[14x05] December 20th, 2009

[14x05] December 20th, 2009


  • Total voters
    400
Noble review was fantastic ... could be better when the Noble was not in baby blue.

SIARPC and news: good, nice to see

gallery: oh my god! That was not TopGear ... what a shame.
 
The Noble review was fine. Yes, it should have dragged against the other cars, but I bet one or a few of those cars' owners told TG to take it easy with their car, which would kill the idea of a drag. I have no problem with the power tests only being on the TG track. With an M600 you probably can't take it to some volcanic beach in Iceland because you'll wreck an expensive and rare car, but it's fine with mass-produced cars. Maybe there's something to be said that we're not seeing as many reviews of "regular" or "mass-produced" cars as we have in past series. Yes, we had the Twingo, but there are plenty more new and exciting "regular" cars out there to review.

The art show had some poorly scripted bits that annoyed me. I wish they had spent some time covering some of the real art they had on display. What a crap installation for the Countach and the 275 GTS! Put it in the middle of the room with lots of bright lights and let people walk around and see the car from all the angles. Sticking them in a dimly-lit room and only allowing you to view them from the front is just crap. And why is Hammond's crap Land Rover in there? At the very least put Oliver in there and make it interesting; but really he should have gone off and found a classic Porsche like a 356 Speedster.

That said, I didn't hate the whole of the art show film. I actually liked James' sculpture. Some of the photos and other sculptures they had looked interesting. It's just a shame they were all in the background and you had to ignore the presenters to try and get anything out of it.

Jenson was okay. I buy that he oversteered on purpose.

The news was just an excuse to set fire to things.

6/10.
 
Ok just watched it about an hour ago and have to give it an overall 7.

Overall it certainly wasnt that bad, but again another Top Gear episode with nothing amazing or memorable but a quite a few downs and some horrible scripting.

Firstly the Noble review was pretty good, again with some nice camera work and overall had a great consistent flow and thought of the car. Which was that it was a good car if you ignore the other super cars and can drive it well enough. So I gave this part an 8

The news was unfortunately following a consistent tone of the other news this series by being nothing exciting or memorable even though it was the Christmas special of the news. Though I did smile and have a few smirks at it it just wasnt up there. Also was a bit disgusted at the scripted part where Jeremy supposedly sprayed himself in the eye. This part was a 6.5 from me.

The first part of the Art gallery was a bit disappointing. It started out average but just got worse and worse. Especially the blatantly obvious scripting (I knew hammonds painting would fall into the river..) was pretty horrid. I'm happy with them scripting some things but as long as it isnt that damn obvious and is worth losing some credibility. When James sculpture fell and Jeremy got hit in the 'plungs' it just went out the door.
Gave this part a 6

The Jenson Button interview was a tiny bit above average and was quite interesting through it and was nice to see the guest actually excited and interested. So I gave this an 8

The final Art Gallery part was definitely an improvement over the first part and was quite enjoyable for the most of it. Though they exaggerated James talk through recording too far by scripting it to be in the 'oh its james so hes that anal about everything' sort of theme. The cocking about during it was quite nice and the reactions of Jeremy in regards to Hammonds radio interviews was pretty funny. Though i disliked how the BMW crashed which was pretty damn scripted. The way everything came together in the end made it nice and the face that there actually was a pretty good exposition there made me happy to see they did put a good effort into it. I did have a bit of a laugh at when they were in the stadium lol and it felt a bit like Top Gear live. So overall with the second part it would be an 8.

I am disappointed in terms of it being a Top Gear episode but it still beats the crap out of everything else there is on TV. I just wished they came back to their former glory which to me was just last year with Series 12 where things werent horribly scripted and segments were memorable and exciting.
 
the Interceptor...I get your point now. But still..I know myself well enough to be certain of my state of mind concerning this discussion.
I had to do a lot of growing up, when I should have been having a nice childhood, so my decisions stand when I make 'em...

Starfox07 sounds like another broken record, but I argee with MacGuffin:

I have to watch it a second time (strangely I always start to like or dislike Top Gear episodes always after the 2nd or 3rd watching) but I think it was better, than most of the comments in here suggest.
 
I haven?t had a chance to watch it yet since I?m on vacation in Mexico, but I overheard that it wasn?t good from some random British passer-by who was talking about it. Not a good sign.
 
the Interceptor...I get your point now. But still..I know myself well enough to be certain of my state of mind concerning this discussion.
I had to do a lot of growing up, when I should have been having a nice childhood, so my decisions stand when I make 'em...

Starfox07 sounds like another broken record, but I argee with MacGuffin:

I have to watch it a second time (strangely I always start to like or dislike Top Gear episodes always after the 2nd or 3rd watching) but I think it was better, than most of the comments in here suggest.

Broken record? Elaborate?
 
....one of the worst episode in TG new series....ever.:yawn::???:
I thought I'd never say this
South America trip would better be excellent...or this season definitely will be a fail
 
Started moderately well but the final half was just so insanely boring.

TG have tried the cars as art thing before and it died on its knees iam surprised that they not only tried again but failed even more.
 
I gave this episode a 7 out of 10.
I enjoyed the Noble segment, it was a review that was a throw back to the way they used to review cars.
I found the art exhibition interesting, the cocking about was a bit annoying. However the end result was quite a good exhibition, I personally would have went to that. Downside was it did drag on a bit.
SIARPC - Button was good

The news segment was ok, but a little wasted.
 
Gave it 8/10. A very nice episode. Button seemed a bit arrogant now that he's WC, Noble review was good, art bit was excellent.

Don't like it, don't watch it, do something else.

Like it, watch it, enjoy it, don't come over here to listen to people waiting an Academy Award winning episode. It's nice to enjoy Top Gear again.
 
Noble review was okay. I'm however becoming quite annoyed at them cutting together different takes to make "one lap" because it makes me not trusting their laptimes.

News - actually funny in my opinion. Sure, cheap jokes but anyway.

Art segment part one - good stuff. The paintball bit was totally ridiculous of course, but anyway. I quite liked some of the paintings (not the Schumacher ones of course).

SIARPC - Jenson Button seemed like a nice guy and totally misses the point of opwning fast cars... but at least he wants to sell it. :D

Art segment part two - boring boring boring. Message to Top Gear: stop doing overly lengthy segments! The jokes wear off rather quickly.

5/10, without the second part of the art segment it would be 7.
 
It was a bit of a disaster sadly. This disappointing thing was how unsurprising that was. Every week now it seems I sit there just before it starts willing it to be good again, not to be too predictable.....this week it managed to be even worse than I expected.

Noble - yawn. Another OTT supercar drifting around the test track. Sorry, I usually hate the 'we want real cars' brigade but I'm starting to get so bored of these random ?500,000 supercars just sliding around the track, I'm pining for a review on real roads of a real car, not just Clarkson gurning at how fast the Zeon Superluxiera 650 accellerates from 120-150. Lap obviously cut & pasted too, why did they do that?

news - boring. Briefly mention a car in passing, destroy stuff, set fire to stuff, one of the presenters 'accidentally' injures themselves. No cock gags this week I guess.

SIARPC - not bad. Quite interesting interview with Jenson this week.

Art film - aaaaaarrrrrgggghhhhhh. Hammond's set up an easel next to a lake. Surely they won't be that predictable, they can't be....oh look, it fell in. d'oh! haha! They like James' sculpture. It looks a bit unstable mind....nooooOOOOO, it's fallen over! Oh no! Never saw that coming!! Paintballs, Clarkson. Surely he won't suffer some unfortunate man-vegetable related paintball injury? Oh, he did.

The film itself veered between mildly amusing, boring, pointless and stupid. Gets extra points for them not accidentally setting fire to the gallery at the end but that's pretty much the only rehashed slapstick gag they didn't use for this one.

5.
 
Well, bad Top Gear is like bad sex or bad pizza - its still pretty damn good and beats not having it :) I'm not complaining.

The only person who does real reviews on real cars anymore is James May - CLarkson is all powaaah and Hamster just wants to do his usual gimmicky races or whatnot. The relative lack of Captn Slow over the past few seasons is hurting the show.
 
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I watched it whilst drunk (as most fo the episodes...) and I liked it, was not so bad. Stop moaning folks :) A solid episode. Jensen seemed kinda strange, I hope he is not on crack or sth...
Yes, the guys are becoming like cartoon characters of themselves, but they see it (Willman's post) so I am not worried. If they had a bit more time for the show and let go of some other things they do...
I also liked that Jeremy mentioned The Omega Man, and not that stupid I am Legend.
 
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It's hard for me to rate this episode.

Noble part was just normal, maybe little boring, but typical TG's track test. I think we need more road test with some nice views.

News - typical pre Christmas and I was waiting for that. Yes it was once again the same but once a year is ok.

Jenson - not sure about putting him once again in the Liana (and in bad weather so he just couldn't improve his previous time).

And now the art part. I like the idea very much, huge effort for them. I would like to visit that gallery and it looked interesting. But the whole great segment was spoiled by old jokes. All was predictable and not funny any more.

Hope that in next ep they will be friends helping each other. This version of Jeremy, Richard and James I prefer now. One destroying another's work isn't funny no longer.
 
There are some golden rules for behaviour on internet message boards, two of the most important being
1) don't post until you've read the thread so far
and
2) don't post while being totally shitfaced drunk

I am going to break both now, and for good reason.

When Andy Wilman's blog post came online i did not comment it in any way. I did not cheer to how wise Andy's words, once again, were. Back then, it was mostly because all praise i could have posted had already been posted by my fellow forum members. BUT NOW i am quite happy about not posting because i feel not only betrayed, but underestimated and fooled by Wilman's post.

I am with him that the premise of the "Art Gallery" thing was another brilliant example of "how far can you take the concept of 'motoring TV'?" But the execution of it! Oh man, did it hurt!
From the moment Hammond's easel fell into the river on it all went downhill faster than a Zonda down the TG test track's main straight. The "Hammond sucks at promotion" bit, the bad audio guide by James, the all-too-obviously staged crash of the "art car" with Jeremy at the wheel, it all was just ill-conceived. Richard and Jeremy breaking James' statue had nothing funny but looked just like ill will, it all was just painful to view.

But most of all...

..the idea of no one showing up for the exhibition. I think it was in the cheap mid-engined italian supercar challenge where about 12 dozen schoolboys turned up wherever the TG three appeared. You can't tell me no one turned up to something involging the TG three. They had to lock down the whole yard of this museum to get shots of an empty space. That just did hurt...

...which is sad, because the news actually included some cars, Jezza's Noble review was more of the same but in a brilliant way and JB was a perfect SIARPC.

Anyways, 6/10.

And if, after watching TG in a pub, the debate is about weather this or the Jeoff film was the worst moment in new Top Gear's history, you know something's not right. If you and your mates just have one shot after another to erase the memories of the "TG art show", you know something's not right.
 
Complete rubbish.

Noble review was plain as vanilla. The news section toy review was made at the level of your random local radio talk show, and the ridiculously long art segment was a a garbage that I just skipped over, even though I had time and didn't have anything else to do. Which made this episode just a mediocre 5 minute Noble review.

2/10
 
dont you guys feel offended that top gear thinks that us viewers will believe that a paintball will survive like 1600degrees Celsius, and go through spaces far too small for it to fit, and come out of an F1 exhaust fine?

I find that amazing that being a car show they did that.

brutal.
 
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