[18x03] February 12th, 2012

[18x03] February 12th, 2012


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I gave it a solid 7. The James May bit at the beginning was quite good, I thought the news was really funny, especially the taking potshots at Jeremy for his 'shoot them' comment. Liked to see the news about the Dacia! And the Toybaru... I sense a 'performance' version of that, with the STi coming across with the 2 liter. Wouldn't that be awesome? I did like the approach that Jeremy had with the chase film all-round. Even when taken to the extreme, I thought the hyper-realism was funny. Not so much on the other side, when it was intentional wanton destruction for no apparent point. But when the traction control button was pressed for 3...4...5 seconds I was "Are they really going to do all ten?" ... and laughing about it. Liked to see the news about the Dacia! And the Toybaru... I sense a 'performance' version of that, with the STi coming across with the 2 liter. Wouldn't that be awes

The accents killed me. Of course the actors were having a laugh at it, but I thought their bit was funny too. I didn't like the 'Hammond-ness' of the film though. A *little* over the top would have been great, but knowingly going too far overboard was a bit far. I won't pass along the 'hate' that Andy and Jeremy thought it might get because there was a little something for everyone in this episode. Star in a Car was brilliant, that went very well.

But I'm a 26 year old dude from the frozen tundra who steelz' from teh netz too. Not that I have an option, but I figure I have enough family still in 'the old country' (for real) who pay the license fee...

Long story short: Good show, but not great. Great initial segment from Sensible James, Solid news, great star in a car, good start to the film, poor finish. All together, earns a 7.

(To contrast, the Cars as Art / Geoff / VW TV Ad episodes received a 3 from me)
 
I'm not sure what to give this episode. James was great, as usual, the news was pretty good, and the SIARPC was entertaining for once, but the stunt film segment was a miss. I laughed here and there, so it wasn't all bad. I guess I'm just disappointed that TopGear feels the need to be foolish and silly all the time. I can't help but think the best moments in TopGear history are when they really try to accomplish something great. For example driving a car to the north pole. Or driving across Africa. Or riding motorcycles up the coast of Vietnam. But here they have the opportunity to make a car chase film with a real budget and real stunts, but they decide to make a stooge comedy joke out of it. I can't help but feel they had the opportunity to do something very cool, but tossed it away for the chance to make a few bad jokes.

In the end I'm gonna have to give this one a 6/10, barely above average due to James's Corsa/Panda film.

BTW, I found it a bit odd that they went through the trouble to buying some Ford Focuses and dressing them up as ST models, but used real Jaaaaaaaag XFR's. Wouldn't it have been more cost effective to use V8 XF's dressed up as R models?
 
James's test was great.
The news was quite great.
First half of the Sweeney film was all right.
Ryan Reynolds was better than I expected.
Second half of the Sweeney film was meh.
7.
 
Absolute drivel. Why waste the program budget on this rubbish. It will be axed soon!

Absolute drivel. Why waste the program budget on this rubbish. It will be axed soon!

Why waste the TG budget on this rubbish. JC was at last gaining a little credibility. Hammond not only now looks a prat but is acting like one. Only James came through as being a watchable presenter worthy of his roll.
What are the producers, directors and programming team thinking? They are heading towards the big chop by the BBC. Surely this cannot be allowed to go on much longer.
Either get it together as in previous series or accept it has burnt ifself out!
TG's death is nigh!!!
 
I haven't seen the episode but fucking Christ...You all were TOLD that to us, tonight's episode would suck...and then you're giving it hell when it does....At least Clarkson and Wilman warned you and TOLD you that you wouldn't want to watch.

I didn't remember that, was that on the website? Do you have a link?
 
I gave this episode a 6, which is the lowest I've ever scored a TG episode.

Good:

- James May. I LOVED the first segment. The Corsa was pretty cool (as was May's review of it) and wow... he actually made a Fiat Panda seem cool! How on earth is that even possible?
- Ryan Reynolds. A much better guest than I anticipated. Thoroughly enjoyed it!

Bad:

- EVERYTHING else. Actually, the final edited chase was actually pretty good, but the rest was just total rubbish, as to be expected. Oh well.
 
Not bad. Had some genuinely funny moments. 7/10.

Couldn't stand May's segment. The captain slow thing is wearing on a bit. And while I like a small, light, tossable car that's fun to drive even though it has next to no power, the panda really does not make the point. It's a farce. They could have quite easily broken out a S1 Elise, or any number of tiny rev it until it explodes sports cars with tiny engines, and it would have made the segment much more enjoyable. It was also silly to have the Stig to any and all driving in anger. May phoned that one in, and it shows.

SIARPC was actually much more amusing than they have typically been. They must be actively trying to improve the quality of guest and the flow of the segment, as they're becoming much more watchable.

Film shoot segment dragged on a bit, but it had some amusing moments.

The best part of the whole episode was Hammo's haircut. It immediately made me think of:

jean-baptiste-emanuel-zorg-gary-oldman.jpg
 
Here we go...

CORSA/PANDA REVIEW: Typical May stuff, and that's a very good thing.
NEWS: Had to think a bit hard on a couple of occasions there (like the "shoot strikers" bit), but it was a great segment.
THE SWEENEY: Yeah, Hammond wasn't anywhere near as good there, but that was the script that was given to him - probably. He really can't be the unreasonable guy, Jeremy always plays that "role" a lot better. I had a feeling it'd be way too long, and I was right. It really was a film made for the "non-petrolheads", and 'cause the TG film crew are actually taking care of the chase scenes. They really should've thrown in something else between the News and SIARPC, then only give The Sweeney bit the final 15 minutes. That'd have made it a lot less tragic.
SIARPC: Not my favorite, but far from being the worst.

All in all, a 6/10, simply 'cause I'm in a good mood.
 
If you accept that Richard's persona is now a cartoon character, then it all becomes a lot easier to accept.
 
I gave it a 7.

It's a real shame about the car chase segment. It had so much potential, especially the way Jeremy looked at it. He had some great ideas, and, even though the part where he wanted the baddies to turn off the TC in the Jag was sorta tongue-in-cheek, the concept reminded me of the part before the Bullitt chase when they showed Bill Hickman buckling his seat belt. I thought all the bits Jeremy did were well done, but like a lot of people have already said, Hammond ruined it. I wasn't too happy about that... When they do a segment like this, it would be nice if they were genuinely funny instead of having to resort to slapstick jokes.

Besides that, I LOVED James' review. I agree with him 100% that slower cars can be just as fun as supercars. My Fiesta might not be very fast, but it takes corners like a champ, and you don't have to be going very fast at all to have fun. He made a very good point.

Ryan Reynolds was pretty decent, I love how Americans are starting to show up the Brits on the leaderboard. Good guest too. News was pretty entertaining as well.
 
Richard Porter's Twitter page makes for interesting reading.

https://twitter.com/sniffpetrol

Thanks for linking. It seems that TG's own script writer hated this episode. I agree with him that Hammond was really irritating, but I really enjoyed the rest of this episode. It was sort of like the James and Jeremy advert film, but much better.

Of course, James' track test can't compare to his original Panda test, which I think is one of the best in the history of the show. "The Romans came here in 43, and built some nice ruins." Still a great episode, though. Not sure what's up with all the haterade around here...
 
6/10, but my main criticisms arise with May's Panda/Corsa review rather than the car chase challenge. His views on the "cheap and cheerful" car sector are all well and good on paper and they have the potential for an interesting review, but it wasn't the case here because it was a Power Test on the track. And it's all well and good for Mr. May to claim that you can still have fun and explore the limits of grip at "normal speeds" rather than on a track in the Panda, but he wasn't on a normal road with speed limits. He was on a track. And because of that, this Power Test wasn't half as interesting as any of his previous Power Tests in much more expensive hardware to me. His reviews in the more "boring" everyday cars out on the road were also much more interesting because that's where they belong.

News: loved the pisstakes on Hammond for both the Morgan and the GT 86 and on Jeremy while he was cutting the picture of the Evoque. Lots of laugh out loud moments here.

Car chase sequence: Pretty bland. I normally laugh at the most insignificant things but most of this just left me cold. Jeremy's bits were actually pretty good but Hammond's just made me facepalm.

SIARPC: Pretty good. Ryan Reynolds was genuinely entertaining and put in a pretty decent lap time to boot.
 
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I'm giving it an 8. I know this is debatable and I absolutely hated the Sweeney crap (i'd give that alone a 2/10), but James' segment, the news and the SIARPC were all SO DAMN GOOD. I was hoping Ryan Reynolds would be the sarcastic, awesome guy he is in all his films, but I wasn't expecting it, but i'm glad that's who he is..
 
I skipped through much of the SIARPC and winced through much of the Sweeney. From lots of previous responses, it seems I should have watched the SIARPC for a change and skipped the Sweeney. Gave it 6 thanks to James' test drive and a good news segment.
 
James' segment was good. I really liked him showing the difference in performance when you've (really) got a fully loaded up car with passengers. The news was pretty good too. Not their best, but good. Ryan Reynolds was a fantastic guest, he was hilarious and interesting!

And then the Sweeney parts - that was the most awful segment Top Gear has ever done. Literally unwatchable. I was cringing through most all of it and was just waiting for it to be over. Who "edited" this?! Richard is talking with the actors and it just kept going, and going, and going, and going...none of it was interesting or funny, yet here we are still listening to Richard "direct" the actors. Maybe put in 2 words of all that part and then CUT. And the bit of Jeremy talking to the "Serbian" actors was the same thing. It kept going and going when maybe 2-3 seconds would've been enough. The whole Sweeney film was like this, parts just kept going and going just to fill air time it seemed. It felt like they had a maybe 7 minute segment that they had to stretch out to a 30 minute segment. As a quick 5-7 minute film it probably would've been decent enough, but having to take up a bulk of the show with completely scripted nonsense....AWFUL. If this was intended to take up most of an episode...fire everyone associated with it (especially the "editor"). Seriously. It was that bad.

Overall I gave the episode a 3. James' segment started it off nicely, news okay, SIARPC excellent...but that Sweeney crap was SOOOOOO bad it's literally unbelievable.
 
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