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[18x02] February 5th, 2012

[18x02] February 5th, 2012

  • Total voters
    391
Neither. The boys (Clarkson, Hammond and Dawe) have only ever set a lap in the Liana and the laps were done with the other two in the car.
 
SIARPC was OK
Karate Stig was pretty dumb
Chinese segment was quite interesting
Loved the NASCAR bit, and i'm NOT a fan of the sport (F1 all the way)

7/10 from me
 
I think you are right. 10 years to stop churning out shit, another 10 for people to realise they aren't churning out shit and a further 10 for the shit they are churning out to gain some style and credibility.

See 1982 Hyundai Pony
800px-Hyundai_Pony.jpg


Then 2012 Velostar
2012-Hyundai-Veloster-image-e1304005291228.jpg
 
Excellent. Nascar, SLS and Chinese cars were all well done and interesting themes, SIARPC was also good.

What was so great about this episode, and has been in every solid Top Gear episode, was that the each segment is interesting and well made and could work even without the jokes. Good jokes made it better and bad jokes didn't rui nit. For example the Chinese Stig was sometimes a bit bad, but it didn't ruin the otherwise great clip. But if the exact same Stig clips had been on a crap cocking about style episode, it would've been awful.

I also noticed the guys seemed to be enjoying much more. I guess even they're full of making crap cocking about stuff, because they're just wasting their talents as genuinely entertaining and professional hosts.


This episode didn't have all time greats, but it was so solid return to the golden age of Top Gear that I can't give it anything less than 9/10. Good job!
 
Enjoyed it, hope the trend continues. Star (Matt) was much better than last week.
 
Very good. Felt like old Top Gear, just a really well balanced show.

8/10
 
9/10.

SIARPC: I tend to rate the interviews on how car-related they are, and this one gets full marks for even bordering on discussing one of the best corners in motorsport.

Chinese cars: Bit too much martial arts Stig; you can't go wrong with a relatively serious Clarkson/May segment though.

SLS: Clarkson is still a fanboy no matter how he tried to "downgrade" his love of big shouty burbly thundery German V8s.

NASCAR: In recent years I've gone from being solely a F1 fan more towards an all-around approach towards motorsports, and this includes stock cars; watched a couple of the big 500-milers last year when my own schedule allowed me to, and will probably do the same thing this year. Not the biggest fan of it, but I see the spectacular side of it and I wish some other motorsports would provide the same level of fan interaction, and props to Hammond and whoever put that film together for emphasizing this aspect. It's definitely one side of things where Bernie and his cronies have to learn from the Americans, but never will. Also, bonus points for enthusiastic JPM one-liners. :lol:
 
aaurora said:
Chinese Cars - Quite liked this, and that three wheel car was so funny. Couldn't believe what a blatant rip off their designs were! The car model names were very strange!
Click to expand...

And I thought the McLaren MP4-12c was a difficult name to say! It doesn't have anything on Chinese cars.

Two very good episodes. Hope the boys continue the streak.
 
I quite liked this episode.

The SLS review was the best pure car review Clarkson has done in years. "I love Germany. I want to move there and eat cold meat for breakfast, and wear shorts" was hysterical. :lol:

The NASCAR film was pretty good. Lots of interesting information (on Top Gear??? from Richard Hammond??? what is this world coming to!) and some nice camera work. I just thought the editing was sort of choppy and it lacked a cohesive narrative. It felt like they had a lot of random unrelated footage. At least Hammond seems to have gotten over his mumbling streak that has plagued him for the past few years.

The Chinese film was a letdown. Not that it was a bed segment really, but I just felt that they didn't make very good use of the filming location. They didn't really drive around Beijing itself very much and spent most of their time on a totally boring industrial estate and a test track. I thought they would spend more time showing how COMPLETELY INSANE the traffic is in China, but no. It's very possible that they were limited by the authorities as to what they could shoot, but it just felt like a wasted trip in many ways. Does anyone else agree with me here? Also they wasted a lot of time on stupid frivolities, but that's fairly typical these days.
 
blkhks said:
And I thought the McLaren MP4-12c was a difficult name to say! It doesn't have anything on Chinese cars.
Click to expand...

Perhaps they thought that desirability scales with the amount of numbers and letters. And also there is a lot of space on the boot lid, so why not fill it with random stuff and pretend it's a name? No seriously, does anybody know where this overly complicated and long model names come from?
 
Two great episodes, really cool. I like how they mocked the Chinese crash tests. :D quite funny.

I'm not a Nastard fan myself, but it's cool that let Richard out there and get a feel of what it's like. Other than that, I'm getting tired of hearing how it got started and blah blah moonshine runners blah blah. Do a full race Richard!


I don't know if ripping on Jeremy's appearance was staged, but either way, that was funny.
 
rdfox said:
As a note, the most likely reason that the NASCAR segment was done at Texas Motor Speedway and not, say, one of the road course races or the infamously rowdy Talladega Superspeedway in Alabama is that the production team was *already* there to shoot footage of the TGUS boys as the grand marshals for the Top Gear 300 race in the NASCAR Nationwide (Auto Insurance) Series that ran the day before Hammond's stint driving the pace car and hauling tires. Sort of like how TGUS and TGUK did their joint shoot in the Mojave last series--it's a good way to save a bit of money.
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This is incorrect. Hammond was at the fall race. The Top Gear 300 was in the spring.
 
An excellent episode!

Nascar segment was full of excitement and passion. I used to think it's a brainless sport with loads of crashes and explosions, the typical kind of stuff americans would enjoy. But this film changed my mind. F1 should indeed learn from Nascar on how to get more average fans involved, not just entertain the rich.

SLS section is just as how Jeremy described the car :" Fannntastic!"

Good to see Matt in SIARPC even though I'm not a huge fan of Friends. Fairly interesting and relaxed guy, probably a tiny bit too relaxed in the interview. What a lap time, and what really impressed me is that he was so calm during the lap and it didn't seem that quick.

Chinese segment is my favorite. I am a Chinese so I've been eager to see it for so long. Happily, it didn't at all let me down. It is possibly one of the few non-biased films about China produced by the BBC. The depiction of Beijing is very accurate: always foggy, extremely congested traffic, mixture of modern skyscrapers and shabby suburbs, constant presence of bike riding people...The fake product show down section is genuinely funny and I don't at all feel offended. Car reviews are precise and factual, blended with traditional TG humor. However I personally think the review range could have been wider, as there were a few companies not mentioned: BYD, Cherry, Besturn etc. Also they could have tested the Roewe 550 instead of the lower class, less good looking and less well equipped 350. Maybe the 350 is more relevant because it will be on sale in the UK, I don't know. Anyway, Trumpchi and 350 are the highest quality cars produced by Chinese brands the moment. I am totally happy they chose to review them. Finally, thanks for positively acknowledging the efforts made by Chinese car manufacturing industry. Hopefully China can make cars that everyone would buy in the near future, just as you said.

Also I agree with one of the posts above, please make a China special! There is much more to be explored in this magnificent, incredibly vibrant country!

This episode deserves a solid 9 for me. Please keep up the good work!
 
93Flareside said:
Other than that, I'm getting tired of hearing how it got started and blah blah moonshine runners blah blah.
Click to expand...

Typical Yank unable to see beyond your own borders. You know it because NASCAR is huge in the US and therefore could be expected to know. Complaining that a British show made for a British audience supplies that information would be like me complaining about the origins of the London-Brighton run being explained by TG US.
 
CD82 said:
Perhaps they thought that desirability scales with the amount of numbers and letters. And also there is a lot of space on the boot lid, so why not fill it with random stuff and pretend it's a name? No seriously, does anybody know where this overly complicated and long model names come from?
Click to expand...
Those confusing codes are perhaps for internal use by the factories, but they somehow put them on the cars to---I guess---to make people think that they are high end products. Less educated people that can't read English here seem to regard these codes as fashion/cool/good looking.
 
Liked this one very much, gave it a 9. Not really that much into NASCAR but the SLS i just pure sex. I wouldn?t mind the C63 though, looks just menacing.

Didn?t really care for the guest, didn?t like Friends. Just something to watch when nothing else was on.

And finally, the chinese cars :D. Hopefully Volvo will churn out even nicer cars with the new owners and not something like XCLR645870 AWD :p
 
NASCAR segment - Nice to see TG doing a NASCAR segment (even though I don't like it). JPM saying NASCAR is much harder than F1...I highly doubt that. It was Jeff Gordon who said he thought it was harder because of the long corners. Still don't buy it 7/10
News - :lol: at Hammond being an American. Fun to hear about James' and Jezza's pranks. 8/10
SIARC - I couldn't figure out for the life of me where I saw this guy before, but of course now I realize it was from Friends. Seems like a nice guy and a real petrol head, but a bit bland. 7/10
China segment - Love seeing J+J segments on the show, they never go wrong. Chinese Stig made me :lol: but when he stopped on track and attack the marshal I was no longer entertained. That car was made in 2004? I was guessing early 70s. Good stuff. 8/10

Overall - 7.5/10 I rated 7/10 just because I voted 8 for E01, and I couldn't place this equal or above that.
 
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