[15x01] January 5th, 2009

[15x01] January 5th, 2009


  • Total voters
    105
7/10. Not a bad start to the series, neither amazing nor offensive, but if memory serves me correctly Fifth Gear was more or less back into its old stride last series, so hopefully things stay that way.

Johnny's review was great, as usual. I wish they'd give him full reviews to do and more screen time, but somehow he managed to turn what appeared to be a single-aspect feature - ie. the wind tunnel/refinement stuff - of the Golf Mk6 into a near-full review's worth of info anyway. Nice.

Tom was good, again as usual, though - again - he's wasted on such limited reviews. That said, breaking the windscreen was hilarious, hehe - oops!

The people mover crash was a bit of an eye opener to say the least. All the more reason to breed responsibly... or not have kids at all, and have your dog sitting (in safety) on the back seat.

Tim was on the money - the car wash stuff was actually really interesting... I always blast the broom brush with the pressure washer first and thankfully our local wash has a holder to keep it off the ground, but I think I might have to go back to washing our cars myself with a bucket and Enyo mit. Water restrictions be damned.

Volvo XC60 crash avoidance thing was pretty cool.

Vicki - good to see they're keeping her contained to a single, non-celeb segment and she's managing to get through a review without squealing and gasping like an asthmatic schoolgirl. The California review was just OK though - pretty boring actually.

Plato and Tiff - who the f**k came up with the idea of the boxes thing? I hope they're being tortured now as we speak. Ruined what should have been a pretty interesting review consisting of the two tearing sideways around a track abusing each other. Seriously, if you have a formula that works, don't f**k with it.

The celeb thing was death, as it usually always is. I could barely understand what the pair were saying half the time, which is pretty ironic given they come from the country that invented English...
 
Fifth gear tries to be informative but all of their skits are not very entertaining and by the end of them.. lack any real significance to anything

i really can't stand watching the presenters. Johnny is the only guy I like on there. Otherwise, I watch it for the cars
 
A decent watch (missing my top gear :() and I rated it at a 7.

It was overall nice but the box thing sucked, Tim was a total bore, the MG seemed like a pointless plug for Britain's car production and something was missing from the California's review.

Great parts was the truck crash and damage assessment, Johnny in the Golf 6 and the Skoda review.
 
You can't cover *every* pigeon in your area, surely?

:lol:
That's brilliant ! :lol:

Stop the pigeon(from shitting on your car) by covering it
Stop the pigeon(from shitting on your car by covering it)

I just wanted to use the old Dick Dastardly advice:"stop the pigeon!"

1-covering your car won' stop the pigeon from crapping on it(technically,the bastard still craps but the covering film is between the car and the crap);just that the crap and car surface don't make contact.
2-I should have said :stop the pigeon from crapping on your car by slipping some indigestion pills in the varmint's food:that way it won't crap,it will continue to eat until it gets so fat that it can't fly and A CAT WILL EAT it ! job done!

or,OR you can buy a Ford Street Ka ,as this bird friendly commercial suggests:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=JGbjVqLoz3I

featured on top gear

also available in cat-killer trim
http://vids.myspace.com/index.cfm?fuseaction=vids.individual&videoid=4375465

No animals have been hurt during the making of this program...except for a cat and a pigeon...and their stunt doubles !

The power is yours! (I wrote that,not Captain Planet,no)

Or,you can put a statue near your car:all the bird crap will go on the statue,automatically.There is a sort of resonance between bird crap and statues.Even if the pigeon aims for the car, the bird-unit will be inexplicably attracted to the statue.Just like a black hole curbs light trajectory, the statue pulls the poop towards itself.
 
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Yeah...I suppose you "city folk" wouldn't get information like that. My school had an Agricultural Sciences department...and not just an Ag department, but it had a small fleet of 3 tractors and a 1-2 acre "garden" which grew food and sold to raise money to go on field trips and get new tools for the department.

But then again, my high school also had a $15,000 flight simulator for a class where the Final Exam was to create a flight plan, notating all types of airspace, and then take off and fly a plane from one place to the other (the teacher landed the plane, though.

(there was a printing company that printed millions of magazines {Sports Illustrated, Time, Playboy, etc etc} and they gave our school BOATLOADS of money). The owner/CEO was a pilot so he gave us this flight simulator, our Biology teacher trained other pilots how to fly Blackhawk helicopters for the army, so we were good to go.
 
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So far only seen the KTM vs Lotus test (was channelskipping).

It was good though; looked good and interesting stuff.

Although I am not entirely sure why the 'boxes' thing was done? A handling course, a braking test or an acceleration test would have done nicely.

IMO, Tiff and Jason missed a good chance to do what nobody else will be doing with these cars. They should have had to actually drive the two track day stars to the track from some distance away, preferably through a high density population center.
 
Like it. Gave it 8.

Hope they give the car wash guru another segment.
 
The moment the program started, I immediately knew it was going to be all about cars, unlike the recent series of TG which has turned into an entertainment program featuring three blokes doing stuff. I'm not too fond of Tim Shaw, but he is still bucket loads better than that Lovejoy kid. Unfortunately the HQ bits are not very well done and the conversation seems forced. Clarkson has perfected the art of delivering scripted material as if it is extempore. 5th gear presenters should learn from him.

Regarding the episode, overall it wasn't bad. The "track day" cars are just too expensive in my opinion. I'd rather spend the money on a race driving school and then buy a ordinary car and upgrade it. Car wash segment was ok but I was more interested in a touchless type which they didn't feature. Johnny, as always, did the best segment. He makes even ordinary reviews somehow funny and interesting. Too bad, 99% of the time, he does cheap small cars or used cars. The celeb bit was meh, liked the challenge but the boxer guy and his girlfriend (Jordan wannabe?) looked pretty thick. Why does 5th gear always find celebs are uneducated, low IQ, slightly dumb and attention grabbers? VBH's Ferrari review was pretty lackluster. I think FG spent half their production budget (of the series) on hiring the helicopter for the aerial shot of Ferrari. In recent series they had stopped doing aerial shots.

What FG badly needs is a good editor and script writer. All of the reviews have an abrupt start and ending which makes the whole segment rushed. Plus they need to cut down on the number of reviews per episode so as to make each slightly longer. Or maybe its just me who has gotten too used to the leisurely pace at which TG does its reviews (especially in the last few series at least).
 
Pretty average season opener. The Tiff/Jason segment was wasted on the irrelevant cargo space test and I skipped over the minivan crash test and celebrity segment. Couldn't care less.

Jonny was great. Again. Easily the best presenter on the show. Very charming, calm, and always sounds as though he's talking directly to you, unlike Tiff who sounds more like he's delivering a speech in a townhouse.

The California is ugly and I wish Vicki would have went into more details, but when they're trying to cram 7 or 8 segments in a 45 minute show, pretty much everything is going to feel incomplete as others have said.

Bring it down to 5 max and the show will improve. The celebrity bits should be the first ones axed.
 
I'd give it a 7.5...I like the fact that its all about cars but everything seems too short, if they had 2 cars less in this episode, and lengthened the remaining, it would have been so much nicer...

Trackday Cars - Instead of putting boxes, why not put it through what most trackday owners claim te cars can do...drive it from your garage in suburbia, drive it as fast as you can on the track, and drive it back home.

Carwash - could've thrown in Tim washing on his own

SKoda Superb - sounds like a German, depreciates like a German, looks like a German, does it drive like a German?

Ferrari California - VHB could've driven it on their track (sports car), by the beach (top-downcruiser), and not just on the open road (tourer)

The Volvo and the MG were obvious fillers.
 
I actually enjoyed the Skoda Superb review out of all of them. I just wish he demonstrated the dual hinged boot feature. The cracking of the windshield was priceless. I'm sure that was *not* scripted and they chose to leave that in during editing.
 
Well i understand why ferrari fans would not like the California, but i think the California is the perfect point to make to Americans. IT IS VULGAR and that is what Americans like supposedly. Its fat, garish and got a V8, could they make it anymore obvious who the demographic is for that car. For god sakes its called the CALIFORNIA! If there is a lesson to be learned here is that American's need to realize how we are portrayed in the international market. by sticking to gas guzzling big lumps of car, companies as well as consumer's need to realize they need to focus on really engineered cars and not something that looks nice. Not to mention a little subtlety wouldn't help either, but if were gonna keep on going with huge fat muscle cars, ferrari at least is showing us how you could make an American sports car.
 
Felt like they tied to cram too many things. 3-4 features are just right. They had the lotus and KTM, the boxer dude, the city crash thing, the California, the Golf and the Zafira ... in 44min? Come on, now. edit - oh yeah ... the Skoda too!
All were quite good, just too many and too short.

Minor disapointment, they didn't have the guts to say the California looks like crap. Fat butt ... yes. She could have mentioned the uninspired front end, the horrible racket from under the hood ... meh. Maybe I hate that car too much! LOL
 
Took me 2 days before I even remembered I had the episode, and then it took me 2 sittings to watch it 'cause it was so utterly booring. Seeing Tim still on the show almost made me delete the episode before even watching it once. And I usually enjoy Tom and Jonny's segments, but even they boored me this time.

And the ktm and lotus... Was the bit about the boxes supposed to be funny? o_O

Gave this 3 out of 10, and I felt I was beeing generous doing it.
 
Not a bad season opener but they have to many presenters..
And the Volvo City safe thing is designed for avoiding ppl who steps out into the road. I think Tim should have been forced to stand in front of the car instead!
 
Just saw it.

Tiff is a cock.

XC60 bit was fantastic with Tom jumping out.

Golf review was really good but way to short.

Boxer and his girlfriend was very poor. That girl looked bloody scary.

Ferrari review was really good.

Overall a poor episode though.
 
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