I decided to break the silence on my side for this episode, as the more people responding the better. First of all I should stress that I don't contribute to the BBC financially, so Top Gear isn't better or worse off without me (apart from buying a Clarkson DVD and a couple of books and magazines).
I think the main point is that Top Gear is so successful because the presenters are incredibly smart and have a great sense of humor overall. It means they can do anything and it will be fun to watch. Apart from when they are forced in their "Top Gear" roles of destruction and silliness. Somehow, they end up in this role a lot, and I can't think of a reason. Top Gear is about ambitious, but rubbish. The ambitious part is kinda vital though, which seems to be forgotten by the production office.
Lets take the BritCar race as an example. They decided to really test the car and themselves by doing the stuff seriously. Combine that with the sense of humor they always have and will have and you get a very interesting show. Actually, I think that race was the beginning of the "writing on the side of a thing and then splitting it so we get something vulgar" thing. But the Peniston was just a gimmick there, showed on a moment someone was narrating to another segment.
In the India special, they used up 10 minutes of their and our time for such a moment.
Also, I thought Ground Force Garden was funny as it was obvious from the beginning they were doing it for Comic relief and it was not meant to have anything to do with Top Gear the program. This Garden party was less funny (I don't see how Hammond styling his hair is funny, as he does that all the time anyway
and the episode entirely forgot about it afterwards), and certainly no reason to travel to India.
There were a few parts I liked. I actually liked the rather thorough introduction of the food taxi service by the Indians (and then went on to ridicule it by using their standard stereotypes. Again, they are much more entertaining in real life). I liked the brake-horn solution, it was also the first time James really laughed and seemed to be happy to be there. Especially in the beginning when doing the food service, he really seemed cross and the normal chemistry wasn't there for some reason. Might be because he was a bit embarrassed...
I liked the camp site (it was the part where the chemistry again really showed, not surprisingly in one of the few moments where there was no objective to destroy something). I liked the cricket, although I fail to understand how cricket works. I also liked the Top Gear band for some reason.
Other than that, it was not that good. No reason to travel to India for sure. The worst thing in my opinion was the total lack of interest from the boys for real India (or so it seemed) and the car destruction. Really Hammond, if you'd really loved that Mini as you said you did, don't intentionally look to the other side for 20 seconds when its being destroyed. Same for Jeremy, you can't say I love this car after drilling a hole in it for a toilet (which didn't serve any purpose whatsoever).
End of rant
