Tue, 15 Jan 2008

Favorite TV Show

Pop Quiz: what's my favorite TV show? Some would guess a science fiction show like Stargate: SG-1 or Doctor Who. Others would guess The Office. Well, you're all wrong: my favorite television show, the one I can't miss each week even if it's a rerun, is the exquisite joy that is Top Gear!

"I've got 93,000,000 miles of headroom..."

The first thing you'll notice about Top Gear (besides the British accents) is the car reviews. No, reviews isn't accurate; Top Gear doesn't review cars as much as makes beautiful short films. Whether taking a Lamborghini around their track or a Fiat 500 through a snowy landscape, Top Gear makes cars into art. The show's cinematographers lavish attention on the machines and their environments, often pairing their visual art with perfectly matched soundtracks. The results more resemble music videos than objective, informative segments. In addition, especially if there's a danger of a car looking boring, they will add other elements, enhancing the film aspect as much as the car. The "race" between a Fiat 500 and BMX bikers, and the parkour video disguised as a race with a Peugeot, were simply excuses to create exciting, engaging visuals. Top Gear is never boring.

How hard could it be?

But Top Gear doesn't just make car films. Besides the magnificent cinematography, the show also features various races and challenges all over the world. Some are just funny, like their treks across the American Southeast or Africa. Others are slightly more serious and make use of the aforementioned cinematic brilliance, such as their adventure across France, Italy, and Switzerland to find the perfect road for driving. Still others, like the attempt to cross the English Channel in homemade amphibious cars, are little more than publicity stunts, but are so ridiculously hilarious you just have to watch anyway.

You look like a gay cowboy, and you look like a gay terrorist.

Lavish car videos, silly stunts, and epic adventures are fun and all, but Top Gear just wouldn't work without its presenters to pull it all together. Jeremy Clarkson, Richard Hammond, and James May are the unique group that brings Top Gear together and makes it work unlike any other show. It's obvious these guys are genuine friends (they have to be as much as they snipe and play tricks on each other). Sure, it's played up for effect on television, but put these guys together on an adventure to the Arctic or a 24-hour race on the Isle of Man, and they're just fun to watch. And yet, despite all the silliness, they manage to make the show intelligent at the same time. What other program can make snide remarks about the nation's political situation, crack jokes about its network's (and its own) editorial practices, interview an Oscar-winning actress, and show you the lush landscapes of Italy and Switzerland, all in the same hour?

Oh yeah, and of course, there's that other, mysterious presenter. How tame of a racing driver is he really? All we know is, he's called The Stig.

There's not really an equivalent to Top Gear on American television. It's both smart and silly, friendly and mean, joking and seriously beautiful. As BBC America says, "It's fun with cars." But don't take my word for it, watch the Season 10 Preview:

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