Two episodes in and season four is proving a bit of let down. How did this happen? The travel specials have almost always been among the best TG/GT episodes. GT took three seasons to trim most of the fat, (celebrity brain crash, ugh......), but had finally found its footing in season 3 with a nice balance between funny tent segments and longer travel pieces. When they announced GT would become a travel special only show, I was elated but also just a little sad to lose the news segment in the studio. But only a little, because those travel specials are mostly among the best of the entire series.
....except GT 4.1 and 4.2. Choosing to do a boat show may or may not have been a novel idea, but probably was not the best choice for the season four opener. It's a mediocre episode at best that that only left the viewer hungry for a proper show about cars. I'm not even certain why it falls so flat; perhaps the pretense of concern about environmental issues while simultaneously behaving in destructive fashion just isn't funny?
So how is that 4.2 is even >less< entertaining than 4.1? The local is certainly exotic. I was incredibly excited to see Madagascar as a backdrop. But the splendor of the scenery is mostly irrelevant and largely ignored in this very heavily, and quite unnecessarily scripted episode. All the bother with buried treasure adds nothing; simply being tasked with driving across the island would have sufficed. And the notion that Hammond actually thought his mods were sensible is really stretching credibility. Yes, the mods are ALWAYS a scripted element, but never have they seemed so pointless and not funny than Hammond's tracked Focus.
Perhaps 3 will be the magic number. Here's to hoping the lads find funny in Scotland.
....except GT 4.1 and 4.2. Choosing to do a boat show may or may not have been a novel idea, but probably was not the best choice for the season four opener. It's a mediocre episode at best that that only left the viewer hungry for a proper show about cars. I'm not even certain why it falls so flat; perhaps the pretense of concern about environmental issues while simultaneously behaving in destructive fashion just isn't funny?
So how is that 4.2 is even >less< entertaining than 4.1? The local is certainly exotic. I was incredibly excited to see Madagascar as a backdrop. But the splendor of the scenery is mostly irrelevant and largely ignored in this very heavily, and quite unnecessarily scripted episode. All the bother with buried treasure adds nothing; simply being tasked with driving across the island would have sufficed. And the notion that Hammond actually thought his mods were sensible is really stretching credibility. Yes, the mods are ALWAYS a scripted element, but never have they seemed so pointless and not funny than Hammond's tracked Focus.
Perhaps 3 will be the magic number. Here's to hoping the lads find funny in Scotland.
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