My Obsession: Top Gear

What happens when you combine the Beeb’s (that’s “the BBC”, for you Yanks) big budget, the attitude of MTV’s Jackass, MythBusters, Car & Driver magazine, some celeb guests, shake it up in your cable box and let fly? Top Gear.

I’ve been getting digital downloads via ‘unauthorized sources’ (cough cough, BitTorrent) for years (though they’ve been showing up on YouTube recently), but it’s kindof sucked having to watch it all jaggy on my computer monitor. Anyway, the cable gods have smiled upon Time Warner’s NYC viewers – BBC-A (a.k.a., “BBC America”) has been playing double shots of the show for the past few weeks, and my TiVo has been working overtime (see previous sleep-deprived post). Whoo hoo!

So what’s it all about? Hmmm… Not even sure where to start. The show follows the Top Gear boys, the crotchety Jeremy Clarkson, vertically challenged (I only mention it because Clarkson does constantly) Richard “Hamster” Hammond, James “Captain Slow” May on various adventures, both on and off the racetrack. They put all sorts of motoring machines to the test, from supercars (think Ferraris and Bugattis) to crapmobiles (like the ones I rent all the time).

Speaking of the crap cars, there’s a fun recurring segment referred to as “Star in a Reasonably Priced Car” where a celeb is interviewed on-set by the Top Gear guys, and then video of the celeb is shown of their top-speed run around the Top Gear track in a low-end machine. It’s tons of fun watching someone like Ewan MacGregor cursing and grinding the gearbox as he pushes the car’s limits around the track.

Keep a lookout for the episodes where the boys do stupid things that almost get them dead. One’s a road trip in America below the Mason-Dixon line, almost getting killed by pissed off locals, and the one where Hammond almost kills himself by crashing a rocket car at 300 mph. At least he set an ‘unofficial’ UK land speed record with that one.