Un-official GTPlanet BBC Topgear UK ThreadTV 

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Robin
There seems to be a real disparity between the quality of the in studio segments compared to the rest of the programme. It's like they can act only when its out and about! For example this week, excellent on location stuff with appallingly cringe studio and SIARPC segments.
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Speaking of the appallingly cringey studio scenes, what was the deal with the discussion about their height at the start of the last episode? It felt really really awkward, was it meant to be funny?
 
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Robin
There seems to be a real disparity between the quality of the in studio segments compared to the rest of the programme. It's like they can act only when its out and about! For example this week, excellent on location stuff with appallingly cringe studio and SIARPC segments.
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Exactly - the Japan episode was notable in that it was practically all on location and had very little studio time - all the better I reckon.

MUSC4EVER
he seems young, hip and cool but I heard he's in his forties?!
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Hey! :(
 
Tomorrow night, Matt LeBlanc in the Ferrari 812 Superfast at Imola, Matt and Chris try to speed up farming by creating a record breaking tractor (you may have heard about that one!), Sabine tries to teach Rory how to drive fast (at Willow Springs) and Vicky McClure is the guest.
 
The tractor was pretty cool.

There was a slightly annoyed Cactus driver in the episode, wasn't you @Moglet was it? :D To quote Matt, I thought Cactus drivers were happy people!
 
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The tractor part was the best part of the episode for me, the Ferrari and Camaro tests were good but both cars are pretty pointless IMO.
 
Robin
The tractor was pretty cool.

There was a slightly annoyed Cactus driver in the episode, wasn't you @Moglet was it? :D To quote Matt, I thought Cactus drivers were happy people!
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Haha, it was a similar spec to ours but the Airbumps were black, ours are brown. As for them being happy people I can only assume the guy in the video was driving an automatic one, that gearbox would throw even the Dalai Lama into a fit of rage.
 
Sabine's method of trying to get someone to drive quicker seems to be to shout at them. Not a patch on Jackie Stewart instructing James May.

Surely the chain of traffic behind the tractor was a bit setup. The camera car was driving along in front of the tractor, on the other side of the road, when the "annoyed Cactus driver" was overtaking.
 
daan
Surely the chain of traffic behind the tractor was a bit setup. The camera car was driving along in front of the tractor, on the other side of the road, when the "annoyed Cactus driver" was overtaking.
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It did look very set up, I think the blurring of the face was added to make it appear more authentic but I think it was likely an actor driving the Cactus as the angles were just too perfect.
 
The series has been good so far after a slow-ish start...

I enjoyed the Willow Springs bit, not least because I just finished a long race in GT Sport at the circuit - it was good to see that even a TG presenter can go off at what looked like the last corner/pit straight - I've had some stupendous accidents there myself, albeit digitally.

The Ferrari 812 Superfast will, alas, not be making it onto my shopping list should I win the Euromillions - it looks more like a Corvette trying to be a Ferrari, which is a step (or a giant leap) in the wrong direction IMHO.

Good to see Sabine back - it was rather comical timing to see her beat Rory's lap time because I was playing GT with a mate of mine who has never played GT before earlier in the day, and he challenged me to beat his lap record at Kyoto which took him 20 minutes to set - needless to say, I beat it on my first attempt... by over 27 seconds :lol:
 
They haven't got the budget that the other guys have. That's probably why.
 
The Grand Tour wasn't that many episodes either... 11 compared to Top Gear's 6. Still not that much and went by too fast.
 
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Taken from BBC America.

The Six Episode Season
Most British drama or comedy shows have a very short season. The classic amount for comedies is just six episodes per series – The Office being a prime example – and there’s one very good reason for this. American comedy is a producer’s medium, in which an idea is worked up, characters developed and early scripts written, and then the show is handed over to a larger group of writers to flesh out into actual scripts. British comedy is a writer’s medium. The scripts are almost always written and developed by one or two people, then taken to production. Graham Linehan, the writer of Father Ted and The IT Crowd, even directs his own scripts, which is a LOT of work. And once they’ve written six episodes, they need a rest. That’s how we end up with only twelve episodes ofFawlty Towers (spread over TWO seasons, mind you) compared to the usual thrimpty-twelve of, say, Friends.
 
Sounds like a bad excuse. We do things our way and unfortunately that way limits us to less episodes, but we like it and it's not your way so deal with it? I'm paraphrasing here.

And we're talking about a car show here, nothing involving plot of any kind so there's that too. Your post specifically refers to drama and comedy. Top Gear isn't a comedy right?, it's an informational show with comedy elements, like Great British Bake Off or Planet Earth (not comedic, just in the same informational category)
 
I think sticking to the 6 episodes per season thing is more to do with tradition these days than anything else. It may have been true circa the 80's but not so much today especially for major shows.

Most productions in the UK will be produced the same as the way it is done in the US and may also have just as much of a budget and manpower.

They could do 11+ episodes of Top Gear all the time. I don't think there is any financial, production or time constraints on doing so... It's just they do ~6 and that's the way it usually is.
 
Well LeBlanc just confirmed they're returning later this year so I can only assume that's an extra six episodes? What with the secondhand luxury limo challenge (which was in the trailer for this season) and the filming in Sri Lanka
 
Surprised at how short the season is too. I can only imagine they are cutting back production costs as viewer numbers (and I imagine merchandising) have been declining in recent years. That being said a few scenes from the season trailer is missing (Rolls segment?), so the next season might not be as far away as we thought.

Season started off strong but got a bit slow towards the end IMO. The SUV bit especially as we've seen 2 of those in TGT's segment as well. It's pretty hard not to double up given they are back to back series but reviewing the same cars over and over gets boring real quick.

Extra Gear has had some interesting guests this season too, much better inviting motorsport/car related people than just some random celebrity who know nothing about cars. That Superkart Harris drove is insane, I wonder what can of laptime it can put out in the hands of a competitive driver? Faster than the Atom 500 I bet.
 
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Getting bored of these challenges they have. Why on earth would anyone need to do equestrian in a 4x4. Still liking the guest segment more than the main sections. The Alpine part was cool.
 
I found it a bit frustrating that Rory "got lost" during the 2nd part of the SUV challenge, I'd have liked to have seen the Velar competing with the others for the full circuit.
 
I also think the series started well but tailed off, it was after the great Japan episode where it went a bit downhill for me, last night was a quite average end to the series.
 
Although it was quite a big jump I wouldn't expect the engine on a reasonably expensive Volvo SUV to 'fall out' :lol:
 

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