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[21x07] March 16th, 2014 [Burma Special, Part 2]

[21x07] March 16th, 2014 [Burma Special, Part 2]

  • Total voters
    219
Heathrow said:
Worth it just for the Kok River joke & the closing titles. Very funny.



I thought of this today too, another David Lean film homage perhaps:

"Lawrence of Arabia" - a drive across the desert on camels 4x4s in the footsteps of T.E. Lawrence in the 1914-18 war. (Yeah, I know "done it already", but the Jerusulem one was in Palestine/Israel, which in 100s on kms away.)
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But they used 4x4s in South America; in the Holy Lands they used sports cars.

If you want "epic," they could try the German Army retreat from Moscow, using either light military vehicles (Jeep vs. Land Rover vs. Land Cruiser) or 1980s era German cars.
 
Over the bridge of the river 'Kok'. That made my day LOL.

Also the 'cock' jokes were pretty funny...
 
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I wanted to watch both parts before commenting. Overall I think it gets an 8/10, with the second part being better than the first. It was pretty damn good, but it did feel like a rehash of the Bolivia, motor-home, and lorry challenges that they did previously. Still, they did a good job with it. There was some fake stuff, but also problems and disasters that could have been faked, but weren't obvious enough to tell, which is the way it should be.
 
I really liked both episode, but the fact, that they had a lot of scripted parts and the fact, that the bridge was actually made out of steel (you can see that at 46:46) made me give it 9/10.
 
pepitko said:
The river is called Kok River, you can find it on a map here. Beautiful scenery, I love it when Top Gear shots a location in such a way that I really want to visit the place.

Btw, I got to thinking what about the bridge, do they just leave it there? There didn't seem to be any connecting roads. Seems like too much effort for essentially a short TV skit. They could have built the bridge at least somewhere where it was needed, like connecting two villages or something.
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I thought about that too. I had hoped it was actually part of some charity organisation, or there was a use for it after filming. It was a hell of a lot of effort to go to, to just tear it all down again.
 
SchumacherM said:
"The advanced western civilization" gets that and here I am with an internet connection that no one gives a fuck about. This will never cease to amaze me.
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Pedestrian_A said:
Because your country is too new to capitalism.
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That's basically it. The more advanced countries have figured out that you can sell a connection that's got no physical limit on traffic volume, then impose an artificial limit and demand extra money to "remove" that limit. And by "remove" I don't actually mean remove, only increase the limit slightly. The Telekom (major German ISP) tried to introduce such a limit (75 GB per month) to all its customers approx. one year ago and they got such a shit storm for it that they were forced to drop their plans. At least for now.
 
I remember having some limits back in the early 00s, but one of the providers dropped the limits and seems like it worked as a strategy so soon everyone did.

Now that TV comes over IP and basically uses bandwidth non stop, there's no limits to wired internet anymore.

Recently a close friend of mine and web developer moved to Germany for work (Berlin to be exact) and he says our internet here in Portugal is light years better. Really does make me wonder.
 
maktt said:
Actually you can see in the final few shots when Hammond gets to the end of the bridge that it is made from steel truss; look between the bamboo cladding on the side.
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I think is a mecano bridge cover with wood and bamboo. Otherwise, Jeremy could?t have driven so fast across it.

Cheers.
 
I like how, in their attempt to show Jeremy's "long list" of controversial comments, the first one they mention is the Mexican one.

As for slope, 'learn something new'...never knew that was a derogatory name for anyone.
 
RaphEmer said:
I like how, in their attempt to show Jeremy's "long list" of controversial comments, the first one they mention is the Mexican one.

As for slope, 'learn something new'...never knew that was a derogatory name for anyone.
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wasn't it Richard who offended the Mexicans ?
 
Ruddeger said:
wasn't it Richard who offended the Mexicans ?
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Exactly. That's why I found it funny.

Considering how much Jeremy enjoys stirring things up, I wonder how he feels, knowing that one of the biggest controversies that has come out of Top Gear, is from Richard (and to a slightly less extent, James), rather than him. :lol:
 
I quite liked it, but it could and should have been much better. Essentially not much happened during this trip. Long driving, a few breakdowns, but the show itself was just kind of flat.

We know many things are staged and it doesn't bother me, but it takes a bit more than beautiful scenery to make a great special.

7/10 for me
 
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I liked the second part of the first half, the last 15 minutes of the second part (after they stopped being stupid) and the driving part of the second part. I think they are trapping into the we want to show too much fall. With a similar length as the Bolivia special, this could've been very good. For once they had vehicles that sort of were needed for what they wanted to achieve (never mind the fact that they were able to borrow some pretty specialized vehicles in the end), but any time the story started to gain traction it was brought to a shuddering halt again because of some gag. Cut these out and it would've been very good, I think. The natural gags were very good: the racing in the empty capital, the horse riding, the Apocalypse Now party (so relieved they didn't go all India special on that one). I don't get why they don't weave those into a shorter narrative.
 
93aldi said:
I really liked both episode, but the fact, that they had a lot of scripted parts and the fact, that the bridge was actually made out of steel (you can see that at 46:46) made me give it 9/10.
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It wouldn't really suprise me if they cheated the bridge design at all. Granted I know nothing about bridge design, and I know bamboo is really strong, I still can't imagine something that flimsy would be able to handle 3 5+ ton trucks. I have an even harder time imaging that their insurance company would allow that either. All 3 of those trucks would have been guarunteed death traps if they had gone into the river.
 
After watching I thought the promise from Ep.1 was too much to carry on. I give it a 7 out of 10.
 
I was disappointed in this episode. Too fake, and too Stoogian. Okay, the 'slope" joke, while in poor taste, was mildly funny. When the crane fell over, that was genuinely funny, in a Stoogian way. The show, like it's presenters, has grown long in the tooth and will likely fade ignominiously into the sunset remembered mainly for it's unrealized potential. Thing is, this episode could have been as brilliant as the cinematography, if only they drove modern AWD SUVs instead of dilapidated trucks. Anything that hasn't been done to death already. Subaru vs Mitsubishi would have been real nice. A Mercedes/Porsche/Range Rover match-up would also have been very watchable. Even a hot hatches across Burma would have worked. This did not. Christmas in March? They knew it sucked.
 
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