Product Description
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Top Gear 11 (DVD)
Accessible to everyone and full of stunts, challenges and
specialsegments, it’s irreverent, witty, self-deprecating,
inclusive and passionate. The charisma and enthusiasm of the
show’s presenters have helped make Top Gear a worldwide megabrand
attracting a global audience over 500 million in more than 20
countries. This season’shighlights include a car chase in
presenter-chosen old bangers for traffic cops, a race in the
French Alps against extreme skiers, a race across Japan (a Nissan
car versus public transport), a cross-country fox hunt (with
Jeremy as the prey), and a Brits versus German Top Gear
challenge. Of course, this season includes serious car journalism
too, with exhaustive road tests of the latest models, man versus
machine experiments, weekly power-tests featuring the world’s
most exotic supercars and all the tried-and-tested Top Gear
favorites also return.
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There has been talk of an American version of the BBC's Top
Gear, but the fact that it hasn't happened yet is probably a good
thing, for aside from the obvious (i.e., the automobiles that are
its raisons d'être, many of them shown in sequences filmed so
beautifully and edited so slickly that the effect is equivalent
to car porn), the show is distinguished by its ineffable
Englishness. As usual, in this, its 11th season (with six
episodes on two discs), most of that comes from hosts James May,
Richard Hammond, and Jeremy Clarkson--especially Clarkson, who
offers his typical array of droll witticisms (he describes the
Nissan GT-R as "discordant… like Stravinsky designed it," while
the Alfa Romeo 8C Competzione, "the most beautiful car ever
made," is so gorgeous that "I wouldn't care if the sat-nav had
Tourette's"). Each episode is likely to include a look at some
fabulously unaffordable luxury car (in addition to the above,
there are the Ferrari Scuderia, "the bastard love child of
Stephen Hawking and Rambo"; the Galue, a virtual Rolls Royce
clone from Japan; and the Mercedes AMG Black, "the kin of Cain"),
plus a "cheap car challenge," in which the three hosts must buy a
vehicle for less than a thousand pounds and, in one instance,
convert it to a car, and "Star(s) in a Reasonably Priced
Car," in which celebrities drive a lap around a racetrack in an
ordinary sedan (these segments will be of limited interest to
non-Brit viewers, as the celebs are little known elsewhere). But
the best bits are the competitions pitting an automobile against
various other forms of transportation. In "Race Across Japan,"
Clarkson drives the Nissan some 400 miles across that country
while May and Hammond ride the bullet train, a ferry, and a cable
car; in another segment, Hammond races an Audi RS6 down a
ain road while two skiers hurtle down the ain itself.
As always, the camera work and production values are first-rate,
and the show is brimming with fantastic scenery and judiciously
chosen effects work. And even if Top Gear may be starting to run
out of --this season isn't quite as much fun as those from
previous years--this is still the best car show around. --Sam
Graham