Top Gear

[telophase]

I've become addicted to the British show Top Gear, currently showing in the US on BBC America. It's a show about cars, but if I leave it at that, you'll get the wrong impression. See, I find most cars utterly boring and the thought of having to watch a show all about them mind-numbingly tedious. But Top Gear* takes the formula that makes the British shows I like, like QI, good, and applies it to cars: get a few funny, intelligent people together and turn them loose on a particular subject. On the subject of cars, in this case.

So you do have a few typical car-TV-show elements like driving tests and reviews of cars, most of which I tend to fast-forward through if I don't want to admire the cinematography.** And you also get things like a caravan*** race which turns into a demolition derby, the show's hosts having their mothers race around a track, going to places like Botswana or Florida, buying a cheap car and trying to make it across the country without it falling apart, or sending the three hosts on a caravan trip in an episode that really ought to have been titled Three Men in a Caravan (to say nothing of the Dog)****, which I just finished watching (while laughing hysterically and scaring the cat).

If you haven't seen it yet, check it out.

--

* Or at least the current incarnation of Top Gear, according to Wikipedia.

** Which can be good. Or at least artsy.

*** Campers, or RVs, for us Yanks.

**** Fire was involved. No, really.

Comments

[badnoodles.livejournal.com]

Every time they try to take a group photograph of the lab members, I try to put on my motorcycle helmet and claim to be a Stig.

thus far, I've not been in a single group shot.

[oyceter]

Bwahaha! I used to watch this with my ex. Have you seen the episode where they get nuns to drive monster trucks over lined-up cars?

[m00nface.livejournal.com]

I remember watching Top Gear with my dad (well, it was on and I was also in the room) when I was very small, under ten, so I couldn't for the life of me fathom people's enthusiasm when it started becoming fashionable a few years ago! Needless to say, I have since Got It, although I still don't watch it often, possibly because one thing that hasn't changed is the theme music, which still inspires an intense feeling of boredom in me.

[kitsuchi.livejournal.com]

I've ended up with the same addiction - it's the only thing that's ever made me feel I might want to learn to drive. Except that I won't get to take three hilarious Brits around with me, so what's the point?

[ninjoo.livejournal.com]

Top Gear is ♥! I always clear my schedule so I can watch.
Jeremy is fantastic, his special way of being critical, with his loooooong pauses.
James 'Captain Slow' is just pure love.
Richard, well, tiny and cute. :D

I don't give a crap about cars either, but the way they turn it into either a divine creation or a bag of dog puke is so absolutely funny. And, of course, their challenges. That caravan-race was hilarious, their way through NASCAR-country whilst driving cars that said "Bush Sucks" and "NASCAR is fur pussies", or the episodes where they're trying to 'drive' across the English Channel... in a car...

My Sunday evening wouldn't be complete without them.

[inkblot14.livejournal.com]

Me and the missus watch all the time, and not only love it but we've learned a bit about cars in spite of ourselves. I've never really been a car nut, and when guys at work go on about hemis and fuel injection and such, I'd glaze over a bit because I was always pretty lost from the get go. These guys will talk the same things and, because it's a television show, give little explanations as they go along to keep from losing granny.

Mostly, I just watch it because they're all completely insane. I've heard they're working on a US Edition with our own cast, but I hope not...Jeremy, James and Richard have a real chemistry.

[telophase.livejournal.com]

Haaaaa! No, I haven't but I await its repeat eagerly! XD

[sub-divided.livejournal.com]

The only thing I know about Top Gear is that Jamie (?) is currently #1 on Maxim's Sexiest Male 2008 list.

[wyrdness.livejournal.com]

I find it utterly bizarre when people haven't watched these shows. Then I have to remind myself that just because the internet is all prevalent it doesn't mean tv does the same thing.

I absolutely agree though. I couldn't watch any other program about cars, but Top Gear is special. :)

[tprjones.livejournal.com]

I don't care the tiniest bit about cars. But I LOOOOVE Top Gear! This summer I bittorrented every episode ever, at least since they rebooted it a few years back with the current hosts (well, two of them, Captain Slow didn't come along until the second series to replace some annoying unfunny goober).

Really, those three are so perfect as a hosting squad for this. Clarkson is the fast muscle car guy, Hamster is the speedy little pickup truck, and James is the distinguished Bently. You couldn't get a better balance of types there.

Oh, speaking of pick-ups, if you've never seen the shows on the Toyota that they gave a permenant space in the studio to in the background, you have to find them. That truck is the Avatar of Durability.

[seawolf10.livejournal.com]

I am entirely too amused that you compared Florida to Africa, because the climate is almost as bad during the summer (honestly, not too surprising, since we're on the same latitude as Morocco), although Botswana may actually be LESS humid during the worst of the summer. And while the poverty and violence are significantly worse in Africa, the average African probably isn't that much more ignorant than the average Floridian.

I haaaaaaaate this state...

[telophase.livejournal.com]

I actually didn't compare them so much as report that they went to both places. :)

I've never been to Botswana, but having lived in extremely hot and humid areas of Texas, and in equatorial Africa (Tanzania), I can report that Tanzania is far more comfortable.