[22x00b] December 28th, 2014 [Patagonia Special, Part 2]

[22x00b] December 28th, 2014 [Patagonia Special, Part 2]


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As a whole, while the special was certainly entertaining, I felt disappointed. And I'm just disappointed that they feel like they have to do these like this now.

On the plus side, I always enjoy the scenery in countries I know little of, and the Esprit is still a gorgeous car!

It's like playing Top Gear Special Bingo:
- Hammond's car doesn't have handbrake on
- funny modifications to each others' cars - although, the car horn / brake was pretty funny
- cow on roof (even though May pointed it out)
- leaving your mate(s) when he eventually breaks down
- "poor route selections", including "getting lost", "surprising" dead-ends - even though everything has been surefire mapped and planned to a tee...and they travel with a massive crew
- related to the former: general idiocy like attempting to drive low sports cars in the forest or a swamp
- stuff just appears...like a pack of horses with owners. May getting injured again looked too painful to be included here, though. :-D
- overly bulky or cumbersome "travel souvenirs" that are supposed to be carefully cared for, but not really though
- the backup car, which is never needed

I probably couldn't bear another car football game, something that's been done on the show at least two times (and one car rugby, I think). From the ending, one could learn a lot about (some) Argentinians and their simple-mindedness.

Agreed!

And there are are nationalistic simpletons in every country!

...wearing beaver hats and beaver gloves. Seriously, why?

Lol, I forgot about this. Seriously, mind-blowingly moronic.
 
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Boring, uninteresting, worse special ever made, 3/10
 
It's a show about stupid, middle-aged men and their love of cars. If you want a documentary that follows common-sense, sound logic, mastery of physics and "best-practice", you came to the wrong place.
Point taken, but it's all in the details. "Being stupid" has a ton of variations. In the past they managed to be entertainingly stupid, now they are stupid just because.

Additionally, in the past they always made sure that every happening shown on screen has a reason given. Most often this reason was just an excuse, but you only noticed when you really thought about it. In this special however, there either was no reason given at all, or the reason given was so poor that keeping my suspension of disbelief was impossible. Once they had crossed that line, sitting through this special was somewhat boring at best.
 
Point taken, but it's all in the details. "Being stupid" has a ton of variations. In the past they managed to be entertainingly stupid, now they are stupid just because.

Additionally, in the past they always made sure that every happening shown on screen has a reason given. Most often this reason was just an excuse, but you only noticed when you really thought about it. In this special however, there either was no reason given at all, or the reason given was so poor that keeping my suspension of disbelief was impossible. Once they had crossed that line, sitting through this special was somewhat boring at best.

Fine. But what would the alternative have yielded?

If they dared tried to evolve the formula, there'd now be howls of protest that they've lost the plot/sillyness/magic/simplicity and "where's the TG I once loved?"

Damned either way, I suppose.

But imagine if the well-publicised issues sunk this episode and all future series. Would it not be a sad day? Of course it would.
For me, below average TG is preferable to none, and superior to most dross on telly.
 
As a whole, while the special was certainly entertaining, I felt disappointed. And I'm just disappointed that they feel like they have to do these like this now.

On the plus side, I always enjoy the scenery in countries I know little of, and the Esprit is still a gorgeous car!

It's like playing Top Gear Special Bingo:
- Hammond's car doesn't have handbrake on
- funny modifications to each others' cars - although, the car horn / brake was pretty funny
- cow on roof (even though May pointed it out)
- leaving your mate(s) when he eventually breaks down
- "poor route selections", including "getting lost", "surprising" dead-ends - even though everything has been surefire mapped and planned to a tee...and they travel with a massive crew
- related to the former: general idiocy like attempting to drive low sports cars in the forest or a swamp
- stuff just appears...like a pack of horses with owners. May getting injured again looked too painful to be included here, though. :-D
- overly bulky or cumbersome "travel souvenirs" that are supposed to be carefully cared for, but not really though
- the backup car, which is never needed

The backup car has a point, they don't know if their cars will survive. I don't have a problem with the other things either. There needs to be some drama else it becomes a Travel Channel special.
 
The backup car has a point, they don't know if their cars will survive. I don't have a problem with the other things either. There needs to be some drama else it becomes a Travel Channel special.

To be fair they did once use the backup car in the Three fifteen-hundred pound cars that aren't Porsches special after James May's Ford turned out to be crap and he was forced to finish in the Marina and added a hilarious twist to the crashing into each other gag which I still maintain is funny in it's variations from slamming the door into the other car to James May threatening Clarkson with a machete.
And on a side note why are people banging on about the cow on the roof as if it's a running gag, as far as I can remember they've done it twice, this special and the first America special but people are droning on about it as if it's in every special, I don't recall them putting a cow on top of a motorcycle in Vietnam and I've got that one on DVD.
 
Fine. But what would the alternative have yielded?

If they dared tried to evolve the formula, there'd now be howls of protest that they've lost the plot/sillyness/magic/simplicity and "where's the TG I once loved?"

Damned either way, I suppose.

But imagine if the well-publicised issues sunk this episode and all future series. Would it not be a sad day? Of course it would.
For me, below average TG is preferable to none, and superior to most dross on telly.
They did evolve the formula of the show. Unfortunately, evolving in this case means that they dumbed it down to appeal to a bigger audience. They swapped silliness without stupidity for deliberate stupididy. Thus, what made them big in the first place has been replaced by what people turn on their tv for nowadays: just some tv.
 
Done with Part 2.

Well that was unexpected, because the fun was mellowed down quite a bit. Shocking to see them pass with those cars, from those locations. 'Captain Slow's falling incident' was brutal :eek: And that "Lets get it On" song on loudspeakers, well some hard laughs there lol.

I'd be a liar if i say i didn't keep wishing for that incident to come out. And when it did, i had nothing but facepalms. Over a number plate, Argentinians? Seriously? A part of me does like to say "how do you like them apples" to the whole British team, because lets face it, they have been messing with way too many kind of people (religious, or otherwise). BUT, the extreme reaction those Argentinians gave, was definitely shocking and way too overboard.

Anyway, it obviously got TOO dark till the end, literally and figuratively. So that extra touch of "Robert Leroy ending" gave me a good laugh :clap Glad to see these blokes are still alive and rocking. :D
 
I must admit that I only saw it in low-definition thanks to the great firewall of China and plan to watch it again in HD in a week or two but overall I wasn't that impressed. I reckon it could have been put into one episode, as the Burmese special should have been too. The idea of a road trip, I suppose, isn't that new and the scenery didn't seem that good.
The ending was quite scary though. The incident in the USA where they were chased by hicks was nothing in comparison with this. Having now seen how many references to the Falklands war there was, I'm fairly sure that the number plate was not a coincidence. :) It certainly didn't portray the Argentineans that well either. Seriously, the Falkland population want British rule so who are you to be such skinheads about it?

PS: I quite liked the Indian special, but I seem to be the only one. :)
 
This is the first time in a very long while that I comment on Top Gear episodes. The controversy surrounding this made me look forward to it.

Although they have done this thing many times over I must say I was excited to see what they could get out of this road trip. The photography and scenery was really nice and it all looked very good. Some of the jokes were also still funny.

I was initially excited about the cars they brought, but that died away quickly as they started ruining those cars, the modifications done to the 928 and the Mustang were predictably quite horrid. The 928 GT is one of the rarest and most desirable versions of the 928, featuring a 5-speed manual and less weight, other 928s were also available with a manual, but those are few and far in between. The Lotus Esprit V8 is also fairly rare car. The Mustang Mach 1, I don't know about, but I can imagine that tidy, unmolestered ones are very rare. Even though they weren't that expensive, was it necessary to ruin three very nice cars? Pointlessly driving, and thus ruining, perfectly good cars that are not made for it off road has gotten quite old now.

Considering the fact that they were aware of it, the numberplate incident was also kind of stupid, they should have known that some of the Argentinians, particularly nationalists among those in the south, are still sore about that (well deserved) defeat in the Falklands war. Still, that is no excuse for the nationalists' idiotic behavior, threatening with violence and physically attacking the crew, even when the crew did as it was told to. At least they managed to use their 15 minutes of fame to show the whole world how big idiots they are.
 
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Considering the fact that they were aware of it, the numberplate incident was also kind of stupid
So what if they knew what the number plate was? You still have to have a warped, Falklands veteran mind to find meaning in it. This number plate business is so hideously blown out of proportion it should be embarrassing to admit taking it seriously.
 
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Ah fuck that number plate and fuck that idiotic mob of animals (well at least they saved us from another game of car football)

About the special... I loved it!! Incident with cavemen aside, it was a lovely trip, the unpopulated parts of Argentina are breathtaking! :wub:

And my God, what was that Lotus made of? That thing was a tank :D

8/10 just a stone throw away from 9/10
 
The good: The cars appear to all be working properly and surprisingly long lasting considering the terrain they drove over. More beautiful scenery in both Chile and Argentina. The honesty shown in the attack. I can't begin to imagine what they must have been feeling going through all that. It was a horrible experience and a disappointing end to the special.

The bad: More repeated jokes and that A-Team segment again was there any real point to it?

The ugly: It was dull

Overall: In both parts, it felt like something was missing, it was like there was already a sense of doom for what was to come. I didn't get the impression that they were that thrilled about showing it. Normally the guys are seen enjoying these trips and fooling around and that was not there. Perhaps it's understandable that they were not happy about it, it didn't end well and neither side came off that good.

Its such a shame that the special ended the way it did, I felt very sad for all involved.

I'm sorry to say but I can only give this 4 out of 10
 
Like I said they are hardly trying to make it look like it wasn't staged, like a few ppl have pointed out, where did the horses come from? when the ferry landed on the beach for them how did the replacement vehicle, which was on the same ferry, appear further up the beach by the road? walking back to town to get bolt cutters along a nice road, at least I assume they walked back from the dialogue that was spoken, and not using the cars. As for the repair jobs, they always have a support truck loaded with equipment in case of major breakdowns, they stated that in an earlier special, which is not a problem, too much staging though instead of making it look natural makes the show worse then it should have been
 
I wasn't too impressed with this special, but then again I'm not too impressed with Top Gear at all anymore... it seems to be on repeat. I really wish they'd stop with the scripted stuff. Even with repetition it wouldn't be half as boring if they'd just be themselves. They didn't even talk very much about the cars outside of saying what was broken on them... I get it, it's supposed to be cars + cocking about, but when the cocking about is all so painfully scripted and the cars barely get a mention after the first five minutes, there's really nothing left. I used to worship this show but it's feeling more like a used-up husk lately. I'm interested to see what the new series brings.

If you still believe the car was selected because of the plate, Wilman sets that straight too:
http://transmission.blogs.topgear.com/2014/10/10/top-gear-in-argentina-what-really-happened/

Yes, well, I'm not at all surprised he said that... but I am surprised that out of untold millions of possible number plate combinations they just happened to get one of the few that could be considered offensive, and then just happened to give it to the one and only host who's known for pulling precisely those types of stunts. Either someone isn't being completely honest, or we now have proof that God exists and has it out for Jeremy Clarkson ;)
 
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Finally watched both parts. It was kinda stale, the sceneries are beautiful, but other than that the episodes were kinda boring. Also it's kinda sad to see 3 nice cars destroyed. I don't mind they modify it to go off-road, but they should've done it from the beginning (maybe right after receiving the 1000 mile challenge). Then just go have some fun off-roading in 3 properly modified cars and have some fun. It's really not funny anymore seeing James May fall and in pain (whether real or scripted) for half the episode. I gave both parts 6s.
 
Dull but for the scenery and the meltdown at the end.
 
I'm not sure what to think really. They obviously spent some real money on those cars, I think someone posted a link in the part 1 thread showing the Mustang cost $15k pounds, iirc. Watching them ruin those cars wasn't much fun. It's more fun with properly horrible cars. Or buy new cars and ruin those instead.

But anyway, I'm not sure what the purpose of the special really was. It seemed like a mash up of other TG premises. A tribute to V8's, a "cheap" car challenge, trying to prove street cars can offroad, car football, etc. It was a perfectly average episode of TopGear, in the end.
 
Altough I liked the episodes, I have a feeling we've seen it all before ... and we have, in my opinion. Why do they always have to get 'lost' in a desert or a swamp with their cars? It was fun for a few specials, but it's gettin a bit 'tired'. Why can't we have more specials like the episode with the Gallardo, Porsche and the Aston? Wouldn't a special with the LaFerrari (Jeremy), Porsche 918 RSR (Richard, obviously) and McLaren P1 (James) be more fun?

Anyway, I hope the new season will bring some new hightlights ...
 
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