Proving an idea is one thing, but the fact they did an unscripted episode on purpose made it ludicrously boring and doesn't justify the mediocre content it brought. Conversation street could've used this idea to make a bit of a laugh, but an entire episode dedicated made the point is just a bad choice.
11 Reviews
episode 4 review
aamirsq29 December 2017
Warning: Spoilers
The Hammond drives Mclaron 720 that drifts beautifully. Clarkson drives Audio TTS RS and Hammond an Honda nomad Areil and drag races Clarkson winning while May converts his car into a fire engine. It seems conversation and Celebrity session are not going where it should be.
Thanks
Scripted Unscripted
polsixe6 January 2018
A gag sendup on their old Top Gear epiSodes. Clarkson and Hammond give a driving tour of Croatia, May does his lame DIY bit. All pretty good, and the Finish Line girl was something not PC. Again the two British singers doing the blue Jag thing was boring, not sure who they are or context. Conversation Street still a bit of a miss.
Purposely and embarrassingly bad
Ekebz30 December 2017
What made Top Gear such a great show was the chemistry between the three presenters. Top Gear was scripted but it always left room for what felt like moments of genuine laughter and bizarre moments that can't be, or to the very least, never felt, scripted. The Grand Tour on the other hand, often lacks this room for genuine moments, where overly scripted and predictable jokes has taken its place. People have been mentioning this since the start of the first season with the horrible "Operation Desert Stumble" episode.
In season 2, they have worked really hard on adressing and improving from the critique they got on season 1. In episode 204 "unscripted", they adress the critique of being too scripted. Unfortunately they seem to have misunderstood the critique compeltely, and just been offended by it. The entire film of the episode is purposely made horrible to make some sort of point to the fans that the show needs a plan and a script. It was frustrating to watch how they beliberately keeps ridiculing the fans criticism of overscripting. They know very well what people mean. The fans don't mind the show being planned ahead and scripted, but please, just leave some space for natural and organic converstaions and moments, like during the golden age of Top Gear.
In season 2, they have worked really hard on adressing and improving from the critique they got on season 1. In episode 204 "unscripted", they adress the critique of being too scripted. Unfortunately they seem to have misunderstood the critique compeltely, and just been offended by it. The entire film of the episode is purposely made horrible to make some sort of point to the fans that the show needs a plan and a script. It was frustrating to watch how they beliberately keeps ridiculing the fans criticism of overscripting. They know very well what people mean. The fans don't mind the show being planned ahead and scripted, but please, just leave some space for natural and organic converstaions and moments, like during the golden age of Top Gear.
Even unscripted it felt scripted
ripper_spyky30 December 2017
A Very Conflicting Episode
alexblair_10 July 2020
Richard's review of the McLaren 720S is brilliant, and so is Conversation Street. However, the entire segment about how unscripted content is boring...in it of itself is boring....but that's the point....but it's still bori-nevermind. It feels a bit insulting to a viewer to force feed 30 minutes of boring content just to prove that said content is boring.
WTF?
kevinmorice6 January 2018
About 10 minutes into this episode I honestly started to worry that Chris Evans was going to pop out from the audience and start shouting at the camera. This episode was all of the worst things that Top Gear did wrong when trying to replace the team. It was demeaning to the fans, but it was also lazy and stupid.
The star interviewers are worse than pointless now and need to go. As do both their their half-assed race tracks. Maybe I missed when they introduced their new pro-driver in a previous episode? Worryingly this is a trend rather than a one-off, the good episodes are starting to drown under the garbage like this.
The star interviewers are worse than pointless now and need to go. As do both their their half-assed race tracks. Maybe I missed when they introduced their new pro-driver in a previous episode? Worryingly this is a trend rather than a one-off, the good episodes are starting to drown under the garbage like this.
So poor I stopped watching the series
tartydoris7 June 2018
If the purpose of this episode was to be so bad as to embarrass the audience into realising that the show needed to be scripted in order to be good. Then they succeeded.
There was obviously a fringe element of the audience that believed this show was better when it was unscripted, off the cuff and spontaneous.
So the producers have made an unscripted episode so awful as to shame those viewers into never proposing this argument ever again.
In fact, this episode was so poor it has put me off watching the rest of the series as I'm writing this now after the season has concluded and haven't watched another episode.
I think they were a little too efficient in making this episode really poor!
There was obviously a fringe element of the audience that believed this show was better when it was unscripted, off the cuff and spontaneous.
So the producers have made an unscripted episode so awful as to shame those viewers into never proposing this argument ever again.
In fact, this episode was so poor it has put me off watching the rest of the series as I'm writing this now after the season has concluded and haven't watched another episode.
I think they were a little too efficient in making this episode really poor!
A show going downhill fast.
johnsim14 January 2018
They've already run out of ideas for this season?
With Top Gear you cringed whenever they were either banger racing or modifying bangers. This is them modifying bangers, or at least only May is. They couldn't even find three cars, never mind three similar cars for them to compare.
They already have to pack the show will fillers of "Conversation Street" and interviewing two unknowns until they're let loose with a Jaguar F-Type to ruin with stone chips.
Think about how insulting that is if you've worked hard to drive an F-Type and they just take it on a gravel track and have it trashed with stone chips?
Sadly, you tune in for automotive excellence and instead you've got this. It's quickly going downhill.
With Top Gear you cringed whenever they were either banger racing or modifying bangers. This is them modifying bangers, or at least only May is. They couldn't even find three cars, never mind three similar cars for them to compare.
They already have to pack the show will fillers of "Conversation Street" and interviewing two unknowns until they're let loose with a Jaguar F-Type to ruin with stone chips.
Think about how insulting that is if you've worked hard to drive an F-Type and they just take it on a gravel track and have it trashed with stone chips?
Sadly, you tune in for automotive excellence and instead you've got this. It's quickly going downhill.
Booooring! A bit of spoilers, I'm afraid.
minunimion12 October 2020
Warning: Spoilers
Another boring, embarrassing, stupid, idiotic, awful episode! So disappointing that I don't have words to comment it.
They deliberately put on fire a field just for fun and the real fire brigade had to intervene to extinguish the flames! I hope that it was just a joke, othewise, shame on them!
They play like adolescents at an age around 60 and nothing would be wrong with that, but they're not funny at all, and their gags are not clever, smart, intelligent, just rubbish! Richard Hammond is younger, but still...
Where the magic died
saner_place23 February 2024
I think this is where the real Chump & Co. Bad attitude came through.
"You think we are too scripted?"
"OK, we will write a scripted 'unscripted' and go out of our way to be terrible, then claim it was because we didn't have a script"
It seemed like a hissy fit, "This will teach them not to complain about the script." A picture of Greta saying "HOW DARE YOU!?" comes to mind.
This was were they lost respect for their long time viewers. A real insult and the beginning of the "We don't care, we are rich, and you are insignificant consumers" in my opinion.
There have been some good shows after, but I think they were the exceptions and accidentally good.
"You think we are too scripted?"
"OK, we will write a scripted 'unscripted' and go out of our way to be terrible, then claim it was because we didn't have a script"
It seemed like a hissy fit, "This will teach them not to complain about the script." A picture of Greta saying "HOW DARE YOU!?" comes to mind.
This was were they lost respect for their long time viewers. A real insult and the beginning of the "We don't care, we are rich, and you are insignificant consumers" in my opinion.
There have been some good shows after, but I think they were the exceptions and accidentally good.
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