[20x04] July 21st, 2013

[20x04] July 21st, 2013

  • Total voters
    268
Despite the awful staged crashes of the TransitFan, it really was a decent section of the show.

SIARPC - skip, as always. Stars are boring.

AMG - That was cool but, the SLS is getting almost as much screen time as the Veyron. Is the SLS the worlds fastest car? No, move on.

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AudiV6 said:
Hovercraft Transit was funny, although I thought immediately as it sank first time, why remove the bloody doors? They save only about 20 Kilo's per side. :lol:
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I thought that too but then I thought: "where's the air for the big fan going to com from? Oh, now I see."
 
I'll be honest, I liked it. Once the episode finished, I found myself smiling and feeling entertained. I've been watching Top Gear for quite some time now, and while I understand where some of people's frustration comes from, I also "get" it. I love fast cars, I fly planes, I've crashed a motorcycle and once even drove a train. Being a gear-head, I dream of having the money and production to create these monstrosities and tool around in them. The beauty of Top Gear is they film it and have three awesome dudes to share it with me. And for those rare moments, once a season, when they hit that homer - where the cinematography, music, car, and dialogue all mesh as one - then the silly, or boring stuff around it doesn't seem to matter anymore.

I liked this episode because of the lunacy - very Monty Python-esque. I'm not sure they've hit their homer yet, but Episode 3 was definitely a triple and the F12 bit in Ep 2 was solid as well...

I voted 8/10
 
flyinhawaiian said:
I'll be honest, I liked it. Once the episode finished, I found myself smiling and feeling entertained.
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That's my point. Too many people get pissed when it's faked, but it's still really entertaining and funny.
 
I haven't laughed that hard during a Top Gear ep in some time. That was some classic funny shit right there.
 
Drummin003 said:
I'm kind of surprised at the number of people bitching and moaning,
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I'm not. This place does nothing but bitch. Even the Top Gear production team poke fun of this place (It was on one of the DVD commentaries).
 
"The first electric supercar ever"

Wow, complete bullshit. Tesla has made supercars as well as other manufacturers. That isn't the first one. And of course they don't even mention Tesla a single time, but they kept alluding to it. I feel like they have a vendetta against Tesla even though they had a legitimate reason to sue BBC (their representation of the car was purposely inaccurate).

But nonetheless, it was an interesting segment. The Hover Van was fun, but also a bit tedious and of course largely scripted. The part where Jeremy got stuck for 15 minutes was pretty irritating. Then the melodramatic going over a small hump.. it's a hovercraft of course it can handle that.

Anyway, I actually gave it an 8/10 because it was pretty entertaining over all despite my reservations.
 
clarksonjr said:
Top gear drinking game

'it makes millions for the BBC'' - bucket of Blue Nun
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I like this drinking game, A&E may not. :lol:

Anyway, as a Wacky Races fan I like to see 'them' make these contraptions, but what I'd like to see is them make something that isn't just built to fail. I'm sure the show would be just as entertaining and far more impressive if they had it working, not least because it's great to watch them get excited about something that's working. It was a cheap laugh and one less white van to tailgate people.

rest of the show was good to great, for once I liked the guest and I liked the SLS film. That electric thing is a real beast.
 
Zorlac said:
OldSkoolGp got it right. While there were plenty of shit episodes in previous seasons (I reference the Train episode, which I hated every motherfucking second of and consider anyone who liked it an enemy of freedom and terrorist sympathizer who should languish in Guantanamo Bay. If there was an episode that jumped the shark for TG, that was it for me), I cant think of a season in which the every episode was pure ass. I say again that season 20 sucks a big ole major dick in every way. The show has become a hollow shell of what used to be, and this season is the nail in the coffin for me.

Like I said the fanbois who just watch for laughs (when the fuck did TG become a comedy show?) will whine about my criticism and predictably they have already posted in this thread. Im so sick of comments like "Well at least its better than anything else on TV"...Um no, it isnt. I never thought I'd prefer Fifth Gear over Top Gear, but these days I totally do, especially given FG's new hour long format on Velocity Channel. And there are a few Youtube shows that I'd rather watch these days than TG. YOUTUBE SHOWS FOR FUCKS SAKES!

Its comments like "well this weeks episode made me laugh, so I give it a 8 out of 10" which piss me off so much. Since when was making you laugh the main fucking point of TG? The seemingly genuine moments in TG where the boys give each other a hard time were good, but the scripted bullshit has gone too far. Again the unfunny assholes who think Sniff Petrol is amusing have pretty much ruined TG. This season is uninspired, predictable and plain fucking boring. 4 episodes in a row. Each season of TG has had a stinker or 2, but season 20 has been nothing but fail, and I blame the "oh well it made me laugh herp fucking derp" crowd for ruining Top Gear.

"Jackass" with cars indeed.
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So you're seriously trying to suggest that Top Gear never had comedic elements, or episodes that were mainly designed to make you laugh, even in the "good old days"?

The second episode of the entire show involved a bus jumping over motorbikes, the third involved grannies doing doughnuts, the sixth involved grannies doing handbrake parking and the seventh and ninth were the fastest faith episodes. And this was in TG's super serious first series feat. Jason Dawe.

Even in later series, they had stuff like Clarkson driving a car from the rear seats, nuns in monster trucks, conkers with caravans, car football/hockey/rugby, convertible people carriers, amphibious cars (twice), the Mercedes "Anne Hathaway's Cottage" edition, the TG Caravan Holiday(tm), stretch limos, and designing their own police cars. All these segments were designed more for entertainment and laughs, and all included obvious elements of scripting.

And even if you didn't like this episode, which is fair enough, you must have liked last week's. These last two episodes have pretty much covered the entire spectrum of TG episodes: either semi-serious like last week's road trip, or having a laugh like on Sunday. If not, I find it hard to believe that you really enjoyed TG in years past.

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Smagma said:
"The first electric supercar ever"

Wow, complete bullshit. Tesla has made supercars as well as other manufacturers. That isn't the first one. And of course they don't even mention Tesla a single time, but they kept alluding to it. I feel like they have a vendetta against Tesla even though they had a legitimate reason to sue BBC (their representation of the car was purposely inaccurate).
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Nobody would consider the Tesla Roadster a supercar because it's not fast enough: 125 mph is nowhere close. The electric powered SLS is limited to 155, but given the black can do 195 and the electric is more powerful, albeit heavier, I'd say 180 is not out of the question. And it's important to remember that they lost that libel case.
 
Ambush-music for the SLS? Not worth it, should've used it for a better car.

Was that man in the sinking boat scripted?
 
abczyx said:
So you're seriously trying to suggest that Top Gear never had comedic elements, or episodes that were mainly designed to make you laugh, even in the "good old days"?

The second episode of the entire show involved a bus jumping over motorbikes, the third involved grannies doing doughnuts, the sixth involved grannies doing handbrake parking and the seventh and ninth were the fastest faith episodes. And this was in TG's super serious first series feat. Jason Dawe.

Even in later series, they had stuff like Clarkson driving a car from the rear seats, nuns in monster trucks, conkers with caravans, car football/hockey/rugby, convertible people carriers, amphibious cars (twice), the Mercedes "Anne Hathaway's Cottage" edition, the TG Caravan Holiday(tm), stretch limos, and designing their own police cars. All these segments were designed more for entertainment and laughs, and all included obvious elements of scripting.

And even if you didn't like this episode, which is fair enough, you must have liked last week's. These last two episodes have pretty much covered the entire spectrum of TG episodes: either semi-serious like last week's road trip, or having a laugh like on Sunday. If not, I find it hard to believe that you really enjoyed TG in years past.
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This 100 times over. I was recently rewatching some of the old episodes and its basically the same as it is now. You have a couple of really great episodes, a couple mediocre ones and some that are obviously meant for the general public. Hell i was watching some clips of Clarkson on the old Top gear and it even then he did totally silly things (yet he was by far the most popular presenter). Things like "professors doing burnouts" or a "nun in a monstertruck" have been in form the start. I recently rewatched an episode where Richard gets hypnotized and he supposedly can't remember how to start a car.

Top gear will start going downhill when the presenters won't enjoy themselves anymore, they'll get too old or their chemistry won't work anymore. If you don't enjoy it anymore its rather simple, maybe you just had enough. I stopped watching Southpark at season 8, i just had enough of it. Some of my friends still watch it and say its funny as hell...
 
Mitchi said:
Was that man in the sinking boat scripted?
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I hope so, otherwise he's likely to write an angry letter the BBC and won't care if they don't read it.
 
Nope: the quality of the scripts has gone worse. While the stunts (grannys doing donuts, ice cream trucks jumping bouncy castles, caravan destruction) were more stupid and childish back in the day, the execution was more intelligent and thought-through.
 
I really loved the Spain episode from last week, but this episode was a bit of a disappointment. Not a HUGE disappointment mind you, it was nowhere near as bad as the iEagle Thrust episode or the India special, as the writing did seem to have wit and charm at least. But the Hovercraft skit did seem to have one too many moments where I couldn't hold my suspension of disbelief and truly get into the moment. But still, this time their enthusiasm did seem genuine.

I rather loved the Electric SLS skit too, though Hammond's sigh of relief about petrol version being slightly faster on the lap board did bug me a bit. Not that I expect Top Gear to be unbiased (Which is why I am dreading their Corvette C7 review, no way that thing is getting a fair shake), but sometimes I wish it would be a little more transparent.
 
Yep, fine episode, ok I lost interest halfway trough the hover sillyness, but all before those last minutes was good entertainment. - 6/10
 
Well there were some episodes with really great and amusing car reviews. I remember Clarkson reviewing a Fiesta ("Is it green? Yes, it is.") which had lots of information, was well edited, had the proper length and was entertaining. After all, he used it as a military landing craft. That was fun and contained useful information of a reasonable car. It even gave you the impression, what it feels like to own and drive the presented car. Haven?t seen that for a long time...

Sure TopGear is there to present Supercars. They?re great at cinematography when they feature some exotic top-of-the-line cars. And, they make a lot of silly stuff. So it?s a matter of balance. They have to find the right recipe to blend all this into a great show. They often manage to achieve that high goal. But often enough they don?t. Like this time.
- Merc part was okay. I really like the SLS.
- News was way too short and didn?t contain any usefull information. They can mix it with some jokes, but please keep me up to date with the car market (or at least with the silly marketing of car manufacturers...).
- SIARPC was ony there to promote his movie. He doesn?t care about cars at all. Nice to have a Hollywood star there, but if it?s that obvious he only came to plug his movie, I don?t like it.
- Hovervan: Very entertaining, but much too long. I prefer the old cheap car challenges ("of our own money...": BL, Sports Coup?s, Camping Cars, Alfas, ...).

TG for me is an entertaining car show. I dislike watching them enjoying shiny Superars (espacially if they already were on the show...) in cinematographically enhanced sunlight for a long time. I dislike pure facts, like they had in the first two seasons and I don?t like large overly scripted pieces like the Taxi race.
I do infact enjoy proper reviews entertwined with some humour, proper News with some laughs, a SIARPC who is a car nut, spontaneous banter and mocking about. And: I always liked and still like they?re choice of great music!
This eopisode: 5/10, but still: compared to other TV shows : 11/10
 
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