Tag: Episode 3

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Top Gear

Top Gear – Series 12, Episode 3

Top Gear - Series 12, Episode 3

A bit of a meat and veg episode of Top Gear this week. Not particularly outstanding, but thoroughly enjoyable all the same. The James May/Mika Hakkinen segment was the highlight for me. Getting an insight into Finnish driving culture was quite interesting—some tips for Australian authorities there, no doubt. Top Gear is often described as a dream job and James May has now had personal tuition from Sir Jackie Stewart and Mika Hakkinen. Nice work, if you can get it.

Richard introduced us to Toyota’s i-REAL. A funky wheelchair-like contraption. Not sure if it will take over the world like Toyota reckon, but we’ll see.

The news segments in Series 12 have really picked up and, even if scripted more than it may look, they are running along very smoothly with great interaction and humour between the cast. Mark Wahlberg was the guest, a bit cheeky, and very aggressive on the track.

Then, the challenge, a homemade Evo. The guys had to take an unknown donor car and try to make it as quick as an Evo X around the test track (1:28.2). The car? A Renault Avantime. A curious thing. Odd, it has to be said, but with a 3.0 V6 maybe it had the legs?

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Top Gear Australia

Top Gear Australia – Series 1, Episode 3

Top Gear Australia - Series 1, Episode 3

Much better episode this week. Comfortably the show’s best to date. Warren Brown, the glue holding the hosts together, posted an entertaining piece on the BMW X6. Steve Pizzati was confused by the Mercedes-Benz CLK AMG 63 Black Series—is it a GT, a track day special, or just something grey in between? On these two films, in particular, the production values were high, if following the proven Top Gear UK formula of shifting focus and interesting angles. Regardless of that, they were very well made pieces. Although, there is still room for improvement in filming The Stig’s track work.

Not so sure there should always be a “this week’s challenge”, but the $500 paddock basher effort was great Monday night’s viewing. If anything, the segment was a little light on, and one or two more tests for the lads could have easily been carried.

Over the three episodes the weakest segments have been the “Celebrity in a Bog Standard Car”. Sure, these are celebs we’re supposed to be interested in, but they need to stop performing to the crowd, relax a little, and enjoy a quiet chat with Charlie—both would benefit from that. Julia Zemiro, from SBS’s RockWiz program, was not so bad overall, but her constant playing up to the audience was just a bit try hard. She needn’t be like that, she has good on camera charisma—like the hosts’ early efforts, the stars just need to be a bit more natural.

A couple more pics and SBS’s press release after the jump.

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Fifth Gear

Fifth Gear – Series 14, Episode 3

Fifth Gear - Series 14, Episode 3

A much better showing from the lads at Fifth Gear this week. The shootout saw Jason Plato pit der neue Passat R36 Estate against der neue Audi A4 3.0TDI Estate. TheR36 is Volkswagen’s most powerful and quickest production car to date, but it didn’t have it all its own way against the A4 oil burner. More VAG content when VBH compared a Golf GT TDI against a Kia PRO-cee’d diesel. She reckons the Kia is getting better. While I hate to admit it doesn’t actually look too bad, I’ll take her word for it otherwise. Jonny went to the Ultimate Street Car show, or Summer Nats for chavs. He claimed there was some art and talent there, and to be fair, he’s probably right. But there’s also a crap load of wasted money, including a Civic Type R that has had £90K (AU$193K) thrown at it. Tiff drove around with Jarno Trulli in a Prius. It’s okay, they fell asleep too. Tim Shaw simply has to lose the stupid jumpers and poxy jeans, although, that would leave him with precisely no personality. A point he proved again while trying to match manufacturer’s performance claims in a MINI Cooper S, Mazda MX-5 and an Ariel Atom. Tom drove around in a new Honda Accord Jap, oops, I mean Euro. Tiff closed out the show being a prat against Australia’s own Jason Crump on a speedway track. Predictable results and a whining Tiff followed. Passable.