my car through the crap roads to actually get there.
So I guess I will have to settle for that other greatest driving road, Stelvio Pass was it?

Head to the south of France and you will find amazing roads and you won't have to put up with the crap that is E. Europe. Check out the Route Napoleon. I spent 3 days driving around this area starting in Cannes and it was incredible. Great food, friendly people and unbelievable roads. You can even drive sections that are used in the WRC.
 
^ Not really sure. Depends on where you go and at what time you go there. Some places are really not recommended for foreigners.

I know what you mean. Some parts of England are really not recommended for the English these days.
 
I loved this episode, absolutely loved it. Better than anything in Series 13 and a definite return to their best.

Eric Bana made a great guest, shame his lap was in the rain as I think he could've topped the board.

Funniest moment for me was after James' crash

Jeremy: "Well, as you know, on Top Gear..."
James: "Yeah, bye"
 
Does anybody else feel that Top Gear has lost a bit of the edge? The guys feel like caricatures of themselves. The jokes are now so scripted that they are not even believable. The Sandera thing was funny when James kept bringing it up in the news over the last two series, but in this it was just ridiculous. It wasn't believable that he was so thrilled at that car. and just destroying it a few minutes later made the entire thing even more pointless. James getting lost and ending up in Paris - come on! And falling asleep next to that dam. It just all seemed quite pointless because of course it didn't happen like that. It felt implausible and fake.

I noticed this trend beginning around when the caravan holiday episode aired. That was the first episode that really brought up the entire scripted vs spontaneous debate because it was so obviously scripted and felt a artificial and fake at the end - it was still hilarious though. Since then, it doesnt feel like james, jeremy and richard, but rather like three comedy actors based on the them.

You see they don't even try anymore! Jeremy is just so ful of himself that whenever they get a challenge he can't be bothered to make an effort. Instead he just messes up in a way he think might be funny and that's all. Thing is, it is only funny when they mess up while really trying and being incompetent in there own ways.

Bad top gear is still better than most other tv programs and I'll keep watching hoping for them to switch back into gear. I am looking foreward to the shit-episode made on a budget. That might force them to actually try and do something original.
 
Also loved the bit from Jeremy about how driving these cars in Romania is like going to Sudan wearing a suit made of food. It is so true.

6/10 :)

-Daniel

Why is it "so true"? i'm from romania and i've lived abroad for some time in western europe and i have to tell you...one thing romania isn't short of...are expensive cars! The comparison with sudan was funny indeed...but not true..
 
James getting lost and ending up in Paris - come on

It wasn't in Paris. Bucharest also has an Arc de triumph, similar with the one in Paris - and of course they thought it would be a good joke with James beeing confused. So that bit wasn't too exagerated... :)

Why do they have a different (a white) Lamborghini in the studio, while in Romania James drove a black one?
 
Why do they have a different (a white) Lamborghini in the studio, while in Romania James drove a black one?

That happens quite often. I have a feeling that they get "pretty ones" for standing still in the studio, and they get the already well-used press cars for track duty.
 
Also the Romania segment was filmed months ago. Top Gear doesn't buy the cars; they borrow them. The black one was probably gone off to somewhere else.
 
Technically, this was brilliant. The scenery and the filming in Romania was superb. The 'Peoples Palace' and that road in the middle of nowhere were insane. However, this episode left me a bit cold. I think the Dacia Sandero joke was killed, buried, exhumed, killed some more and then finally cremated. I don't want to see or hear about the Dacia Fucking Sandero in Top Gear ever again!

Eric Bana was a highlight. He was the very first SIARPC where I felt the SIARPC segment was too short. Jay Kay should consider himself lucky that Eric was on a wet track, as in the dry I reckon Eric could have easily knocked Jay Kay off top spot.

The BMW vs M-B piece wasn't bad, although I'm suprised that the Daily Fail haven't jumped all over James for not wearing a seat belt when he was being chaffeured by The Stig.

The jokes seemed horribly contrived though. The Stig and James playing 'Top Trumps'? That CD stuck to Hammond's face? The wrecked Sandero? :rolleyes:

8/10. Not for what it was, but for what it could have been. The only reason the score is so high is because the production values of the Romanian film were brilliant despite being subject to a very tight schedule. That, and Top Gear is like pizza and sex: when it's good it's very very good, but when it's bad it's still pretty good. ;)
 
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Also the Romania segment was filmed months ago. Top Gear doesn't buy the cars; they borrow them. The black one was probably gone off to somewhere else.

Was filmed in september; it is technically "months away" but doen't seem that far away... Anyway, I thought they had a good reason for the change and I missed it.

Oh, I remembered... While in Romania they were thinking of keeping the cars dusty for the studio shooting...
 
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This episode was really awesome - better than ANY of Season 13.
 
14th Season & there I was thinking the whole TG caper was getting alittle tired.
Tip top episode for me.

Road trip got better with every next scene for me. I?m on-the-fence on James? bump into the local?s car (earlier model Dacia?) ? scripted?
How about the amount of dust in those interiors at the tail end of the segment.

The track test of the perverted Germans was an interesting take ? from the backseat. Did the Merc only smoke the right rear each time? (That didn?t seem so hi-tech [no LSD?].)

Bana was cool. I bet he was chaffing at the bit for a spot on the show.
Being from Melbourne myself & 41yrs old, watching ?Love the Beast? was spooky. (Although a Holden man: long live the XU1 & A9X)

Oh, and to clarify, the matter relating to the beer limit @ Bathurst this year, was defined as : one slab.
 
Also, Do they know that Bathurst has been??

T'was a couple of months ago if I remember rightly.

Correct it was in early October.
Someone needs to tell Jeremy it's pronounced Bathurst in Australia,not "Barthurst".I thought Eric Bana might've pointed it out to him.
 
I thought it was a good episode, but I really wish they'd find a way to do HD with the in-car cameras. The sharp difference in picture quality was a bit annoying.

I wish they'd have interacted with the locals in Romania a bit more (the village was cute!) and maybe visited a few more sites, but overall, a decent episode. Loved the Transfagarasan. Loved Bana, even though SIARPC is usually my least favorite segment. And the camerawork--beautiful as always. Well, except in the cars.
 
Please please please please please please please PLEASE can we stop using the word scripted!!!!!!

ALL TV programmes have a script (and/or storyboard), otherwise as other posters have said it would be chaos, and TG would look like a Youtube video from someone's backyard.

As Heathrow and others have said, specify what it is you don't like, writing "it's scripted, it's too scripted" etc is just laziness. If you mean "the suspension of disbelief required was too much" or, "the set-up to that punchline was clumsy" (or whatever your complaint) then say that!

If you are hoping that Andy Wilman or other TG staff will read your review, you need to provide constructive criticism. Saying "it's too scripted" doesn't help anyone, and has become a tired cliche like "at the end of the day".

I like to think that most of my fellow FG members have a reasonable level of intellect, and should be able to express that adequately.

/rant over, sorry
 
I gave this Episode 9/10. I love to see TG in HD now -finally!

This one is for Richard Hammond=
Doppelkupplungsgetriebe= Double Clutch Transmission
It has been already presented by TG Australia in an early Episode as the Porsche DKG. Volkswagen calls it DSG BTW.

The Romanian Adventure was the best part. This was almost a deja-vu, graet landscape and I can only remember the Stelvio Pass Story that can keep up with this.
 
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