Top Gear

If, for the last seven years, you've been living in a cave, on Mars, with your eyes shut and your hands clapped over your ears while humming the theme to Hockey Night in Canada as loudly as possible, you may just have avoided hearing about the most popular motoring television program in the world: Top Gear. But probably not.

This Sunday on BBC Two, three middle-aged British men will blow things up, powerslide around corners in inconceivably expensive exotic machinery, engage in pointless races pitting cars versus purebred greyhounds and downhill skateboarders, force a celebrity guest to lap a test track in a horrible little economy car, make fun of each other's haircuts and crack wise with off-colour commentary of the kind that usually results in the convening of a Human Rights Tribunal.

At no point will the teensiest iota of useful consumer advice be imparted, and a viewer may be expected to be insulted at least once based on their country of residence or choice of cars. The entire hour will be as bright and noisy as a Saturday morning cartoon and I am looking forward to it with a level of anticipation akin to that of a shipwrecked sailor finally coming home for Christmas to family, friends and a pair of twin Swedish supermodels. Both of whom are also part-time yoga instructors.

I'm not alone. Immediately after broadcast of the first episode of Top Gear's fourteenth series, you should expect the Internet to get a little sluggish, as every single person in the universe without access to BBC television begins downloading illegal copies of it. Regular viewership in all forms is estimated in the hundreds of millions.

That's a staggering number of people for a show about cars, so what's the attraction? Well, consider this recent review of the Ford Fiesta, a subcompact car becoming available in Canada sometime in 2010.
Lead host Jeremy Clarkson, a man recently forced to apologise to the British Prime Minister for calling him a “one-eyed idiot,” begins by testing the practicality of the hatchback by seeing whether a stuffed Zebra head will fit: it does. Then, having answered the questions of, “Is it easy to park?” and “Is it fun to drive?” Clarkson tackles the important issue of, “What if I go to a shopping centre and get chased by baddies in a Corvette?” by doing just that.

Having completed the Blues Brothers-style indoor demonstration of the Fiesta's nippy handling, Mr. Clarkson addresses eco-concerns by pointing out how green the little Ford is (it's painted green) and sums up its affordability by saying, “...if you have eleven thousand pounds to spend on a car, then yes, you can [afford it]. But if you've only got 40p, then no, you can't.” Then, and this is the mark of a truly thorough road test, Clarkson and his bright green hatchback take part in a beach assault with a Royal Marine Commando unit.

That's not a metaphor for something, the review really does end with the tiny Ford being packed with armed men (Clarkson notes that the smoke grenades fit nicely in the cupholders) and placed on a semi-amphibious landing craft. Then with full air support and naval support, the Fiesta storms the beach, driving ashore through two feet of breaking seas admist the crackling of automatic gunfire, the popping of smoke canisters and the triumphant blaring of Tchaikovsky's 1812 overture.

So there you are, absolutely nothing worthwhile learned and a good part of the scenery blown into smithereens, but what a piece of television! Can you imagine such a thing being attempted by the CBC? Their complaints department gets deluged by letters every time Red Green uses non-biodegradable duct-tape, never mind putting on an explosive display designed to appeal to eight-year-old schoolboys.

Much of Top Gear is in the same over-the-top vein, although it initially started as a dull factual program. The original series was a half-hour show running from 1977 to 2001 and provided the sort of dry consumer-information fare up until the aforementioned Mr. Clarkson arrived in 1988. Gradually, the focus moved to much more humourously critical reviews, until the old format faltered completely, to be re-launched in 2002 as an hour-long show.

“New” Top Gear has well-established formula: three squabbling hosts, a sprinkling of exotic steel, some generalized mucking about with old beaters and plenty of blowing things up. There is always a guest, and they are always forced to complete a flying lap of the Top Gear Test Track. Ardent fan Jay Kay of the band Jamiroquai currently holds the record, having soundly beaten a smug Simon Cowell, which was pretty satisfying for everyone who's not a self-important music-industry git.

The current host lineup has been the same for the past six years, with James May joining Jeremy Clarkson and Richard Hammond in the second series. The triumvirate found instant chemistry. Clarkson is easily the best-known presenter, and the show has developed around his characteristic boisterous reviewing style. Richard Hammond, youngest of the three, is every bit Mr. Clarkson's equal in opinionated squabbling, although he stands a mere 5'7” next to Clarkson's 6'5”. James May, nicknamed Captain Slow for his cautious driving style, brings a little common sense to the table, but where he lacks the others enthusiasm for reckless speed and noise, he is every bit the iconoclast when it comes to his weakness for ratty old classic cars.

Also integral to the show's success is their “tame racing driver,” a mysterious, white Nomex-clad figure called the Stig, who never appears on film without his helmet. Numerous rumours about the Stig's identity were fanned last year, when a picture of the film crew caught the Stig unmasked. Top Gear's response was to “reveal” a new identity for the Stig almost every other day, claiming at one point the the Stig was actually Barack Obama. In a televised segment, the Stig removed his helmet to reveal that he was in fact retired Formula 1 racing driver Michael Schumacher, but this was also overturned when Schumacher-as-Stig turned out to be completely hopeless on the track, unable even to drive a manual transmission.

Top Gear also features possibly the most highly polished cinematography and editing to be found outside of a summer blockbuster. Think Blue Planet with a snarling V8 soundtrack. There exists no better example of the car as art form, with lingering shots caressing the the curvaceous flanks and swelling hindquarters of a Ferrari 599, even as the throbbing soundtrack of an Italian V12 at full chat fills the oh bugger I've spilled my pint.

Highlights of the past fourteen seasons are nearly too innumerable to list. My personal favorites include the transformation of an early-nineties three-wheeled Reliant Robin into a space shuttle (it blew up); an attempt to cross the English channel in three amphibious cars (one burnt, one sank, one made it); five-man-a-side car football with racing drivers and Toyota Aygo city cars (a full-contact sport); and repeated attempts to destroy a diesel-powered Toyota Hilux pickup truck by dropping a caravan on it, setting it on fire, letting it get swept away by the tide, setting it on fire, and placing it atop a 23-storey-high apartment building that then underwent a controlled demolition (it survived everything and is preserved on a plinth in the Top Gear studio).

It hardly needs saying that Top Gear is not without its detractors. While Jeremy Clarkson is enormously funny with his hyperbolic metaphors and buffoonish on-screen persona, he's also unrepentantly politically incorrect, refutes the idea of climate change, and is outspoken about his contempt for the nanny state's crackdown on speeding. The BBC has endured numerous complaints about comments made both on and off the air by Mr. Clarkson. He has faced rebuke for making fun of the Germans, the Dutch, the Belgians, the French, the Americans, truck drivers, Wales, Scotland, Ireland, the British car manufacturing industry, caravan holidaymakers, motorcycling accidents, the blind, the deaf, women, various celebrities, the environmental movement, and pretty much everybody everywhere.

Top Gear itself has been under scrutiny for showing pipe-smoking on air, the destruction of the fragile salt flats of Botswana, and drinking and driving en route to the North Pole. Risky stunts are constantly coming into conflict with workplace health and safety concerns, and the hosts' propensity for setting fire to almost everything has environmental groups outraged with clockwork frequency. Richard Hammond suffered serious brain injury when a rocket-powered dragster he was piloting crashed at over 450 km/h. A common complaint is that the show is a waste of British ratepayers money and that it perpetuates a culture of reckless driving and wasteful consumption.

Certainly, the critics are not making things up. Top Gear's anti-social behaviour is pretty much indefensible on any other grounds other than that it's just jolly good fun to watch. But in these times of shrinking economies, crowded roads and dwindling oil reserves, there's nothing to dispel the blues like a day-glo Lamborghini doing a smoky powerslide, an exploding caravan, and taking the mickey out of ze Germans. See you Sunday, gents.