Series 20 - Episode 1

[lymaze]

Chat here.

[flatin5th - Knight of the NC]

The 7 was mine. Quite good, but the predicatable 'scripted chat' during the news is poor, and the 'incidents' on the New Zealand race spolled what could have been a very good feature. The New SIARPC intro was the same as last time. Unoriginal. Having given it a 7, I am struggling to remember the good bits.
oh yes The Fietsa.

[jacqui]

It is good to have it back but I hope it improves over the next 5 weeks. The New Zealand cinematography was the bit closely followed buy the ST !
The news was good but we had read it all previously in James' columns.

I'm sure the best is yet to come

[joanneg]

I really enjoyed tonight's episode it was really worth the wait. Really felt sorry for James he look exhausted at the end. Richard was cute when he was trying to flirt with Joss. Jeremy was also cute flirting with Rachel (even though I was a little jealous) over all a very good episode...can't wait for the next lot.

[Vivienne]

I love Graboid, I got to see it about 2 hours after you guys. I liked it a lot. The inauguration of the new car was good. I gave it a solid 8, room for improvement but glad to see them on the computer again. I'll watch it next week and see if they cut anything for us. They all looked good.

[adrianmay]

It was fine. It was Top Gear. Just happy to have it back. I did chuckle a little but really nothing new going on in it. Still, happy to see my show.

[Wyvern]

I was really happy with it as a solid series opener. They've got a formula and it works, and the balance between the silliness and the content was about right. Not an outright classic, but good, proper Top Gear. The boys seemed more comfortable than in series 19 too, probably because they didn't have a great big gap to contend with. Really glad to have them back

[melly]

I gave it an 8. Like others i'm happy that it's back on the screen and i felt really bad for James on that boat. Especially when he was trying to eat that chocolate.

[dit]

I enjoyed it, and as others have said, that's partly because it's good to see the boys back on our screens again.

I always like the races and really did feel sorry for James with this one. I know he's said in one of his books (I think, or on his Top Gear column) that he's never been sea-sick or felt nauseous on a boat, but he surely will have changed his mind after that ordeal.

I do however find the 'party for the new reasonably Priced car' segments tedious and repetitive, which is why I only gave the programme an 8.

[lymaze]

I enjoyed it and once I'd accepted the usual format etc, I enjoyed it even more. The new car with the stars turning up and the obvious Oh here comes a tractor so I can have an accident in the race does make it feel a little repetitive at times. But they manage to put a different slant on it. That boat looked like hell. He probably didn't think it was going to be that bad. Pity a good car got wrecked again. I think the news was the worst bit as it didn't seem to flow at all. But glad it's back.

[jmsquared]

Gave it a 7. Great to have them back, as it's still miles better than anything else on telly. I'm over the party for the new car as well - must find a better way than that. The news wasn't good either - heard all that before. Loved the race though. Poor James, and we know the tractor etc was staged but I still laughed. OK but plenty of room for improvement.

[amie8]

James and boats are a bad combination. There was the powerboat from Portofino, his failed attempt to navigate using a dog, not to mention his amphibious car which sank without trace. I doubt he's exactly a willing volunteer.

[dit]

It looks as if they're using a different method for ticketing this year. I'm sure when I went a year or so ago that entrance was by means of an e-mail that you printed off at home. I noticed that before the start of this season some people on Twitter and other sites were commenting that they'd already got tickets for the first episode and again for the fourth, which seemed a bit odd as I also knew that you didn't normally get confirmation until the end of the week prior to the filming on the following Wednesday. I wondered if I'd read it wrong.

However, I've just seen a photo on Twitter which shows tickets for tomorrow's show that are like theatre tickets, with the date, TG logo and that are numbered. It looks as if they're being issued this way now, so if they've changed the system and already issued all the tickets for this season, there's not much point in me checking (all) my e-mail address(es) every week.

Can anyone confirm how tickets have been issued this year? Plus, while I'm having a quiet whinge, it's pretty obvious now that there isn't going to be a Top Gear Live in the UK this year, but does anyone know why, and/or when the next one's likely to happen? I've been in touch with the TGL organisation but not received a reply.

[jacqui]

I've got tickets for the 17th had them for about 10 days now and they are exactly the same as previous series an E-Ticket with the same old pic and random number with your details on it. Maybe they have special tickets because they are members of the AS priority pass club?? Its not always the case you hear a week prior, the notice I have had in the past has been random to say the least !!

It is a shame there is no TG Live this year but I hope they are going to put their year off to good use and make it even bigger and better than ever before! Oh and if you reading this guys or anyone involved in TGL, please make buying a gold ticket and above worthwhile, last year the "extras" for buying gold were, quite frankly, worse than poor.

[dit]

Lucky you with the tickets, Jacqui! If you've had them about 10 days and they're for the 17th it does sound rather as if they have been sent out much earlier this year. Ah well, looks as if I've missed the boat again this time, though I'll keep on checking my e-mails, just to be on the safe aide!

Perhaps the tickets I saw on Twitter were for someone who's an AS priority pass club member. Just in case anyone thinks I imagined it though, this is part of the photo I saw (I've removed anything that could identify the person who has them, though there wasn't much, only numbers).



And I agree, hopefully their year touring the world with TGLs will mean they come back to us even better than ever.

[jmsquared]

Well done Jacqui. We shall expect pics and a report, as per usual!

[Vivienne]

I remember last Fall Rowland French tweeting hints about them coming to the U.S. I also heard all the venues in the UK were full. If they came here they would be mobbed but they could do NY,Chicago and LA and get us all covered. I'd go to Chicago in a heartbeat.

[slfriend79]

I gave the episode an 8.

I only bit I didn't like that much was the 'Stars In The Reasonably Priced Car' picnic.

[slfriend79]

I guess this is the best place for this video.

Top Gear Action Replay: James May Knocked Over By A Wave - BBC America:

www.youtube.com/watch?v=Xj0FpR88qrk

[FizzyLogician]

I've finally seen this. It was typical Top Gear...a car test, a race, the news, SIARPC. While the SIARPC picnic has been done before, I thought this one was actually better than the previous ones. The news was OK. The race was good...TG mag had a blurb about fast rentals a few months ago. I missed a supercar segment. Overall, it was good to see the guys back doing their thing. I gave it an 8.

[crumbs]

I really enjoyed this one. I love NZ and Jeremy took roads Mr Crumbs and I took a while ago. The references to Crowded House made me laugh a lot too.

Everything in it gave me a chuckle - yes, it was largely a comedy episode rather than a factual car programme but I didn't mind that. Having seen the second episode first, they redressed the balance with far more car related stuff.

I have gone off Mr May somewhat but I have to say I thought his hair in NZ prior to the boat race was just right for me! Screen shot anyone?

[joandie]

Series 20 has finally arrived across the channel , episode 1 was OK. I was a bit sad to see I'm a serie behind ... but that's ok I guess