[17x07] December 28th, 2011 [India Special]

[17x07] December 28th, 2011 [India Special]


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Seriously? You can't laugh at "Eat English Muff"?
I actually had to look up what 'muff' means. They never cared to teach us this word at school. Oh, the state of education these days... :rolleyes:

Seriously, I like scripted routines.... if it is Rowan Atkinson. I like staged routines... if it is John Cleese. It is an impossibly high standard I admit.
 
By far the most boring and disappointing episode I've seen in years. "I would rather read the Bible.." popped up in my head :(
 
Well there goes my job opportunities at TopGear.

http://img820.imageshack.**/img820/2039/jeremyclarksonbelly1.jpg
 
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May I just say that the snorkel he is holding looks very convenient in this very picture?

Now that we got that out of the way, I just remembered the only two moments of this special that made me laugh. Don't ask me why, they just came up in my head. And don't quote me on the exact words!

1. In the beginning when they introduced the cars, Jeremy said from the off: "Then, something very small arrived ... in a Mini."
2. The first time James discovered his honking brake lights

Other than that, I found it to be a waste of time, money and efforts.
 
I have to say that I enjoyed watching the India Special, even if it maybe wasn't my favourite one. But I think it's impossible to beat the South America Special, that one was truly epic and set a very high standard. I don't expect any other special ever to be that good.

Actually I didn't have very high expectations of the India Special before I watched it because I thought a "trade mission" to India was a rather daft idea and I couldn't imagine how you could make something very funny out of that. But I think they did a good job, even if yes, it really did feel like all the jokes were set up this time. I had the feeling they were following a very tight script and there was just not much room for spontaneity. It felt more like watching a movie with actors. But then I still enjoyed it, and I think they had a good humour and I liked most of their jokes, set up or not.

Well, the part that I didn't like that much was that VIP-trade-party, mostly that big fake firework Jeremy made which was followed by that small fake explosion in the background. When he started working on those fireworks with his pixelated hands I actually had the hope that maybe he was really going to make some kind of big firework that worked, or at least pretend to make it, but that they would use some actual working big firework. So I was a bit disappointed that the only result was a mostly hidden explosion in the background...

But anyways, I had a good lough at most of the other things.
I liked the hill-climbing event, the lawn mower going all over the place and re-appearing everywhere, even in the credits, the credits were hilarious, I also liked the nice landscape shots as always, the Top Gear Band with Andy Wilmans horrible singing :), and I had a good laugh at the split banners even if that was of course one of the most obvious set ups.

So all in all I do like the India Special, and I watched it twice already and will watch it again, and I think I even prefer it to last years 3-Wise-Men Special.
 
I was entertained. Laughed at quite a few bits. Though I will concede that it didn't have anywhere near as much charm as pretty all of the other specials. It was a lot more forgettable. I think the first mistakes was the entire premises, the whole "Advertise Britain" thing just didn't work. The Vietnam special is still my absolute favourite piece of Top Gear, and in that one the entire plot was "get from south to north". That's all they need, and it seems pretty obvious that that's all we want. They are inherently funny, it's kind of annoying to see them take on a challenge that is so obviously going to fail. You see pretty much everything coming, they're getting too stuck in their roles.

I can't be bothered to predict doom and apocalypse over Top Gear though, that's been done sooo many times in the past.. Top Gear has set the bar very high for themselves, and I don't really know many other shows who have achieved to consistently maintain such a high standard. To me, the India Special was still much more entertaining than pretty much everything else on TV.

I loved it when May came running behind the lawn mower with a grin on his face and shouted "It's flat out!". That one was unexpected!
 
(...)
Well, the part that I didn't like that much was that VIP-trade-party, mostly that big fake firework Jeremy made which was followed by that small fake explosion in the background. When he started working on those fireworks with his pixelated hands I actually had the hope that maybe he was really going to make some kind of big firework that worked, or at least pretend to make it, but that they would use some actual working big firework. So I was a bit disappointed that the only result was a mostly hidden explosion in the background...
(...)

That kind of sums up a pretty big issue these days. It's nice to see them actually try to make something work (like for instance the amphibious cars) and possibly fail misserably but having a good time while doing so. On the other hand, failing on purpose and doing it just for the sake of failing just doesn't entertain me. What they should be doing is try stuff semi-seriously and make you think "hey this might actually work" and then fail in ways nobody expected. That's also what usually makes their cheap-car-challenges so good, since neither you nor they know in what ways their cars might and will go wrong.
 
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Generally lame, but the last few minutes of them in the mountains were fun. The campfire scene was great. Those 15 or so minutes felt much more like the specials of years gone by.
 
"Then, something very small arrived ... in a Mini."

There's also, on other occasions :

+ "The Atom and the atom would clearly win..."
+ (On the Man in Van challenge while loading them with goodies) "Hammond really had a size problem, and his van was pretty small as well."

Classics, if you ask me.
 
Short-arse gags never get old. I manage to get my <5ft (now technically ex) mother in law with at least one virtually very time I see her.

Examples:

Building a Duplo castle with my youngest a few years ago...
Her: What a lovely castle. You could really imagine living there....
Me: Well, you could.

At a family BBQ....
Her: I'd better slow down on this wine or I'll be under the table!
Me: Well at least you won't have to duck!
 
Forgive me for rambling a bit, I promise there is actually a point....

Another show I'm very, very fond of is The Goodies. In this show, you'll find lots of gags reused over and over again, particularly throwaway sight gags. Same ones, over and over again. And they got away with it, and were awesome, and the audiences ate it up for a decade.

But, that show was made in the 1970s. There was no means of re-watching an episode once it had aired unless you lucked into a repeat, so you could get away with recycling gags blatantly. In fact, re-using an old gag that worked was doing fans a favour, because they had no opportunity to re-experience the pleasure of the original performance.

But, that doesn't work with modern programs. The audience can and will record it ourselves, download it, torrent it, Youtube it, mash it up with My Little Ponies, make demotivators out of it... and relive the good bits over and over again. So today's program makers don't have the luxury that the Goodies had in being able to mine their back catalogue.

I laughed at 'penis' and 'arse biscuits' on the side of the Silverston car, and the lesbian hats on the rear wheel drive ice race cars, and the various other times it's been done. And the British Muff was funny, in itself... but since it's not a new joke and a lot of people saw it coming, I don't think it was worth spending all that time on the train when they could have been off doing car stuff which could have generated some genuine, unscripted humour.
It's a running joke, I'm expecting to see it return in the future and I will laugh again, because it's funny.

I won't go "they've done it before... booooo".

Come on.
 
Well I thought it was OK.

It definitely could of had a much better theme. I mean, they're trying to sell things to a very, very poor country.
They should of been trying to help them and the millions of poverty stricken.
Instead they try and sell crappy crap from a rich country.

Poor form, I say.

I think people like seeing heart felt stories.

Maybe show a bit more respect to the country you're in TG, and we will give you ours.
 
I thought it was a great special. It did everything I wanted it to do, which was keep me entertained, laughing and admiring the scenery. Plus it was a great treat to see the three cars still running in the end!

The wife loved it too. :D
 
I doubt this really is Andy. Look at the end of the comment, it says he didn't get a look at the final cut before airing it. I just don't see that happening.
 
I quite enjoyed it. Not sure it deserves the rough critiques it has received. Yes, some things were a bit played out, but overall it was very enjoyable.
 
I'm a natural skeptic, so I'm not too sure if this is for real or not.

Anyways, someone using the screen name "Andy Wilman" posted a response in post-show discussion comments on the Top Gear website.

http://transmission.blogs.topgear.com/2011/12/28/top-gear-in-india-post-show-discussion/comment-page-35/#comment-84270

It isn't. Andy would have made his own blog post as he's done in the past, and he'd use proper English when writing it, not the Message-Board-Retardese that this was written in.
 
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Precisely what I put when I posted there.
 
Shimla/Leh-they didn't bother to name these places even once...

And the Himalayas, there are so many facts about the roads they drove on but none of them were ever revealed by the presenters. Khardung La is the highest motor-able road in the world for one, no mention of this.

1) They never went to Leh. Not even close. I don't think they were on the road heading north (Manali - Leh Road) which is what the map tried to show. Think they were going northeast on Highway 22 straight towards the Chinese border (this matches up with the scant info Jeremy gives us - "the road to China").
2) They also never went anywhere near Khardung La (which is not the highest motorable road in the world anyway, despite the claims). They were literally days away from it. Anyway, they've been higher than that in Bolivia. Khardung La is about 5300m, I think they reached 5500m in Bolivia though it wasn't exactly a real road as well trodden as KL.

I have similar feelings to many others. Waste of a great country. Even if it was mildly entertaining (I don't take the show too seriously, and yes, I was entertained), it was still a wasted opportunity.

When I saw the map they displayed, I scrutinised it because I thought they were going a long way north. As I mentioned above, I think the route heading out of Shimla is not correct.
Also, what are the two cities highlighted in Kashmir? They can only be: Leh and Gilgit (or Chitral?).

They could do a whole series worth of "India Specials" really. Maybe they wanted to not spend all their time in the Himalayas (though it would have been awesome) because it would be too similar to Bolivia.
 
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