[15x03] July 11th, 2010

[15x03] July 11th, 2010

  • 10

    Votes: 42 10.9%

  • 9

    Votes: 122 31.8%

  • 8

    Votes: 107 27.9%

  • 7

    Votes: 73 19.0%

  • 6

    Votes: 18 4.7%

  • 5

    Votes: 11 2.9%

  • 4

    Votes: 5 1.3%

  • 3

    Votes: 3 0.8%

  • 2

    Votes: 1 0.3%

  • 1

    Votes: 2 0.5%
  • Total voters
    384
i must say, does anyone else here think that some people are rating these episodes low because they expect to see some epic race or think the guys should be making cars into airplanes or some crap like that every time? why do i get the feeling that some people on here have forgot that its just a show about 3 guys who love cars and just happen to have access to anything they want. every eppisode is not perfect. this epp was a good example of a classic Top Gear even if it wasnt great, the format was there.

here is how i see ratings:

10=Feature legnth film or a polar special type
9=awsome eppisode that blew my mind
8=very good average eppisode
7=what i expect from them, a good episode
6=bad, like last season, but not terrible
5=terrible
4=worse than TG austrailia series 1
3=my government
2=a yugo
1=replacing a host on the show

anyways, thats just my opinion. i have been noticing a trend and its annoying me. lets not forget what this show is really about and why we all watch it. its fun.
 
I gave it a 7, it was OK, not as good as last week. The Camaro and the Mercedes really don't compete with each other at all, so I don't get the point of comparing them. Like the Challenger, the Camaro is way too BIG and historically, they aren't muscle cars, they're pony cars, which are supposed to be smaller and more afordable. Ignoring that, the only real muscle car is the Mustang and the awesome new base V6 version is actually afordable. The Challenger and the Camaro are Grandpa cars.

Anyway, I felt bad for those wedding people. One STIARPC segment is too much for me, so two was completely unnecessary. I always just skip over those segments anyway though.
 
i gave it a 9, it was back to good old top gear formula, having several different segments, it saves the episodes if one falls flat, rather than what they've been doing last few seasons or really 2 main segments.

Loved the 4 doors section, although the wedding bit did make me cringe at moment, but it was hilarious all the same. Did anyone else think of The Hangover when Jezza drives off in the Masser with the window going up saying "toodalooooo" to Hamster?

News segment was great.

Rubens was fantastic, blinding lap, stunned that he was even faster than The Stig. Great to hear a little more insight into Austria too.

Hamsters test was good, but never really been a fan of his power tests really, amazing cinematography as usual with Top Gear, loved the shot of him through the sunroof as he pulls away.

SIARPC was good, entertaining, seemed like an ok guy, and decent lap too. man does that Cee'd understeer though, its insane.

Overall a great episode, ive got a feeling (havent checked any tv listing sites) that Ken Block could be guest next week or soon, and that when he's on it could be when the next gymkhana video will be released.
 
9\10 for me!

and in the last 2 seasons it is a very very good result!!

i liked it a lot! i think this is a PROPER OLD SCHOOL TOP GEAR!
 
I liked this episode a lot, particularly because of the Maserati. What I didn't like that much was comparison of the Camaro SS to the E63 AMG (a cheap musclecar to a german ubersedan costing twice as much, how's that even relevant?) and I wasn't too fond of Rubens and Rupert interviews, though their track performance was impressive.
 
PlaneDriver said:
I suppose the 5.0 Mustang hasn't made it over the pond yet? It would have been great to see Top Gear compare the two.

Solid episode regardless. 9/10.
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It will be delayed until the new McLaren is released so they can compare the two.
 
Sik Pony said:
i must say, does anyone else here think that some people are rating these episodes low because they expect to see some epic race or think the guys should be making cars into airplanes or some crap like that every time?
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I voted low because I didn't enjoy the last fifteen minutes at all, and even the idea of watching it again makes me cringe. I feel the same way about a couple of other pieces as well -- the whole drive-time radio show film, the chauffeur-celebrities-in-a-stretch-limo segment, the alfa romeo concourse segment, etc. It's just not my kind of humour.

why do i get the feeling that some people on here have forgot that its just a show about 3 guys who love cars and just happen to have access to anything they want. every eppisode is not perfect. this epp was a good example of a classic Top Gear even if it wasnt great, the format was there.
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So...... we shouldn't vote low because the "format" kind of matches what they were doing in some arbitrarily-defined "classic" period? And when was that, exactly? My idea of "classic" Top Gear involves conveying information, like that segment where they put Hammond in a car then dumped it in a pool, or even the occasional comparison between cars people might want to buy. It doesn't involve pretending to ruin someone's wedding.
 
best episode of the series by far, mostly thanks to the Maserati...and what a machine it is!
If it had a manual gearbox and two doors -it wouldn't be called quattroporte anymore- and I had the money to buy it, it would be perfect.... I also like the fact that it has a button for every function and not a menu within a menu within another one.
Barichello was seriously quick.He looks like Killer from this Bugs Bunny cartoon (Bugs Bunny gets the boid )...or like a jockey
http://www.trilulilu.ro/Calin/2b61db21ac7770
manual, semiautomatic...a, these are the weapons
I'm scared I might knock over a building
buying Buckingham palace and living in the kitchen
I don't care if it picks its nose and farts in bed genius
4wd elephant man
I'll do the bride's mother in the Porsche
Jeremy looking away: don't look up their skirts
where is he?a,you're already in! =))
are you sure it's that way?
yes, I'm f...completely,100% sure.
Maserati sitting in my door mirror like an oil painting
 
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warren said:
I voted low because I didn't enjoy the last fifteen minutes at all, and even the idea of watching it again makes me cringe. I feel the same way about a couple of other pieces as well -- the whole drive-time radio show film, the chauffeur-celebrities-in-a-stretch-limo segment, the alfa romeo concourse segment, etc. It's just not my kind of humour.



So...... we shouldn't vote low because the "format" kind of matches what they were doing in some arbitrarily-defined "classic" period? And when was that, exactly? My idea of "classic" Top Gear involves conveying information, like that segment where they put Hammond in a car then dumped it in a pool, or even the occasional comparison between cars people might want to buy. It doesn't involve pretending to ruin someone's wedding.
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its safe to say you missed my point
 
i absolutely loved the whole episode apart from james may's (ab)sense of direction being massively overdone...
 
Sik Pony said:
i must say, does anyone else here think that some people are rating these episodes low because they expect to see some epic race or think the guys should be making cars into airplanes or some crap like that every time? why do i get the feeling that some people on here have forgot that its just a show about 3 guys who love cars and just happen to have access to anything they want. every eppisode is not perfect. this epp was a good example of a classic Top Gear even if it wasnt great, the format was there.
Click to expand...

This is the issue I have. The first 15 minutes of yesterday's show was perfect Top Gear. To me, it was obvious they were having fun and truly enjoying reviewing the Maser/Porsche/Aston. The first 10-15 mins easily reminded me of similar group tests from series 4-7.

It's been beaten to death here that TG will probably never return to its former days of being a show about cars, with the entertainment secondary But, even with the new format of entertainment first, cars second, these guys can convey very relevant information and integrate the jokes/humour correctly - this is what the first 15 mins showed. This segment showed the guys' personalities very well.

But, unfortunately, they got it all wrong with the last 15 minutes, regressing back to old material and showing some of the bad traits that have infected TG in the last two series - forced humour and not letting the guys be themselves and playing to some fake character that's associated with each of them.

I still stand by my rating given earlier and don't see a reason to take it back. I used to think very negatively of people who would trash TG for any reason before, but it's come full circle and I've realised that you can't please everyone. Some will just have negative views of the current format and that was something I just came to accept.
 
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Jay said:
First 45 minutes were good, the last was horrible. Absolutely HORRIBLE.
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I have to agree there. Not for the same reasons - because the newly-weds obviously had to know what they were getting into. But I skipped most of the chauffeuring scenes anyway.

Apart from that, this was the best "non-special" episode in a long time. The Maserati/Aston/Porsche review was absolutely fantastic. I can't believe they drove like that through this business park. Powersliding through a roundabout, two metres away from the curbstones, is a bunch of levels up from doing it on empty airfields. And I didn't even get tired of they jokes about the Porsche's looks. Plus the Quattroporte is an absolute favourite of mine since it came out, only to be rivaled by the next S8 (which will be so much better but also have far less character).
Muscle cars - pointless, but nice to watch. Cinematography brillant as usual.
News - like they should be. And Mansory should be nuked from orbit and then killed with fire. Do they ever build something not awful?
F1IARPC and SIARPC: Nice interviews, if a bit bland. Well, the guests were both quite the quiet guys. But they drive fast, which is good.

If it weren't for the chauffeuring, it'd be an 8, bordering on 8.5. But for actually bringing me to skip forward during a segment, my judgement goes down to a 7.
 
In the on-going saga of James and his infamous lack of a sense of direction...

True, apparently that's the "real" him, but as someone pointed out upthread, it seemed completely staged in this case, what with the chase cars conveniently ending up in ideal shooting positions.

So, I say let James be James, and let quirks come out naturally, rather than turning them up to 11 for shits and giggles. But then we're a microscopic part of the demographic, honestly...the part somehow motivated enough to come post on a forum about a show. If this forum had 3 million users and were all saying the same thing, then I bet more notice would be paid. But, the majority of the millions of viewers (the ones Wilman & Co. are hoping for) probably eat it up, few questions asked. (Ratings are still high, so the formula's arguably working for TPTB.) Clarkson being loud and opinionated/May being slow and chronically lost/Hammond being...well, Hammond = the equivalent of a blanket and pacifier for the "average" TG viewer. Behaviour like that, to them, makes a TG ep feel the way a TG ep should feel.

An episode has to cater to more than just you or me. </duhreallynow> So question what you qualify as a shortcoming (as I do, and I thought this ep had more than one), but don't immediately take it as a fail. It's impossible to be perfect/bang on for everyone. You know?
 
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This episode was pulling a solid 9 right up until the last 10 minutes. As soon as James passed the church and said "you dont want to be early" i turned it off.

i have never done that before. ever.

i even went through the Art show bit without flinching, but this last part. It went from awesome to Drive Time radio bad in an instant. i knew what was coming and i didnt feel like watching it. It was okay during the first limo bit several series ago. not so much now

The rest of the episode was fantastic. that Maser is simply epic in every way. and i laugh out loud everytime i see the new Kia do its horrible understeer act on gambon corner. The Camaro vs E63 review did not make any sense to me AT ALL being they are utterly different in every way other than being V8 powered and RWD but i did enjoy it. the merc makes one hell of a noise.
 
Solid 8 by me, the wedding part was a bit overplayed, but overall it was very entertaining. I was wondering if Mercedes is selling the E-class in only extremely boring colors...call me childish, but I prefer that shiny orange paintwork. Anyway, I don't think that it was fair to compare those two cars.
4 episodes left...
 
after watching last nights World Cup live i sat down this evening to watch Top Gear and really enjoyed it.
The Challenge was entertaining, while bits of the end felt a bit forced and scripted it still held together well. The sound of the Maserati mae me crank the volume up just to hear the pure noise of it.
The news as always was enjoyable and Clarkson did have a good point about those euro laws.
The SIARPC segments were both great. Reubens had already given away that he was going to appear in Top Gear on the Sunday afternoon while being interviewed by Jake Humphries after the British GP, but his appearance was still great because Rubens is such a likeable guy. He's not my fave F1 driver but he's got a personality that you just can't help make you smile. Rupert Grint's appearance was more interesting than it could have been just to have seen Grint's face when Clarkson asked him if he was pitching a semi when kissing Emma Watson (come on, you'd have to be stone dead not to!).
The Muscle Car review started out really good but the moment the AMG was introduced it just felt weird. I would have much preferred it if they had gotten another Muscle car to compare it with, when i think muscle cars i most normally think of the great american cars.

overall i'd give it 8 out of 10. good solid enjoyable episode. could have been a lot better but also it wasn't incredibly bad either. Its the kind of episode i could just stick on or catch a repeat of Dave and just enjoy it for what it is.
 
This episode was lacking something in a way. The three limos could've been tested more properly, and it would've been more entertaining. Hammond's review was a bit rubbish, as it featured an interesting Merc and a simple American muscle car. Was quite easy to guess what he would say ie; "Camaro is cheaper, Merc is more technical and better" etc. Rubens was nice, but as someone I guess already pointed out, those kind of "interviews" are quite useless. He was on only for a few minutes, and just got a mouthfull of Jeremy's jokes. He didn't really get to tell anything nice, a bit of a fail with a guy who probably has hundreds of stories to tell.

And then, the SIARPC I skipped, cause I think the guests have been quite...actually very uninteresting (who the heck was the man in last episode?). The chauffeur thing was a goodish idea, but it really failed. There was so much of that sensless acting, being late, Hammond with the music, Jeremy's pants etc. For the pants, would've actually been more funny to see him just be in the jeans. Those kinds of bits (like the art show, driving with the self-made electric car) are embarrassing, and I have to say, uncomfortable to watch. The boys can be extremely pleasing to watch, but them "acting themselves" isn't. If I remember correctly, there was really none of that when I started to watch TG in 2005, and then saw all the previous episodes. Many times, TG was for me a way of going to a different, imaginary world. Something very stylish, emotional and funny (Especially '03-'05). I hope they would make a few shows were that caricature-ness is 100% missing, and they would be more serious. Still, I'm not saying this was a dreadful episode, I just wanted to vent off a bit.
 
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I actually liked the Camaro vs. E63 AMG quite a lot because it's Top Gear showing you these ridiculous comparisons people will actually try to make in real life.

That's the brilliance of it all, they're not fifth gear, they have developed personas for themselves that hinge around how car owners talk about their cars and who/what they will street race with. I have talked to many owners of sporty cars who claim their car will compete/beat with cars sometimes double the price.

All Top Gear is doing in that sense, is magnifying this car talk and turning it into motion picture. That camaro does look brilliant as well, but it needs to lose 500 pounds. The designers came up with a brilliant looking car, but when it got into the real building stage, all the safety equipment and restrictions hampered the car.
 
7 from me, I didn't mind the comparison, that's what Top Gear does. But, the Camaro review itself was kind of half assed and short, plus they used the lower powered automatic rather than the manual, though I doubt it's the last we'll see of it this season. From his intro if you didn't know any better, you'd think the Camaro was only out for 2 years and then got swallowed by the Mustang and it failed due to inferior sales (compared to mustang). Yet I'm sure some of the favorite cars of hammond, clarkson, and may probably weren't all top sellers.

02122 said:
I gave it a 7, it was OK, not as good as last week. The Camaro and the Mercedes really don't compete with each other at all, so I don't get the point of comparing them. Like the Challenger, the Camaro is way too BIG and historically, they aren't muscle cars, they're pony cars, which are supposed to be smaller and more afordable. Ignoring that, the only real muscle car is the Mustang and the awesome new base V6 version is actually afordable. The Challenger and the Camaro are Grandpa cars.
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Soooo, the car that actually started the pony car segment is actually a muscle car, and the only real one? I like Mustangs as well as Camaros, and more but most people in the muscle car community don't consider Mustangs muscle cars, I don't necessarily agree, but they are generally looked down on, and people put chevy engines in everything, including fords. In fact they usually fall short of the definition of a muscle car, at least compared to the competition. They almost always have less horsepower, despite still sometimes winning or tieing in performance. The Camaro is the closest thing to a Mustang and has been losing to, edging out, or tieing the Mustang in performance figures for the last 35 years and I think had the new 2011 5.0 mustang gt came out earlier, it would have been too great a comparison even for them to pass up. You could ask why they didn't just use a 2010 GT, but I think they probably thought it was roughly the same as the one they've already tested, which is true. Thanks for the history lesson, but I think I'll go by what's actually in the books, such as the last Camaro SS in 2002 which still bested the mustang gt in all around performance up until 2011 with the introduction of the 5.0 which sad to say edges out both 2002 and 2010 Camaros.

FYI: The Camaro is shorter in height and only 2 inches longer and wider than the Mustang, compared to the Challenger being a just shy of 10 inches longer, 2 inches wider and taller than the Mustang. Now that's grandpa's boat! Remember how scary it was for hammond driving it in the twisties?

With that said, the new Camaro doesn't quite do it for me, it fell short of a lot of people's high, but reasonable expectations. For me it would be a choice between the 2011 GT and a C6 Corvette, but still leaning heavily towards the vette, I'll have to see when the planned Z28 comes out, though.

Anyone else NOT like the sound the Merc made? I've heard some awesome v8 mercs (mostly with exhaust work done) but I didn't like that.
 
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