So really, whats the general consensus here on the show? Better/Worse/The Same from TG or...?

I couldn't get past the first 3 episodes. People keep saying that the new season is better but from what I could tell, season 1 at least fundamentally misunderstood what people liked about Top Gear.

i wish they actually do more on that kind of segments. Motorsport stories where a team pulls clever shit like that beats out most underdog stories

I thought the special was really good, but they cut out the part where Richard got in a major accident

Season 2 is definitely a step up, but it just feels like the whole concept is running out of steam and has been since the TG India special.
It's still decent light entertainment and better than about 90% of car themed shows out there, though.

uh no, they were fundamentally trying to recreate top gear without being top gear, hence season 2 is far better because they paid attention to criticisms

They've really perfected beating a joke to death.

It's almost as good, but would be better if it didn't feel like they were trying to tiptoe the line of just different enough from top gear to avoid legal trouble/middle finger the BBC. Wish they'd dump the celebrity segments altogether.

I would say roughly the same. It is still good entertainment and it will always be nice seeing the original TG guys still going at it.

For damn sure.

I thought that special from yesterday was really shite, they just drove in a straight line getting stuck in the mud for 40 mins.
Previous specials were a lot more eventful and exciting.
>at least it wasn't a 40 minute jaguar land rover advert though

the silly thing is that there's a mostly paved path to Bingo you can take. I was bored and decided to look it up on google maps. It's like a 6 hour drive.

I prefer the old station wagon special they did in Africa

I feel like the studio segments in general kind of weigh things down a bit.
It's definitely where they feel the most "Trying Not to be Top Gear but still being Top Gear"
They definitely need a bigger studio space, too. The tent is too limiting.

>The tent is too limiting
I think it'll go away eventually. Just like how they stopped traveling they'll realize that they need actual space to do things. I'm not saying they'll use a hangar but they need to move somewhere larger. Or get a larger tent

The whole thing was a riff on bad celeb-driven humanitarian aid efforts, which as someone who is actively involved in the industry, I really appreciated.

What would be cool would be a hybrid between the old Top Gear hangar and James's Man Lab studio.
Something kind of blokish and semi-industrial with plenty of room for studio shenanigans.

That I would like to see. I think it could work very well. But I don't know how/if they would incorporate a studio audience

That doesn't mean it was entertaining to watch, though.

well at least they catered to 0.001% of their viewers, thank god.
This is the same show who got attacked with stones for a racist license plate in argentina, raced to the north pole and crossed India in old British cars... even the beach buggy special was good because it was actually eventful instead of
>oh look james car stalled again and made the exact same pre-recorded time (repeat for 40 mins)
I can't understand how they managed to make it so god damn boring in a small 40m window.

I thought the last epsiode (Mozambique?) was kind of stupid. It wasn't really about cars, and they were only there for 2 days. The whole episode was Richard falling off his bike over amd over. Missed opportunity- didn't have the feeling of "epic-ness" the TG specials do.

I'm not a bleeding heart liberal by a long shot but I thought it was pretty unsensitive as well. Hey let's buy all the fish from the market so there's none for the locals and then just dsstroy it for the sake of making silly television. Yeah, starving people are funny!

A good set designer could pull it off. Obviously a full-blown shop wouldn't work since you'd have audience members milling around, but a shop-ish corner for technical segments/wacky build stuff and comfy sitting area for news/interview stuff.
And plenty of space for trophies, that's part of what made the old hangar great was just so much room.

The first 2 episodes this season were pretty bad imo. And I think it was episode 4, the "unscripted" one, terrible.
The one with the Jags was my favortite I think.

The adventure specials are only going to get less adventurous from here on out because they're all too old/injured to crazy shit anymore.

>mfw the boys will die in my lifetime

I liked the Jag one right up until the "lol James drove off a cliff" gag.
I'm all for more comfy road films and cheap car challenges, though.

It wasn't meant to be a special. it was meant to be a 20 minute segment.
They turned it into a special when they realized they cant get the proper special out in time, and they didn't want to delay the season.

a big proper adventure special is coming sometime during summer as a special feature. Double episode, and Columbia as the location.

its roughly on par with the last 10 or so seasons of Clarkson Top Gear. Which means its not as good as the peak, but very good and enjoyable. The lads are clearly getting old though, which I feel is already affecting the type of challenges they are willing to go. Can't blame them, but yeah the best parts of TG were always the ones where they were the most miserable.

You can always die before them who knows?

I feel like they could shift back towards comfy road specials and better studio segments and still be pretty entertaining to watch.
Older TG had some pretty funny studio segments outside the news/celebrity stuff. Watching Clarkson and Hammond argue over the Cool Wall was always a good time.

>being a safe driver

is jizz harris better than jeremy shartson?

man that season's last episode was so shit

GT>TG
Season 2> Season 1

S2 has been shit in my opinion. Hate the celebrity segment, hate the lack of anything interesting, boring ass hot laps, "oh hey lets make another joke about Hammond again, LOLOL!!!111Z" - it's everything from S1 but worse. They couldn't even bother to take their setup on the road again. About the only thing that made me smile was seeing the balls on the Jags, and that was due to that not being played up at all like most of their "humor" is now.

They need to just retire already.

New show just feels like scripted 'funny' comments. None of the chemistry and what at least felt like unforced banter was there.
I think the BBC just did it better, not that I think much of the new TG either.

It's 90% the same people producing and writing the show, it's just that they've burned out and don't care as much anymore.
They hit the stall point for the formula before they even left BBC.

The final few season of Top Gear felt the same way. I kept thinking "how long are they going to drag this out for?" and was kind of relieved when it got axed. It felt like ot was time. I didn't want to see it be like The Simpsons- just keep going as long as someone is still watching even though your core fans gave up on it a decade ago.
And then when they announced The Grand Tour I thought, well, new opportunity for new ideas. But instead they seem to just be doing Top Gear again. In some ways it's worse though. Now that they have more freedom and more money, there's no constraint toforce creativity. Also Jeremy and May seem to not be excited about anything anymore. Just there for the paycheck?

I don't give a fuck, James May had best do a third series of The Reassembler.

Probably Hammond's crash put a damper on anything too extravagant or dangerous (which is why they keep bringing it up). It's already a nightmare to get any of them insured on any cheap beater in England.

It's pretty much for the paycheck.
Hammond and May could probably do well with their other projects, especially May since he's not a family man, but I'm sure GT gives them the extra money to indulge their more expensive hobbies.
Clarkson actually stands to lose the most. He became accustomed to certain lifestyle during his second marriage since his wife's family was old-ish money, plus he doesn't really have much else going on. Although the latest buzz is that he's going to host the new version of Who Wants to be a Millionaire.

IT'S SO COMFY!

The only thing I found entertaining about the last special was Hammond's grocery store motorcycle and the fact it gave no fucks about being completely submerged in muddy water numerous times.

Am I the only one that likes celebrity faceoff?

I always thought that SIARPC was kind of dull, but tolerable if the guest was decent enough, but Celebrity Faceoff I like, because it forces two entirely unrelated celebrities to interact with each other and sometimes that produces some interesting conversations.

But I like talk shows so im probably biased.

Also, I like the half gravel jag track. I find that lap challenge to be surprisingly fun to watch.

i kinda like it, the cars faster and rwd, its autocross track and the interview is kept shorter.

>The final few season of Top Gear felt the same way. I kept thinking "how long are they going to drag this out for?" and was kind of relieved when it got axed. It felt like ot was time. I didn't want to see it be like The Simpsons- just keep going as long as someone is still watching even though your core fans gave up on it a decade ago.
I thought the final series of CHM Top Gear was actually returning to something resembling its best.

Then the whole Tymon incident happened.

>Hammond
>Dying

The Mozambik "special" was boring.
When i started watching it and saw that it's only going to be 55 minutes long, i thought hey it might be like the Botswana special from 2007.
But as soon as it started i lost all the hope.
It wasn't bad that they made fun of those poor dumb niggermonkeys, it was just that it was boring as hell.
No challenges during the trip, nor funny shenanigans like manipulating each others vehicles.
They just drove 200 km in mud, and Hammond fell over like 50 times.
It got so boring that for the first time ever watching a special of the trio, i was checking how much time was left from that "special".

Also i thought the season would have 12 episodes, and not 6?
And where is that "actual" special they shot in south america i think?

And it's not basically used as free advertising segment for an upcoming movie/series/album. That shit bugged me when they started doing it on top gear and then forcing the crowd to applaud after a teaser trailer or some shit was shown.

The last episode was shit. They signed a three season deal with Amazon, so they might put some effort in for S3 to try and renew their contract. If they don't then they're probably all retiring.

Season 2 started a little better than Seaon 1 then it slowly became meh at best, literally recycled shit but with little bit of effort more than what we saw last year.

Overall a shit show.

>10 minutes of """review""" of a random car
>maybe it is time lapped by the useless bitch if they feel like they want to use their driver more than 3-4 times per season
>10 minutes of chat shit
>service part 1
>20 minutes of who the fuck are these people let's skip it anyways
>service part 2

Total tome spent talking about cars = the first 10 minutes at best.

Verdict: if you're not underage and you've seen the glory days of top gear (aka the seasons before 2012) you may agree with me that it should be retirement time for the trio.

Let it die.

Hey kinda unrelated question here but who are Veeky Forumss approved youtube channels? I’m too cheap to get a prime sub.

If you want a fun car show to watch, Roadkill is excellent.

>I'm too cheap to get a prime sub
It's like you can't use the internet.

it had 11 episodes

They should extend the Conversation street portion where they talk about current events and news while cracking jokes
The "special" for the last episode of season 2 was too long. It could have just been an extended segment on a regular episode

Celebrity F Off is always boring as hell, only ones at all entertaining were that Boxer and Steve Austin. Should have kept the "we kill off the celebrities bit" and just made it take like 1 minute so we can get on to the rest of the show.

Worse than the old Top Gear. Season 2 was a bit better than Season 1. These chaps aren't getting any younger, so you shouldn't really expect too much.

You mean this?
archive.fo/rynvR

IMO, Celebrity Face Off is less entertaining to watch than RPC because they switched to a RWD Jag.
Watching a fwd econobox screech and bounce around a track with a terrified celebrity behind the wheel is way funnier.

Agree so much with this fucking hell.

I actually preferred Celebrity Brain Crash in season 1 because it took up less time leaving more for the actual interesting parts of the show.

Literally should have went with the "Half-a-romero".

"The Perfect Road Trip" 1&2 are the best Top Gear of all.

No celebrities, no bullshit, just beautiful locations, fun cars, and lots of challenges.

Are these actually good? I ignored them when I saw they didn't have based capt slow

Sorry, but that's not how you spell South America Special

I've been watching the episode before 2012 the past few weeks and not every episode was a perfect amazing episode. for every great episode there was 4 or 5 average or worse episodes.

tfw the top gear team were at one point within 2 miles of my home and i didnt know it at the time

i fucked jeremy's daughter

>witnessed
Season 2 is better than Season 1. But Top Gear is still better than GT.

I find they were more creative and funny while working in Top Gear because they had to make do with their budgets and rule constraints. Now they're working for Amazon, they probably have more leeway with things so Season 1 was a bit meh, like they were trying too hard. Season 2 shows they did away with boring things like having The American drive a car around and Celebrity Brain crash. Once or twice is fine but when I realized that was a running segment of them "killing off" celebrities it got really bad really fast.

But yeah, overall I still enjoy it. I think what people mostly wanted was a continuation of Top Gear.

...

season 2 > season 1
Season 1 felt like Clarkson was just seeing what he could get away with.

Season 2 was a return to TG form as much as they could without getting sued. Man, the BBC is full of retards...

S1 was uneven but had some good bits like the documentary on the fordgt

S2 was overall excellent with the low point being the unscripted EP and high point being the Jag episode and a nice special at the finish

I feel like Mike Skinner wasn't inherently the worst idea but his gimmick had no legs at all and having him do like 4 episodes worth of laps in the wet because they flew him over to do them on a single rainy day was pretty bad. It doesn't help that while to a British audience he might be some random fuck but a lot of Americans know exactly who he is and what he's done so the character was entirely unbelievable.

I thought the jet car/boat episode was pretty good

It will never be the same as old Top Gear but, its really good.

High point had to be that 037 vs Audi Quattro

All the more reason to do hectic skids on public roads.

>streaming anything ever

Sorry, but that's not how you spell Polar Special or Vietnam

Celebrity face off would be better if they had more people I actually gave half a shit about.

True group b is absolutely kino always and foreva

Definitely the best home brew car they ever cooked up it looked genuinely terrifying on the water

The original celebrity lap rarely had interesting people. Most of the time it was dumb British B list celebrities.

I miss the leaderboard even if you didn't give a shit about the person you could at least enjow seeing them get placed

Old TG > GT Season 2 > New TG > GT Season 1

It's entertaining, I'm glad I gave it another shot.

>racist license plate

lol

>he actually thinks they deprived people of fish to the point that they're going to starve

... i don't get it

I have a feeling the BBC prohibited them from having a leaderboard.

season 2 was great, except for the 3-4 episodes that found ways to either blatantly or subvertly discuss old JAGS, aside from the fucking celebrity segments

Thanks for advertising them. If they need more money to be the only decent car show available to watch, I'll accept another advertising thread on 4chink.

It seems to vary episode to episode to me. Sometimes they are good, sometimes they are pretty stale. The one where Hammond crashed was fucking dumb. Then I can't remember the next one, then there was that one where they were supposed to race around in some expensive cars but ended up doing jack shit the entire series in busted jags with little to know humor. They need to get back to the quality fuck ups and stop trying to write in jokes.

Nah nothing will ever top the African special with Oliver

>little to know

Love it. Just more of the same comfy stuff I grew up watching. Just glad it still exists.