[17x07] December 28th, 2011 [India Special]

[17x07] December 28th, 2011 [India Special]


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And it's at that point when Andy gets on the phone to the embassy in Delhi or the local consulate and gets the diplomats to start straightening things out with their counterparts at the federal level first, then down to the state and local level...

... and then subsequently ran out of available shooting days as they stalled him right down to a local level.

If this really was the scenario, Andy would've had no real power whatsoever from the location. They could just dick him around as much as they liked.

He had only a certain number of shoot days and they had all the time in the world.
 
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Vovo, you still haven't explained why, if there was trouble, this didn't hit the press, and it would have had your scenario unfolded. There is no way they could have kept something like that quiet.
 
 
Vovo, you still haven't explained why, if there was trouble, this didn't hit the press, and it would have had your scenario unfolded. There is no way they could have kept something like that quiet.

Easy. If Andy didn't make a hoohaa at the time, there wouldn't be anything to report.

And seriously, the gutter press aren't actually everywhere, they just would have the British public believe that.

Likely they had absolutely no idea TG were even shooting in India.
 
If Andy didn't make a hoohaa at the time, there wouldn't be anything to report.

That would eliminate someone in the Foreign and Commonwealth Office leaking to the press. It still wouldn't stop someone on the shoot or someone at the appropriate department of the BBC from doing so. Andy would have had to inform his superiors back in Britain of what was going on, and given the unique way the BBC is constructed, that means a lot of CCs on the e-mails.

And seriously, the gutter press aren't actually everywhere, they just would have the British public believe that.

It isn't only the gutter press. Again, I'm bringing up Private Eye as the most salient example. All it takes is one (not so happy) person who has access to the pertinent e-mails, and a single mail to one of Hislop's crew, and Eye TV does a 700-word piece.

Likely they had absolutely no idea TG were even shooting in India.

It was mentioned in the British press at the time that they were shooting there.

Again, Vovo, it doesn't pass the smell test. Your theories are intriguing, but improbable. Occam's Razor has to come into play here, and the simplest explanation is that Andy, Jeremy, Porter, et al, just screwed up on a grand scale.
 
Occam's Razor has to come into play here, and the simplest explanation is that Andy, Jeremy, Porter, et al, just screwed up on a grand scale.

I give up. You hate it all you like. I actually really enjoyed the show and gave it an 9/10.

:)

But the debate has been fun all the same.
 
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I give up.

Which means I win.

You hate it all you like.

This was never about me or Matt or anyone else not liking the special, which we didn't. This was about you coming up with bullshit excuses for a disaster.

I actually really enjoyed the show and gave it an 9/10.

Thus proving that you and everyone else who rated this show highly are demented fanboys, have no taste, or both.

But the debate has been fun all the same.

What was fun was watching you twist and squirm your way into multiple insane theories, and then shooting each of them down with basic logic. Personally, I enjoy engaging in intellectual battles with unarmed opponents. Keeps one sharp.
 
I haven't rated this one highly, I didn't like it, but what happened to De gustibus non est disputandum?

When dealing with things like the India Special and Ground Force, it goes out the window. There's no ambiguity. You can't even argue them on an ironic hipster level like you can with, oh, Manos, The Hands Of Fate. If you liked them, there's some sort of neural malfunction involved. Again, Occam's Razor: it's the simplest explanation. It's either that or I totally give up on humanity.
 
Which again proves, that rationality and balance has no chance, when opposing forum members get into an argument about who's right or wrong and who "wins".

I also voted a 9 but I was under the influence of single malt whisky, and I guess being a little drunk made me enjoy the India special more than it deserves. I would give it a 7 today, which is bad for a TG special in my book.

In the end it was just a waste of good opportunities and I guess we will never know, if the India special was supposed to be that way or if they had something else in mind but cirumstances we don't know about stopped them.

The lack of comment by Andy Wilman proves to me, that he can't or won't say something about it. If he felt the episode was being judged unfairly, he would have said something already. So my impression is, that nobody is really satisfied with the result and likes to forget about it. My hope is, that this will be a lesson to prevent such glitches in the future: Either make the kind of TG special you (and the fans) want or leave it -- but don't try to force it.

I am, after all, an optimist and I wish that more people would be that, too :) But I guess the easier, quicker and more satisfying way is to simply bash on it, no matter if it's good or bad. To all the whiners out there I say: Stop watching Top Gear already and spare us your moaning. It gets annoying.
 
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Which again proves, that rationality and balance has no chance, when opposing forum members get into an argument about who's right or wrong and who "wins".

Rationality did win this time. The opposing argument was "India was atrocious because their plans fell through and they reshot everything on the fly." Tell me how rational that was. As for balance, it was thrown out of kilter by said argument, and there was no room for any kind of synthesis given the thesis. Antithesis had to win, and did.
 
When dealing with things like the India Special and Ground Force, it goes out the window. There's no ambiguity. You can't even argue them on an ironic hipster level like you can with, oh, Manos, The Hands Of Fate. If you liked them, there's some sort of neural malfunction involved. Again, Occam's Razor: it's the simplest explanation. It's either that or I totally give up on humanity.
Oh, come on. If you still haven't learned that people have different kinds of humor, then you might have a neural malfunction in your own brain: it doesn't seem to learn well from basic observations. You should have it checked out.

(I stand corrected if my sarcasm meter wasn't functioning.)
 
Oh, come on. If you still haven't learned that people have different kinds of humor, then you might have a neural malfunction in your own brain: it doesn't seem to learn well from basic observations. You should have it checked out.

(I stand corrected if my sarcasm meter wasn't functioning.)

I'll forgive your assertion because of the totally cool car that you have.
 
Stop watching Top Gear already and spare us your moaning. It gets annoying.

Do change the bloody record. That's the same "Fuck off and watch Fifth Gear then" argument propounded by blinkered fanbois time and time again and frankly, MacGuffin I'd have expected better of you.

The reason we moan in the main is because we genuinely love the show and we know what heights they are capable of reaching. Look at the Senna film, Jeremy's beautifully shot homage to supercars that wrapped up a run a few seasons ago, supercars to the Millau Bridge, the Britcar race, the Botswana special, earlier cheap car challenges and so much more. And that's just to name a few. Many of those were as entertaining for people who don't give a shit about cars as they were for the rest of us but there was quality there, they cared, they treated us like intelligent viewers not drooling morons.

Why the hell shouldn't we offer feedback, level criticism and bemoan the fact that this special more than anything else they have ever made panders to the lowest common denominator, proof of which comes from the comments page on the TG website where the majority of the praise is badly spelled and full of "OMFG dat woz so funneh I nearly pissed my pants Lolololol!!!" whereas the criticism is mostly well-worded and intelligent.

I don't vote marking TG against other TV, I vote purely on the basis of quality within the TG canon. I'm guessing that you are doing the former having marked 7/10 because to list 60% of what they have ever created as worse than the India Special would take some doing. Actually it would be impossible.
 
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