f13.net

Is anyone else watching this?

Personally I've enjoyed this season far more than the last, their ideas are simpler, and executed with more wit. While it's not quite back to the Hilux-testing greatness, the contrived situations seem less over-the-top than some. Also, the three hosts seem far more relaxed with each other, even if it is becoming clearer than ever that Hammond is being lined up to take over from JC at some point.

Also, tonight's road test of the Ford Fiesta had me cracking up constantly.

edit:

Yeah, I feel the Fiesta was really put through all the conditions a UK driver is likely to have to deal with :why_so_serious:

Well I rather liked the last episode of Season 11 but most probably because I'm german ;). I especially like the ability of them making a fun (and funny review) on a very emotional level and you still get all of the facts.

I'd just think that they should do more reviews of normal cars in that way just like they did in the first three seasons.

I got interested in this show because of a very funny review of a Vespa (http://www.timesonline.co.uk/tol/driving/jeremy_clarkson/article4963194.ece) that was posted on a scooter board I frequent. I've watched something like three episodes and two of the three (amphibious vehicles & caravans) had me laughing so hard there were tears dripping down my face.

I never thought I'd end up with a car show on season pass.

Ha, missed that!

I am going to put at least one Fiesta in to the next bid I work on.

I've been watching it for a few years, it's always good for a few laughs.

I've  been watching Top Gear since the early 90s and Righ probably watched it since it started up a bajillion years ago.  It's hilarious.  We also got the magazine until we left Britain, though we always pick one up at airports.  We've even watched some of it's more terrible offspring - and I mean terrible.  I don't think we missed many episodes until we moved to the US.  Unfortunately, I can no longer remember what is on when and which channel.  Oh well. 

BBC America, channel 264 (I think) on directv. Not sure about day/time.

Telling me that was just weird.

It's often on BBC America on Monday nights. I love this show, though the BBC America broadcasts tend to happen at least 6 months to a year behind the UK ones. I just now saw the episode where Hammond came back from the crash.

I can get my wife to watch it. I'm not much of a gearhead myself, but just the host interactions and some of the "tests" are so humorous to watch. Them taking the 3 cars across the African desert was pretty amazing.

That must be a repeat, because I've seen it before.
Sorry for trying to HELP!

Hammond has a book out, I was a bit surprised just how bad his brain injury was after the initial few days.  There was a lot of fuss in the UK media after the accident which died down when it was obvious he was going to live through it.  But it was touch and go for a long time after that on just how much of a recovery he would make.  He spent weeks just playing with lego shacked up with his wife in hospital rooms, doesn't sound too bad but he really didn't know wtf for a long time.

My favourite episode is the shuttle one (http://uk.youtube.com/watch?v=_b4WzWFKQ20).

My favorite episode is still the one where they rented cars to drive across 4 states in America. And not just because they spent a rainy 3 hours or so driving through my state.

and getting nearly killed while trying to ridicule some rednecks in southern Georgia

That one just made me cringe.

That was actually Alabama, but yes. That was money.

Whenever my friends and I go to spend a week at this cabin in Oneonta, NY; this show seems to be always playing marathon style. That's how I got my first taste and it was awesome.

Beautiful area. We used to go to a Pagan fest in the Ashokan campus Columbus Day weekend.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=pJdrlWR-yFM

The caravans on fire is my favourite one - been watching it for a few years now on youtube until it got to BBCA down here. A Dutch friend tuned me into it.


Link to the Caravan episode:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=5B6srQTTEAA (http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=5B6srQTTEAA)

I am in the middle of the Vietnam special. All I can say is I never thought I would see something funnier than The Germans, but this is.

The Vietnam Special was  :awesome_for_real:

"Hey, I got you a present"

I prefer this caravan test:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ZtztZz7A4xA (http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ZtztZz7A4xA)

I once took part in a road test for Top Gear magazine after winning a competition. Drove what Americans would call a Mercury Cougar (its a Ford in Britain) to the Le Mans 24 hour race and back. Jackie Stewart later said much the same things about that car as I did. It was a lot of fun, with much abuse of Ford's expense account. I now know what some of the most expensive brandy in the world (aged 200 years) tastes like. Still, you'll be bailing them out soon, so its all good.

The Vietnam special was awesome, I really miss my Minsk :cry:

Necro, season 13 is firing back up in the UK this sunday! There's some pictures from season 13 (http://www.topgear.com/uk/photos/tg-series-13-ep-1) online at the main top gear website.

Motorcycle vs train vs car (http://transmission.blogs.topgear.com/2009/06/10/series-13-preview-train-vs-bike-vs-car/) seems to be the first big race this year probably airing sunday.

I'm going to see this being filmed on the 1st \o/

:drill: What's the waiting list like for tickets to the show?

Not sure, my mother got them. I'll find out and let you know.

BEST STIG EVAR!!!  :awesome_for_real:

Some say his skin has the texture of a dolphin’s, and that wherever you are in the world if you tune your radio to 88.4 you can actually hear his thoughts...  :awesome_for_real:

Episode last night was one of the most amusing that we have had for some time.

This segment cracked me up (http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=xiEuNakq31E&feature=related)

Some of the shots in the office was comical... the picture of the queen and the fokker dr1 on Jame's desk, Hammond with teeth whitener and spitfire, (didn't notice what was on jezzer's desk was it a picture of the female actor he loves). And of course the stig in the background photocopying his helmet.

snap, I completely missed that.

Ton's of pictures (http://forums.somethingawful.com/showthread.php?threadid=3131301&userid=0&perpage=40&pagenumber=15#post362616552) there of the office part. Lot's of injokes in basicly every shot.

Season 14 is already underway.

The first two episodes have been rather mediocre in my opinion however.

Oh I don't know about that, causing a massive traffic jam in Oxford with an electric car made me laugh for a bit and then when they did the safety tests I laughed out loud for at least five minutes.

The safety tests caused a few chuckles, but causing a massive traffic jam and the hillclimb test etc had me guffawing.

I'm satisfied with the start to this season, it does seem to me that they're a bit on the way up from the season 2-3 years ago ( think it was... whichever had the "build a 7 clone and race it" program), which I thought was their weakest season.

I like the season so far; it doesn't feel as forced as a couple of seasons ago. The guys seem relaxed and the challenges are more realistic and entertaining.

The episode last year with the 'Buy a car for a 17 year old' was still one of the best in ages, Ravey Mayvey had me splitting my sides.

Airship was epic  :awesome_for_real:

If I were hammond, then I would not be complaining about having to drive back and forth to keep up with May's choices of sites.

Srsly  :drill:

...and also epically dangerous.

I seriously hope that the whole segment was staged. If not it was most certainly the most stupid and possibly the most dangerous thing anyone of the three has ever done on that show.

Flying into the restricted airspace of an airport and crossing the path of a number of jet airplanes without manouvering capability put the lives of a lot of people seriously at risk so I assume that all was just clever editing because nobody could be that stupid and reckless.

It had of been staged, I wouldn't doubt it was the top gear test track as it seems there is quite a few aircraft there time to time. As you mentioned some creative editing with shots of a real airport etc.

Oh by the way did anyone else pick up on the "we were away from our family's for six weeks", there's gotta be some major adventure coming up.

Just a friendly reminder that the new Series starts today

That reliant robin bit was brilliant.

I haven't laughed as much of a top gear episode in months. Awesome.

I never really paid attention to this show because I'm not much of a car guy, but I caught an episode the other night while channel surfing, where they were told to find a car that's not a Porsche for under 1500, and run them through a bunch of challenges.  I laughed my ass off the entire time.

I want to watch more but my roommate warned me that most of them were not that good.  He pointed out that boring bit at the beginning of the episode that rattled off different new cars and specs, and said that most episodes were like that, interspersed with dashboard cams of guys going around a track saying shit like, 'whoa, that's fast.'  Is he wrong?

Yes. It's a pretty entertaining show all the way around.

Haven't seen the new ones though because of the lag in being shown here in the U.S.

Last few seasons have been pretty good, the very early stuff is generally a bit dull. If you really don't care about cars at all then there are bits of each episodes you'll want to skip. Definitely watch the specials though.

I would actually say the newer episodes don't have *enough* car stuff in them. Most of the time it seems they are filling their episodes with random funny tidbits (like: can we pave a road faster than the ministry of transportation? What if we had 5000 guys doing it!?!?). So if you aren't much of a car guy, but like cool toys and British humor, it's usually fun to watch. (They've run the same direction MythBusters did - once they got popular and more $$$, they have become more generic - but they still talk about cars I've never heard of, and it can be interesting).

My favorite weekly BBC show right now is The Graham Norton Show, it is usually quite funny and he has more interesting guests than lame-o late night shows.

I love Top Gear, a lot, and really am not much of a car guy at all.  That said, there's basically three types of Top Gear episodes:

- The Specials.  Always amazing.  No reviews or Star-in-a-Reasonably-Priced-Car.

- The Challenges and Races.  Like the one you watched (Season 6, Episode 2), there's one long item along with a smaller piece either on a new car or "something random".

- The rest.  A lot of "something random" but a lot of my favorite segments come from those types of episodes: the more "out there" car reviews (http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=QEaSZMYV498 (http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=QEaSZMYV498)), the Reliant Robin piece from this last episode, the presenters' Moms help review small cars one from a while back (http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=1qLZMKpWsjk).

The car reviews definitely have gone more towards raw entertainment/artsy value than "sensibleness" but I find even the more recent straight ones (like this one from last season (http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=DT-iyqLoIUU)) supremely fun to watch.

If you don't though, then I really would suggest watching some of the specials (Polar, Bolivia, the second US one) and episodes with cheap car challenges which even after the billionth time are still great.

If you want to look for the better ones

The Specials: US, Vietnam, Arctic, Bolivia, Botswana (The US and Vietnam ones are by far and away the best of these)

The Challenges:
 - Buy a car for a 17 year old (Part 1 (http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=9GtF3wkFXCg&feature=related), I can't find parts 2 and 3 that work, sorry)
 - Ford Fiesta Road Test (Part 1 (http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=6Zy78tFPQwQ), Part 2 (http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=sYIyCmcuQno&NR=1))
 - Killing a Hilux (Part 1 (http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=J3uvx93QV1U), Part 2 (http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=CUiSPm47Ur8), Part 3 (http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=dtDo37hucnU))
 - Amphibious Cars (Part 1 (http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=9Mqv1USf0g8), Part 2 (http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=rGtHiAvmHys&feature=related), Part 3 (http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=XDHxna0hgAY&feature=related))

I'll add some more later when I have time.

Oh wow, the motorhomes challenge had me cracking up badly all the way through.

I grew tired of those segments. The motorhome one especially.

1. Those segments are obviously heavily scripted
2. Clarkson's Citroen Burj Al Arab was a clear road hazard. If it would have toppled over on the motorway other motorists could be severly hurt, or even killed. So either they are completely reckless or things are not what they seem(TM). Either way I'm out just with the last ridiculous segment where May turned his car in a blimp which also either was completely reckless and could have potentially endangered a lot of innocent people or was fake.

It also serves no purpose at all except giving a few laughs. They should stick to other segments like their road trips or something like the Hylux destruction which at least are interesting and a little bit informative except just childish.

They mentioned a few times during that segment that they had to go ultra-slow because of Clarkson's car, and they never showed it going a) particularly fast or b) swaying very much.

Still, it's not like things haven't gone wrong on Top Gear.  Hammond nearly died, The Stig had that Koenigsegg crash, Clarkson's suffered tons of injuries (£100 Car Challenge, Lorry Challenge, Nissan GT-R to name a few), and May crashed into someone during their Romania trip.

Really though, this is a show that's supposed to be fun.  The Star-in-a-Reasonably-Priced-Car doesn't have any educative value either, but it's an integral part of the show, just like the random super car segments, The Stig, and yes, segments that begin with "How hard can it be?".

Things are not what they seem.  It's a heavily produced, valuable TV show that's not above using a little trickery for a laugh.

May did turn the car into a blimp, that wasn't fake, just the possible danger.

As long as they just don't go overboard on the scripting and acting like they did in the episode where they built the caterham. I've no problems with them taking the piss out of eachother, but I don't appreciate it when they overdo it to the extent they did when f.ex Clarkson knocked the caterham shell off the jacks.

The south american episode was over-scripted; generally it's not too obvious though

A lot of their road trips feel a bit overscripted but as long as it's fun to watch I won't complain.

I don't care that it's scripted, so long as it's funny. And they generally always bring the funny.

Yeah, the show is very heavily scripted, but its still very funny.  I enjoy watching it randomly.  Though god damn, Jeremy Clarkson has a hard time hiding his ultra British nationalist bent sometimes.  He's funny (like many republicans can be funny) but he lets it get in the way to much sometimes.

He's terrible at being a nationalist.



He has a simple gimmick of being politically incorrect.

And he really doesn't like Americans. But I don't think he's necessarily at the vanguard of that particular movement.

Ah, thats probably it then.  Between his constant bashing of all countries/cultures, along with the right wing political bent I've read in his articles, sort of figured he was just a standard nationalist.  But I guess he's just an asshole.   :awesome_for_real:

The world is full of assholes, we should treasure the occasionally funny ones (http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/7707641.stm).

Wow, that joke definitely didn't deserve that sort of reaction...

The world is full of overly sensitive asshats nonshocker.

As for the last top gear (I finally watched it), I can only say that it's right up there on the funny-o-meter. Loved it.

6 episodes is now a whole season?  :oh_i_see:

That said, episodes five and six were both really well balanced, the Ayrton Senna retrospective was particularly good. Tom Cruise was one of the most uncomfortable guests I have seen on the show though.

The Ayrton Senna piece makes me want to watch his racing. Very well done. This is my first time watching Top Gear and might go back to watch the other 14 seasons. Anyone know when it starts up again?

And yeah, Cruise doesn't do much for helping his crazy image.

I found the whole Season rather lackluster.

The budget cuts throughout the BBC really show, especially with the features. I'm sad that they didn't do a special as last episode and that they cut back to 6 (from the usual 7) clearly was a budget measure.

If driving the new Bugatti Veyron at the VW test track in Germany is the best the can muster going forward then I'm less than thrilled.

A german station recently picked up Top Gear and shows best ofs of previous seasons. Running the Nürburgring in a Ford Transit, The reviews of the Ford Fiesta, The polar special, the current season doesn't compare to that.

Sure the british sports car bit was funny but they have done many bits that were a lot better over the years.

I didn't like the Ayrton Senna piece either, the way they glossed over or really glorified his reckless behaviour on the track was appaling. If they'd interviewed Prost and asked him what he'd thought about the Suzuka incident for example they'd get a whole other story. It's especially silly considering that anybody else today who'd do only 10% of what Senna did during his heyday would get fined or punished and torn to shreds in the papers. Everybody who complains about Schumacher or Alonso today clearly hasn't been around when Senna, Mansell and Prost were driving.

Senna was an exceptional driver but he was absolutely ruthless on the track and got himself and his competitors into countless life threatening situations. He'd rather risk a crash than let himself get overtaken and (most often correctly) speculated that the other guy wouldn't want to risk his life getting ahead. If he got himself involved with somebody that had the same disregard for his opponent he had he could really lose it and on countless occasions has. There are famous incidents where he tried to punch other drivers that wouldn't let him pass on the track or during qualification.

Speak no ill of the dead, sure, but I wonder if they'd ever do a similar special about for example Schumacher who is still despised by many for behaviour they celebrate Senna for. Don't get me wrong I take no offence by Senna's behaviour on the contrary the F1 clearly lacks characters like that today but the Senna feature in Top Gear pretended that incidents like deliberately crashing into your opponent to win the championship were no big deal. (Maybe I remind them of it the next time they show the incident involving Schumacher and Hill).

I hope they pick up the slack next season.

I think the point was that, good or bad, Senna was always exciting. Modern Formula 1 is so incredibly sanitised, although this largely isn't the fault of the drivers. It does kill my enthusiasm to watch the sport though.

I'd agree that this wasn't their most memorable season though.

Yeah, a short season sucks, but it was pretty good couple of episodes.  Having the payoff to two "we're broke so we couldn't book this guest" jokes had me laughing for entirely too long.  I thought both cheap car challenges (Track Day Cars and British Sports Cars) and the Senna piece were well done.

Most of all though, this season had the funniest and best shot films I think they've ever done with the Reliant Robin piece and the Touareg race.

On the budget thing, it all comes down to next season as they've done six episode runs before but followed them up with longer ones.

Oh yes, the Reliant Robin bit was brilliant.

F1 died the day Senna did. For me, at least. The sport changed so dramatically after that day and has become such a pale, sanitized, soulless shadow of itself I simply divorced myself of all interest within a year or so. It was devastating to me; my favourite driver had just joined my favourite team, only for tragedy to strike. I don't mind admitting I got misty eyed during the Top Gear memorial, but it was such a good reminder of everything that made F1 once thrilling, and how utterly uncompelling it is now. There's a reason Hamilton considered getting to drive Senna's McLaren one of the greatest days of his life, and I think a lot of it is to do with the need to change his trousers afterwards. The cars were insane back then, and you needed a degree of instability to even get in them.

As for Senna's behaviour on the track - on occassion it was pretty inexcusable and looking back on things, I know in my heart of hearts I was disappointed at times. But the difference between Senna and, say, Schumacher is that Senna was a bit of a bastard, but had a heart of gold and never forgot where he came from. Schumacher is just a bit of a bastard.

I just can't quite believe it's been half my lifetime since it happened.

What draws any of you to watch racing, by the way?  I find F1 and all other car racing just as boring as NASCAR.  I can't watch any of it.  Just curious what aspects of the sport you have to get into in order to enjoy it.

I did enjoy going to destruction derbies at the fairground race track back where I grew up though.   :awesome_for_real:

I enjoy rally racing.  Changes in road type, changes in terrain, and some very technical driving make for exciting races. 

NASCAR becomes interesting due to the pseudo-equivalence between cars.  If the cars are roughly equal, then what matters most is the driver.

Having said that, I still prefer playing racing sims to watching the sport on television. 

While they could certainly have emphasised that aspect more, as someone who effectively knows nothing of F1 I got them impression that Senna was an absolutely ruthless, hell dangerous, man on the track who nonetheless managed to be a truly decent human being outside of that environment. Hell I ended up thinking of him as a Bill Gates type, in his chosen arena he was an amoral bastard who would cut your throat to win at all costs but removed from that arena he seemed like a genuinely admirable person, it's a picture that requires nuance and would be really hard to accurately convey in the short time they spent on it. I suppose the fact that it was generally positive is simply because we like to see people who are exceptionally talented, Senna seemed to be really good at generating entertainment, in no small part because he was willing to risk his own life and that of other drivers in order to win and huge risks produces incredible television.

The season itself has been entertaining, I wouldn't say it's been any more scripted than other seasons as they've all had their fair amount of scripted portions. Frankly I don't think of Top Gear as any kind of documentary, so long as they aren't claiming to be testing the capablilites of modern cars while faking stuff I'm happy. Throwing in a few actual opinions on cars in between entertaining me is icing on the cake as far as I'm concerned.

It's not the way they presented him that I didn't like about the Senna bit, on the contrary I really miss those days of F1. A single race in the late 80's early 90's was way more entertaining than a whole F1 season today.

It's just that Senna has always been a controversial driver and usually Top Gear doesn't have a problem with controversy.

I don't know, it seems like you've watched F1 that involved Senna. I haven't and I got the impression that Nowhereman did and then some, especially the controversy of how he acted on the race track. I really don't think they masked it as much as you're making it out to be.

Well, new season of Top Gear started up.  The first episode with the three of them driving convertibles through Iraq was quite amusing. 

Not quite sure how they can top that without going to Afghanistan and driving tricycles flying British flags while wearing dresses.

There was also a USA special the week before which had the boys driving the Blue Ridge Parkway and then ending up in New York; it was a lot more sympathetic than the first USA roadtrip which they did and generally I thought they struck a good balance with it.

The Middle East special was all right, but I felt it was a bit insubstantial compared to the previous specials. The first USA trip, Vietnam and Africa all felt a lot more novel and entertaining. This one just felt like a lot of recycled elements: the driving scared element from Alabama, the off-road element from Botswana, the foreign food segment from Vietnam. The episode itself added nothing new, no new gags or gimmicks or banter. It was still fun to watch, but it wasn't as memorable as I had hoped. I do suspect that a lot of this had to do with the region they were in which I am sure placed constraints on how wacky they could be.

Did you forget http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=1_o3g8MzrTE (http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=1_o3g8MzrTE) ?

Actually that had slipped my mind, whoops. That said, Hammond's crash was more of an accident despite the best of preparations, whereas James May getting concussed was more of a product of them dicking around carelessly. I guess the whole point of the show is to suggest that you can have this sort of fun, I was just surprised to actually see one of them come a cropper as a result. I think also the sudden inclusion of the support crews (which have always been there, just invisibly) shattered the illusion of them slogging through the desert somewhat.

As I say, I was entertained by the special, just less so than in other cases.

A new series has started a few weeks ago (Series 21), maybe a few of you are interested to know (if you don't do already).

So far I like it very much. They've now dropped all pretense though that this is an unscripted show. As a result some segments have become even more cartoonish than in previous series. I like it but it might not be everyone's cup of tea.

Yeah I can't watch these anymore. The US version is OK, but Fifth Gear is the show I look forward to now.

So season 23 was pretty bad in my mind. Having Chris Evans and Matt Leblanc along with random strangers every few episodes made for a totally disjointed experience. The best part was the after show with Rory Reid and Chris Harris.

Season 24 started in the UK last week and I watched the first episode in the US tonight. With Chris Evans gone, they moved Rory Reid and Chris Harris into the main show. First episode had a few laughs and I thought was fairly enjoyable.

My one complaint is whoever has been doing wardrobe for the past 2 years needs to find them a new set of clothes. They all seem to be wearing clothes that don't fit them. By fit them I mean physically and mentally.

After watching the 1st 2 episodes I really feel that they need to be much less scripted. I have the same issue with the Grand tour now. They just need to let them be themselves. Also I think the new TG hosts will be fine once they have a season or 2 more under their belt and they develop a bit more chemistry/camaraderie.

I also think TG would be better served being a bit more car journal show rather than going for fake yucks. They should leave that to GT and distinguish themselves by being more car focused and less pure comedy show.