Lots of beautiful trichs <| sep |> I really loved that ! Reminded me of when I was those kids ' age and used to skate terribly on a terrible board . There were always some really rad but wholesome older dudes 2025 who would come hang out with us 1216 year old kids and teach us tricks , show us good music , and generally just being good role models that we actually looked up to . Love seeing this kind of stuff . <| sep |> I have to come out as a voice against all the naysayers and say , I ' m actually really enjoying the show so far and yes , I think even the Jordan segment everyone is hating on was good . There ' s a lot of valid criticism here . The Jordan segment dragged on too long , James May is being criminally underutilized , and there ' s not enough exploration of the host country . They ' ll hopefully fix that later in the series . Celebrity Brain Crash is almost certainly now dead and was always meant to be a gag that phases out the celebrity segment to begin with where they failed there was they played out the gag in the pilot , so it just wasn ' t funny this time . But most of the rest of the criticism amounts to they changed it , it sucks now ! . It reminds me of later seasons of game of thrones , where ASOIAF readers myself included were spewing shit on the stuff where they deviated , and show watchers were like , what ' s the big deal ? , and ratings reflected that . Mind they ' re deliberately trying to appeal to a broad audience now , they know that of the 400 million viewers they had , most weren ' t car guys . I ' ll be very controversial here and say that I actually like Mike Skinner AND the Eboladrome . Here ' s whyFor starters , the Stig was not iconic because he was a blank character that doesn ' t speak . He was iconic because he spoke VOLUMES without having to utter a single word . He was a cartoon come to life . He had weird mannerisms , all sorts of outlandish feats were attached to the mystery of his persona . He had an irascible manner and was particular about his cars and tracks , just like The American . And you all seem to forget , The Stig didn ' t really take the laps seriously either . He may not be interspersing them with ridicule , but he had his music blaring in every single car that had a radio . The American is probably the closest they could come to this outlandish character without appropriating The Stig , who is BBC property . The Stig was a cartoon character , and The American is the most recognizable and easilymocked stereotype in the world . He may not be all that funny the Stig was not uproariously hilarious either most of the time , but he is a bit of metahumor , especially in that he represents something the boys are notorious for doing subverting requests from their bosses or the general media remember , when they introduced him , they said they were asked to by Amazon . As for the Eboladrome , I like that it ' s narrow and bumpy and short . I honestly do . You see , what you guys are complaining about is pretty much exactly what is actually wrong with traditional racetracks they ' re wide , have huge straights , and create conditions where cars almost exclusively succeed or fail on their raw power . Handling , brakes , all the things that make a car fun and safe near the limit , are an afterthought . They only matter insofar as they let the car keep enough composure to get into the huge back straight , which makes up 95 % of the difference between cars . In a narrow and difficult track with no long straights , how confidenceinspiring a car is is suddenly more important than whether it has a gazillion horsepower . That the Vulcan wasn ' t able to pull far away from the other sports cars just because it has some insane amount of power is PRECISELY THE POINT . Now , about the Jordan bit as I ' ve conceded , it was entirely too long . The second half was better than the first , and I even found myself to my surprise chuckling at a few bits the second time I watched it . Even the first half had some uproariously funny bits though in particular the entire egress from the helicopter . From Clarkson getting blown up with his trousers down which occasionally happens in real war zones , to them trying to shuffle themselves to the door , I get the impression they took the bit from the Africa special about the world ' s worst special forces , and thought hey , what if we DID do it ? , and the result was exactly what I ' d expect They bumble around , argue over everything , and get it all wrong in the end . The only thing that really looks wrong and out of place is James ' s uncharacteristic stubborn idiocy they should have had Jezza go out and get killed over and over by the sniper . And yes , it was scripted . It was so obviously scripted and unrealistic that the scriptedness was part of the gag . It was a cartoon come to life , which is true of every other obviously scripted moment they had in Top Gear . As for it being not a car segment YOU WERE WARNED going in , that this wasn ' t going to be a pure car show . They ' re trying to balance the elements of the general audience that like the cars , with the elements that like the trio getting everything wrong and catching fire . They ' re trying new things . Not all of them will work out . Some need tweaking . It doesn ' t mean the show is doomed . And finally I agree with every single one of you that the first episode was better , but this is actually the first one filmed . So we ' re already seeing a trend of progress . Bottom line It ' s slightly different . It ' s meant for a wider audience . Just because the show is not a condensation of the best bits of Top Gear with nothing else , doesn ' t mean it ' s ruined . Be patient .