Top Gear - Over-rated crap or genuine entertainment?

GiantMike
GiantMike Posts: 3,139
edited November 2009 in The bottom bracket
Vote and discuss.....
«1

Comments

  • softlad
    softlad Posts: 3,513
    mindless entertainment only - I don't think it has any merit as a motoring programme. Mrs softlad enjoys watching it - and she has no interest in cars whatsoever....
  • Anonymous
    Anonymous Posts: 79,665
    Me and my 2 boys, 9 and 10, love watching it together. Makes it better watching your kids slide off the couch laughing. :D
  • APIII
    APIII Posts: 2,010
    I think it's great.
  • afx237vi
    afx237vi Posts: 12,630
    It's in danger of disappearing up it's own arse. The last series was pretty weak, and full of forced "banter" that they probably spent three hours rehearsing. Needs less fakery in the challenges too.
  • tlw1
    tlw1 Posts: 22,221
    Good fun and looks like it's a giggle to do
  • Bhima
    Bhima Posts: 2,145
    Just turned it on and they're on some amazing road... :shock: Me and my bike are on the next flight to Romania!
  • sicknote
    sicknote Posts: 901
    Everyone in my house watches it and that includes son(9), daughter ( 11) and wife.

    Last to dont care about cars at all.
  • fast as fupp
    fast as fupp Posts: 2,277
    same old same old

    its jumped the shark
    'dont forget lads, one evertonian is worth twenty kopites'
  • deptfordmarmoset
    deptfordmarmoset Posts: 3,118
    I demand to be allowed to tick both boxes! :wink:
    Looking for a cycling buddy?
  • nolf
    nolf Posts: 1,287
    Awesome show.
    It's not about cars, it's about doing classic man things and being hands on, offensive and generally british.

    We're actually having a top gear theme bike build challenge in our Uni club atm.

    Each team is given an old bike frame "liberated" from campus and some bits (not enough) and they have to build a bike on a tiny winy budget (Q lots of scrounging).

    End of term we have a race varound campus on them and various challenges. Winning team gets a prize.


    I think enthusing and encouraging people to actually try top gear style challenges is one of the great benefits of and my favourite part of the show.
    "I hold it true, what'er befall;
    I feel it, when I sorrow most;
    'Tis better to have loved and lost;
    Than never to have loved at all."

    Alfred Tennyson
  • deptfordmarmoset
    deptfordmarmoset Posts: 3,118
    nolf wrote:
    Awesome show.
    It's not about cars, it's about doing classic man things and being hands on, offensive and generally british.

    We're actually having a top gear theme bike build challenge in our Uni club atm.

    Each team is given an old bike frame "liberated" from campus and some bits (not enough) and they have to build a bike on a tiny winy budget (Q lots of scrounging).

    End of term we have a race varound campus on them and various challenges. Winning team gets a prize.


    I think enthusing and encouraging people to actually try top gear style challenges is one of the great benefits of and my favourite part of the show.



    So how's about a bike race around the track? That would be a challenge. I reckon they'd come in in this order -
    Stig
    Hammond
    May
    Clarkson

    Meanwhile on BBC telly, Dr Who had a running joke about bikes this afternoon.
    Looking for a cycling buddy?
  • lemoncurd
    lemoncurd Posts: 1,428
    Three old blokes getting up to the same old wacky antics each week.

    It should be called Last of the Summer Top Gear.

    Clarkson = Cleggy
    Hammond = Foggy
    May = Compo
  • geoff_ss
    geoff_ss Posts: 1,201
    lemoncurd wrote:
    Three old blokes getting up to the same old wacky antics each week.

    It should be called Last of the Summer Top Gear.

    Clarkson = Cleggy
    Hammond = Foggy
    May = Compo

    If you think they're old I wonder what it makes me. It's amazing I can still get my leg over ... the bike that is :)

    Clarkson is an oaf and considering his attitude to cyclists a dangerous oaf at that. Even though he's probably putting a lot of it on as a money making scheme I'm not sure a lot of his adolescent fans realise that. I think I might have appreciated him when I was 17 but not by the time I was 21.

    I quite like James May because he is actually technically aware. His 'Toy Story' programmes, for example, show a genuine flair and love of nerdy things. Perhaps it's because we're both interested in toy aeroplanes though I much prefer ones that actually fly.

    Geoff
    Old cyclists never die; they just fit smaller chainrings ... and pedal faster
  • finchy
    finchy Posts: 6,686
    Hammond and May are fairly likeable in other programmes I've seen them do, Clarkson, well, the less said the better.

    The series itself I don't find particularly funny - it seems to be heavily scripted spontaneity and banter delivered fairly awkwardly.
  • bobtbuilder
    bobtbuilder Posts: 1,537
    I think it's the TV equivalent of Dog Shite.

    I would rather hammer toothpicks under my toenails that watch that filth.
  • hopper1
    hopper1 Posts: 4,389
    We, (my wife, 4 yr old and I) like watching it together... It's just light entertainment.
    If you are seriously into cars, it's crap!
    Start with a budget, finish with a mortgage!
  • Cressers
    Cressers Posts: 1,329
    Utter bilge.
  • iain_j
    iain_j Posts: 1,941
    I have no interest in cars and find something else to do when they're reviewing cars, but the challenges are brilliant. And how many of us were drooling at that road in Romania last night :D

    I think the worst part is the programme guide writers who try to make them out as cool and trendy. "Jezza and the boys". Please.
  • cee
    cee Posts: 4,553
    as said by others....its not a motoring show...its an entertainment show in a magazine format...

    I really enjoy it, so does my missus...
    Whenever I see an adult on a bicycle, I believe in the future of the human race.

    H.G. Wells.
  • de_sisti
    de_sisti Posts: 1,283
    bobtbuilder wrote:
    I think it's the TV equivalent of Dog Shite.
    :lol:
  • Cressers
    Cressers Posts: 1,329
    I thought that was the reality show set in a jungle, it sticks despite your beast efforts to get rid of it.
  • keef66
    keef66 Posts: 13,123
    +2 for the Romanian alpine road. I'm going to spend some time on Google earth looking for it now. Then I plan to strip down the bike, fit it in the Ferrari, drive all the way up, then cycle back down.
  • Stewie Griffin
    Stewie Griffin Posts: 4,330
    Its rubbish these days for pretty much all of the reasons listed but I still wish I was on it :? .
  • bails87
    bails87 Posts: 12,998
    edited November 2009
    keef66 wrote:
    +2 for the Romanian alpine road. I'm going to spend some time on Google earth looking for it now. Then I plan to strip down the bike, fit it in the Ferrari, drive all the way up, then cycle back down.

    Transfagarasarsarasasanarasanasanaranarasagan Highway
    MTB/CX

    "As I said last time, it won't happen again."
  • freehub
    freehub Posts: 4,257
    I really like Top Gear and look forward to the next series. I know lots of it is set up, but I'd hope the 3 presenters opinions of the cars are actually their true opinions....
  • Porgy
    Porgy Posts: 4,525
    lemoncurd wrote:
    Three old blokes getting up to the same old wacky antics each week.

    It should be called Last of the Summer Top Gear.

    Clarkson = Cleggy
    Hammond = Foggy
    May = Compo

    +1

    The only thing that could be less interesting than a programme about cars!
  • Nuggs
    Nuggs Posts: 1,804
    bobtbuilder wrote:
    I think it's the TV equivalent of Dog Shite.

    I would rather hammer toothpicks under my toenails that watch that filth.
    Maybe I should take back the Top Gear Annual I bought you for Christmas...
  • BikeyMikey1
    BikeyMikey1 Posts: 82
    Is it me or is Jeremy Clarkson becoming more like John Cleese or even Basil Fawlty, every episode? Very similar manerisms!
  • john-e-big-guns
    john-e-big-guns Posts: 489
    Clarkson reminds me of a loud mouth public school boy with a bit of a bullyboy attitude...someone that I would really like to punch in the face...then walk away for a few yards then turn and go back an give him another before he hits the floor...'Tosspot' come to mind
    No Pain; No Gain;

    http://www.flickr.com/photos/john-e-big-guns/
  • pneumatic
    pneumatic Posts: 1,989
    It is cheeky, it is irreverent and it is self-deprecating. That makes it good British Humour.

    Sometimes they take it too far. That makes it bad British Humour.

    I have no interest in cars, but I like a good laugh. Sometimes I get one.

    Fast and Bulbous
    Peregrinations
    Eddingtons: 80 (Metric); 60 (Imperial)

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