[19x02] February 3rd, 2013

[19x02] February 3rd, 2013

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Much better than last weeks episode. I was expecting the Viper bashing just for the sake of bashing it, but I think they went overboard. That and the overplayed Mexican joke dropped the episode a couple points.

Loved the combat planes at Willow Springs. Some great cinematography and it had quite a few good laughs.

The 55MPH joke was pretty good too. I was worried at first when they mentioned the speed limits, that they would "abide" by them. Glad they did what the rest of us do in the USA, ignore them.
 
The thing that I laughed the most about was Jeremy driving backwards along the "musical" road, and getting the backward message about Paul McCartney. :lol:

I enjoyed the episode...didn't even mind the Mexican joke.
 
DooMMasteR said:
and JCs face when he used the LFAs concierge service :p
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I work at Agero, the company that does those services for Toyota/Lexus, BMW/Rolls Royce and Mercedes/Maybach. I work with BMW/Rolls but would have loved to have gotten any of those calls. Do know at least one of the agents though :p

Loved to see it shown on the show cause I've never seen them mention it on any of the BMW's they've tested and they pretty much all have it.
 
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Can't think of anything particularly bad about this episode. I'll have the Vanquish, thanks.
 
Gave it a 7/10. The American roadtrip was really good, but not good enough to be the only thing (+news+SIARPC)

If I had to choose one of those 3, I think I'd have the Viper. The Aston is way better looking, but I still don't think I could live with that interior.

Also, I'm pretty sure I had a similar look on my face when I discovered I can call in directions to SYNC and have them downloaded to my car. Maybe even more surprised since I didn't get the GPS option. Had them do it, and it magically took over my radio display to show directions. I was stunned.
 
What's the magic "thing" that's missing? I was thinking about this after I watched the episode but before I read this thread and as others have mentioned there was something... not quite there. I sort of think it's a combination of a few different things

The best races give the boys something to argue about, something to take the piss out of each other about. The "best driving roads" episodes or the Supercars in France episode were brilliant because as well as visiting cool places and getting up to the usual "hijinks" there was a constant tensions about who'd made the "right" or "wrong" choice. That ultimately at the end of the segment, one person would be right, or rather one of them would proclaim themselves right but they'd still argue over it. That didn't really happen in this race, they got the cars, Jeremy and James took the piss out of Richards car for a few minutes for it being American, the other two took the piss out of Jeremy's LFA for lacking a cup holder and... well they didn't really mention the cars much for the rest of the trip.

Another problem is, I think Top Gear has a couple of different styles that work really well. "The Cheap Car Challenge", "Jeremy in a Car vs Hammond and May on public transport", "Picking three cars and then arguing over them." But I think increasingly TG tries to mix these together in ways that don't work.

So case in point, the "Cars vs Fighter Planes" should have been done in a cheap car challenge. If the cars they'd chosen had been "Bangers", something bought for $2000 on ebay, then that challenge could have been "Modify your car so that you get shot less than the others, the loser has to go in the 'backup car'" the backup car being something suitably terrible of course, or some other penalty which actually adds some tension to the competition, makes you care about the outcome. But you can't do that in cars that cost 50k+ so instead you've got the boys driving around a track, being shot at by lasers and really... there's nothing they or their car can do that will effect the outcome. So really what's the point? It's very epic to look at I'll grant you, but there's just no tension, it doesn't matter who wins or loses... why are they even doing it again?

They're just doing it because someone decided one of these trips has to have an "epic set piece" and every series has to have a "big cross country race involving 3 supercars" but in the process it's sort of swamping the presenters, they're slowly fading into the background, being swamped by a formula of "this segment has to have this, this and this in order to make this, this and this parts of the audience happy".

But still.. TG is better than anything else on TV by a long shot, it's still the only thing I make sure I see live.
 
I couldn't download the ep. I clicked on the first link to download Episode 2 and it downloaded. Much faster than last week, but I didn't think much about it. When I watched, it turned out to be Episode 1. I tried twice more, and got the same thing. Then I tried clicking one of the other links, but couldn't open either. I had no problems downloading Episode 1 last week. Any ideas on what I'm doing wrong? Thanks in advance.
 
I reckon it's an 8/10.

Almost immediately expected Jezza and May to start bringing the fire to the SRT. Which is the car I loved the most on this trip, although I have the sneaking suspicion that the LF-A's drag win is simply because Jezza's a quicker driver than Hammond is. The Viper just exudes cool, despite the "Viper brake light" :p not to mention it has a good ol' MANUAL GEARBOX! :D

I didn't feel any love or fire for the Aston Vanquish. The old "Vanish" was a big majestic old brute but to me the new Vanquish has too many little fiddly bits. Lovely colour though, and as always the V12 makes a great noise.

Thennnnn there's the LF-A. Beautiful car, beautiful sound, beautiful colour, although I can't help but think that another car should have been brought along that hasn't been featured on the show yet like the other two. F12 Berlinetta perhaps? Know Jeremy would have been gushing over that one. I also agree he didn't really portray his love for the LF-A in this piece.

This was the the thing that I thought was missing from the piece, which is similar to the last US road trip with the 458 Italia: cars which have already had a comprehensive test and all the facts thrown out to the audience about it become a little boring. For me, the fact that the LF-A was in there kinda brought it down a bit. Brilliant car, but I already knew everything there was for Jeremy to say about it (aside from the extremely helpful Nav Lady :lol: ). I wanted to know less about that and more about the other two, more specifically the Viper.

I liked the Willow Springs segment but they dragged it on a bit too much I think, and the race at the end was a little boring.
 
Let's see, we have a Viper being shot at from the air using lasers. This means that TGUK just ripped off TGUS 01x01. Therefore, by the standards of some of the people commenting here and most of the people commenting at tg.com, TGUK needs to be cancelled immediately and have all its episodes eradicated from Earth so that the good name of Top Gear is not sullied by its acts of thievery from the "real" Top Gear.
 
Murcie_LP640 said:
I reckon it's an 8/10.
Thennnnn there's the LF-A. Beautiful car, beautiful sound, beautiful colour, although I can't help but think that another car should have been brought along that hasn't been featured on the show yet like the other two. F12 Berlinetta perhaps? Know Jeremy would have been gushing over that one. I also agree he didn't really portray his love for the LF-A in this piece..
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Actually he was supposed to drive Ferrari F12 but it wasn't ready in time so lfa was backup car :)
 
8(7.5)

it was entertaining.

poor hamster haha
 
I, too, found the "best car ever"-claim for LFA a bit hollow as Jeremy didn't really tell us why.

All in all it was pretty good though. I would've been interested in an explanation on why they got beaten so badly at the drag strip, though I already know no unmodified production car can match purpose-built drag cars on a drag strip. But still, the "why & how". Overall, there seemed to be a little too little information on cars in this episode.

I wonder how that Mexican sports car will turn out to be? Perhaps we can expect a tongue-in-cheek test of it by Hammond who will claim it the best car in the world, thus incidentally redeeming himself in the eyes of Mexico.
 
Solid but not mind blowing. The photography of the fighter plane segment was very good. Does TG know that there are other places in the United States? I'm tired of seeing the desert all of the time when TG makes the trip...

If you read TG magazine, Jezza talks about the LF-A and why he believes it to be the best car ever. Having never driven one, I'm inclined to agree with him.
 
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Groenni said:
Quite disappointed. 5/10. Alright, all in all this was a quite entertaining show. But: The only relevant conlusion of the boy's US-journey was that Jeremy called the LFA the best car he's ever driven. Once again: the BEST car EVER! And none of the footage they've shown to us explains why. They could have worked it out with the Las Vegas track bit, but instead they chose a pointless areoplane fight. So after all, you don't see Jeremy get excited about the car and you don't get any hint why it's so special. Instead we have to be told that it's epic and exciting and special. Plus, all three of the boys seem to have lost some of their passion for motoring and cars. It all seems so routine to them.
I remember so many car reviews and road trips that really felt special to me, that quickend the heart beat and amazed me. This wasn't one of them.
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This.

Sascha77 said:
Yeah.. remember stuff like the final bit during the Isle of Man Coupe-shootout (Porsche, Aston V8, BMW M6)? When they all sat down at the end and argued about the cars? What a great little moment. Quiet, authentic, brilliant.
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And this is the reason why.

Honestly, I'm very, very sad right now. My all-time favorite show. The only one that ever managed to somehow capture the magic and passion of loving cars (unlike all the other drek that harps on about numbers, or "fakes" it with those stupid old school Americana muscle car type shows on Speed), and the well appears to have run dry. I will keep watching and hoping the rest of the series take a turn for the better, but when you do a US road trip AND you have three of the most amazing cars ever made, this should have been something special. And that very something is what was missing. Not enough about the cars. Not enough bonding about the cars. Not enough driving passion. Too many recycled poor jokes.

The best bit was the "race" in the last segment to the Mexican border. And if you watched it, you know that's just sad.

7/10, because all the bits were in place for it to be great, but 3 points off because the passion was utterly absent.
 
7/10 (One point lower than last week)

1. Aside from the usual anti-US car sentiment, the cars are never really compared. They should always get the chance to drive each others car at some point.
2. The car vs. military attacker thing has been done before.
3. But the "trickery in the editing" to keep the speed at 55 MPH was freaking hilarious!
4. LFA? Best car ever made? It sound gorgeous but I think he's given that honor more recently to better cars like the 458 and M5.
5. The Lexus Concierge System is great! The women on the other end of the line seem to offer the best sweetness and hospitality America has to offer.
 
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I agree with everyone else that has said something is missing. Could it be that we've seen this dance before and it's getting predictable? I must say there hasn't been much of a WOW factor this season. It's not bad, but it's not the same as even last season up to this point. It may have started with that Huayra review. Hammond basically told us what was coming before it came. I dunno, I hope it finds that spark again. I'm not sure what's missing.

I cry in envy of the guys who got to meet the boys at the dragstrip. The one thing I can do well with my car is drag race it. And it's a GTO! It would have been a match made in tarmac! :)
 
The best trip + 3 car comparison they ever did was the M3 vs. C36 vs. RS4 in Spain. S10E10 I think it is. In the end, they leave The Stig on holiday and swap cars on the drive home. The segment ends with music by Sigur Ros.
 
I gave this episode a 6 for one reason only, it really feels like the fellas are just mailing this in. It feels like they are just going through the motions of the show without any passion for the show. Everything on the trip was pretty much predictable, and honestly did not see the passion for the cars they were in. Yes there were a few funny bits, but not nearly enough to save this episode. I am starting to ask myself if Top Gear UK has finally jumped the shark? If so then have the boys go out in style, not hang on by a thread just to make a few extra bucks for themselves.
 
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