BBC Top Gear 2017 Thread

[FiF]

strummerville said:

Look on the bright side - you could be forced to watch The Nightly Show. Just when you think it can't get any worse...
https://www.google.co.uk/amp/www.telegraph.co.uk/t...

What's happened to his hair?

[anonymous-user]

Lucas Ayde said:

There was a period of 1 or 2 seasons when the old CHM Top Gear was in its Golden Age - consistently funny and interesting, probably one of the best things on TV. Unfortunately, it went slowly downhill after that over a period of years and finally got to the point where there was far more dross than good stuff.

IMO what we've got from this series is consistently better than the last few years of CHM TG and also better than most of TGT (despite having a smaller budget).

Indeed, I don't think either new TG or TGT will get back to the heights of when CHM TG (too many acronyms!) was at its peak.

This series of TG is better than than TGT IMO.

[MarshPhantom]

FiF said:

strummerville said:

Look on the bright side - you could be forced to watch The Nightly Show. Just when you think it can't get any worse...
https://www.google.co.uk/amp/www.telegraph.co.uk/t...

What's happened to his hair?

I saw the trailer last night and wondered the same thing.

[strummerville]

MarshPhantom said:

FiF said:

strummerville said:

Look on the bright side - you could be forced to watch The Nightly Show. Just when you think it can't get any worse...
https://www.google.co.uk/amp/www.telegraph.co.uk/t...

What's happened to his hair?

I saw the trailer last night and wondered the same thing.

I think he visits the same barber as James Nesbitt...

[macp]

Just watched the last two episodes of TG and genuinely thought they were superb. Chris Harris and MLB seem to really gel and I could feel the excitement & enjoyment coming from them.Keep it up one and all I am personally really impressed.

[DUMBO100]

I've quite enjoyed the BBC TG for the last couple of episodes they have some decent directors and producers and the more they concentrate on the cars, the better it is. I don't think they need big personalities for a car show

[VictoriaYorks]

La Liga said:

This series of TG is better than than TGT IMO.

Agreed

[Shakermaker]

Extra Gear suggests that next week we get the return of Eddie Jordan...

[bodhi]

VictoriaYorks said:

La Liga said:

This series of TG is better than than TGT IMO.

Agreed

Completely and very strongly disagree. Whilst GT wasn't quite as good as TG in its prime, current TG is but a tribute act. Occasional moments of being half decent, but most of it is just tedious arse. Every time it threatens to get half decent (the Alfa review), they ruin it completely with half arsed attempts to be wacky (the Styrofoam bit). MLB sounds bored through most of it, Rory sounds like an excited schoolboy who's won a chance to be on Top Gear, and CH is great until he's asked to interact with any of the other presenters - then it all goes horribly wrong.

I'll keep watching as I want 2 entertaining car shows to watch, but as it is, there's only one. And I'm not paying a license fee to watch it.

[Tuvra]

bodhi said:

Completely and very strongly disagree. Whilst GT wasn't quite as good as TG in its prime, current TG is but a tribute act. Occasional moments of being half decent, but most of it is just tedious arse. Every time it threatens to get half decent (the Alfa review), they ruin it completely with half arsed attempts to be wacky (the Styrofoam bit). MLB sounds bored through most of it, Rory sounds like an excited schoolboy who's won a chance to be on Top Gear, and CH is great until he's asked to interact with any of the other presenters - then it all goes horribly wrong.

I'll keep watching as I want 2 entertaining car shows to watch, but as it is, there's only one. And I'm not paying a license fee to watch it.

I agree with this, I keep watching it later & later into the week which speaks volumes.

I'd keep Harris from interacting with anyone to be honest. He's fine on his own, as soon as he talks to someone else his acting skills breaks the whole illusion that it's fake/scripted nonsense.

That Pac man game they did was rubbish, as was the "race" in the Chirion....

[Hosenbugler]

Tuvra said:

bodhi said:

Completely and very strongly disagree. Whilst GT wasn't quite as good as TG in its prime, current TG is but a tribute act. Occasional moments of being half decent, but most of it is just tedious arse. Every time it threatens to get half decent (the Alfa review), they ruin it completely with half arsed attempts to be wacky (the Styrofoam bit). MLB sounds bored through most of it, Rory sounds like an excited schoolboy who's won a chance to be on Top Gear, and CH is great until he's asked to interact with any of the other presenters - then it all goes horribly wrong.

I'll keep watching as I want 2 entertaining car shows to watch, but as it is, there's only one. And I'm not paying a license fee to watch it.

I agree with this, I keep watching it later & later into the week which speaks volumes.
I'd keep Harris from interacting with anyone to be honest. He's fine on his own, as soon as he talks to someone else his acting skills breaks the whole illusion that it's fake/scripted nonsense.
That Pac man game they did was rubbish, as was the "race" in the Chirion....

Pretty much as to how I feel. Thats a good point about Harris "He's fine on his own" . I was astonished when I watched the latest episode last night that I actually manged to watch and listen to Harris for more than 30 seconds.The opening Bugatti article was quite good , entirely watchable. The rest? Various versions of crap. As ever, the "celeb" bit boring and inane. The Oman sketch was fantastically filmed, but dire presentation.

All in all, not looking good, apparently viewing figures are falling, easy to understand why. As for whats coming, I doubt I shall watch the next episode as it seems to heavily feature Sabine, who to me, is worse than Chris Evans, shouty ,utterly horrendous. Perhaps pick up again in a couple of weeks, just to see if things improve.

[simonrockman]

I disagree completely. TGT is good, spectacular and occasionally funny.

The Le Blanc, Harris and Reid TG is really finding its feet. The Chiron/Honda Jet was more Robb Report than Top Gear but was excellent. Le Blanc is establishing his credibility with beating Harris on the downhill roll in the Lamborghini and riding the Ducati with verve.

The Pac-Man thing was silly and fun, the Extra Gear piece on it was better than the piece itself.

Before "the punch" we had a tired Top Gear which was a pastiche if itself. We now have two good programmes which are mostly about cars.

Simon

[JiggyJaggy]

+1 Im preferring this TG to the old one.

[Biker 1]

OK so far. the 'star' section is still crap, & as for the pacman st.....

[schmunk]

simonrockman said:

I disagree completely. TGT is good, spectacular and occasionally funny.

It was bloody awful and I hope the format is significantly changed before it returns. The bits in the tent were end-to-end cringe - so much so that I didn't bother watching the last couple of episodes.

[dvb70]

I quite enjoyed the latest one apart from the Pacman segment and the Oman race bit. The Pacman things was just silly completely fake nonsense and I really think they need to dump the whole race idea. The races just don't work anymore. They are clearly not real races and so there is no real drama to them. I am sure that it was always the case it was always worked out in advance but the formula is just very tied now. I did like seeing MLB in the different vehicles I just think they need to come up with a new framing device to do these segments without the silly race idea.

[E65Ross]

schmunk said:

simonrockman said:

I disagree completely. TGT is good, spectacular and occasionally funny.

It was bloody awful and I hope the format is significantly changed before it returns. The bits in the tent were end-to-end cringe - so much so that I didn't bother watching the last couple of episodes.

The irony here is that the last 2 episodes were by far and away the best and, in my opinion, better than anything from this series of TG

[TopTrump]

Last Sundays was piss poor. The Pacman thing was fast forwarded and the race was just pointless and desperately cliched. Shame as the 2 before this one were great.

Drop the gimmicks and its good.

[r11co]

dvb70 said:

I quite enjoyed the latest one apart from the Pacman segment..

This week's 'box of whacky ideas' segment. Every decent review this series has had one tagged on to the end, to the extent that they have lost their novelty value. Everyone remembers Aygo football and the KIA rugby piece. Who in several years' time is going to remember the Pac Man piece (other than for it being crap, badly lit and even more badly edited) and which cars were involved?

dvb70 said:

The races just don't work anymore. They are clearly not real races and so there is no real drama to them. I am sure that it was always the case it was always worked out in advance but the formula is just very tied now. I did like seeing MLB in the different vehicles I just think they need to come up with a new framing device to do these segments without the silly race idea.

Agreed. It is almost like they are sweating the assets of the formula to the extent that all the established aspects need to make an appearance in every episode (far-away locations - tick, race - tick, crazy thing with cars - tick), and it got me thinking where they are getting the time to cram it all in in every episode. And then it dawned on me - it is at the expense of the dialogue, which is now shorter, clipped and crap. Clarkson, May and (to a lesser extent) Hammond could/can talk at length to the camera and remain interesting. LeBlanc, Harris and Reids' dialogue amounts to little more than soundbites, and they very often end up saying the same thing several times over in each filmed piece.

It shows that none of them are writers.

Edited by r11co on Wednesday 29th March 10:32

[schmunk]

E65Ross said:

schmunk said:

simonrockman said:

I disagree completely. TGT is good, spectacular and occasionally funny.

It was bloody awful and I hope the format is significantly changed before it returns. The bits in the tent were end-to-end cringe - so much so that I didn't bother watching the last couple of episodes.

The irony here is that the last 2 episodes were by far and away the best and, in my opinion, better than anything from this series of TG

Perhaps I'll give them a go, then, but I'll be fast forwarding through all of the studio crap.