Well that's it...Top Gear as we know it has had its last bow. Top Gear as we know it is done...gone. Top Gear as we know it is dead. Except for, you know...the continuous repeats on Dave.
Almost everyone in the UK (and probably beyond) has at some point been exposed to the furor and the fracas and the aftermath that saw the Top Gear format more than a decade old finally end last night. It is not for me to comment on that really; everyone should have and indeed has their own opinion on the ins and outs, importance and trivialities and ups and downs of the build up to Jeremy Clarkson's exit from the show, followed thus by his two friends and co-hosts James May and Richard Hammond.Instead, I want to reflect on Top Gear's final episode, and the reminders of what audiences have been treated to over the past years of Top Gear's frankly quite impressive run. You see, despite all the silliness and potential scandal, I (like legions of others around the world I imagine) am still a fan of Top Gear, and I am still sorry to see it finally go.
Now there's a blast from the past! In its early days, Top Gear was at its heart - a motoring show, with the added bonus of three blokes having the occasional spot of cocking about. I remember (and again thanks to Dave occasionally watch) those old classic segments like the Toyota Hilux sequence, the £1500 Porsche challenges, amphibious cars and those cross-continental car vs. public transport epic races. Again, at its core in each segment and piece - we had cars. These three men were merely the presenters of the show, who offered us these pieces. Yes they were quite indulgent, highly stylized and probably slightly more fun than informative, but they were good pieces of television, and it is small wonder many tuned in every Sunday to watch. To my mind, that basic formula of three men cocking about presenting a car show did not really change.
As with all good, popular telly shows, the fan base grew, the viewing figures grew, the scale of production and indeed what was produced grew and who knows maybe the egos of the producers and presenters grew.
Soon we were getting images of cows strapped to Chevrolets in America, provocatively decorated cars being chased by angry hicks in America, and Stig going from being thrown off a British aircraft carrier to being revealed as "potentially" German. Fast forward another few years and, out of "ambitious but rubbish" projects and films or not, we were getting scandals about truck drivers, scandals about racist slurs and scandals about Argentina and the Falklands. I honestly cannot tell you why, as time went on all these fractious issues, niggling problems and controversial personas started to emerge more and more out of Top Gear. Yes it gets people talking and of course watching but I feel the show did not need that - it had gotten by for years without needing any "edge" or "scandal" in that sense. Obviously there are two sides to each story, and for every possible contentious comment or opinion that came out of Top Gear, there were soon legions of paparazzi and Showbiz columnists there to jump on and tear into them like starving hyenas. I really cannot conceive of what went on in those Top Gear production meetings. I don't want to believe that they all thought they were untouchable and that these creative minds (presenters and producers alike) suddenly decided they could get away with pretty much anything as long as they portrayed it right. I really do not want to believe that, but in the face of what now has come about...
Regardless, I would much rather feel sorry for and remember fondly the years of Top Gear we had, than ponder too much as to why we shall soon be without it. And of course that ended with last night's episode; for the final time Jezza Hammond and May graced our screens on BBC2 of a Sunday evening at 8. My feelings were mixed when watching this mashed up and hastily cobbled together finale. On the one hand I loved it as it was still all kinds of Top Gear fun, but on the other there was a hugely sad, melancholy feeling; the last episode of Top Gear really did have the sense of being utterly lost, and ready for the end.
Included in the light hearted entertainment were some throwbacks and reminders of the simple but very enjoyable Top Gear formula - we had cheap car challenges, we had ridiculous stunts, we had the smashing up of caravans, we had exquisite drives through Britain in exquisite cars, we had ludicrous stunts and 'tests' and we had great camaraderie between the three men we have become so used to seeing pop up on our screens. I do not think all these tribute to heady Top Gear days were accidental (nor were things like the Clarkson voice over of "I hate working on Top Gear!") but I do not mind.
However, interspersed within the trio's last films were links to the Top Gear studio, but not as we'd ever seen it before. Gone were the hundreds of studio audience members (whose impact was only just realized in their absence) gone was any sense of camaraderie and chemistry, and gone was one of the trio. We simply had May and Hammond, valiantly carrying on for the final push, but looking horribly uncomfortable, unavoidably sad and simply lost without their third wheel. There was and is absolutely no getting around it - everyone knew this was the end.
Any fan of Top Gear, past or present, will have their own highlights of the show over the years, and it is easy to say it is just a TV show, because it is. Yet to have been going so long, and to still be, despite everything, so popular for so long is quite a feat it has to be said. So, it is simply left for me to say my own thank you to Top Gear for years of simple entertaining television, no matter what else came along with it.
And on that bombshell...
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