Our Review
Not a show about cars — the greatest three-man comedy of the century wearing cars as a costume. The Clarkson/Hammond/May era (2002-2015) was a cultural phenomenon: power laps, Star in a Reasonably Priced Car, and challenges that turned into pure sitcom — the Botswana special, the Vietnam special (they rode motorcycles through a country they’d only known through war footage, and it’s genuinely moving), the Polar special, the US deep-south road trip with insults painted on their cars. The chemistry was lightning in a bottle: Clarkson the bombastic oaf, Hammond the hamster, May the pedant who is secretly the sharpest tool in the shed.
The production values were insane for TV — every episode shot like a car commercial, every supercar review a love poem to engineering. Post-2015 the show kept the format and lost the alchemy. The specials are the crown jewels, but the weekly banter is the reason it ran for 22 seasons.
Verdict: Watch the 2002-2015 run. Even if you don’t care about cars. Especially if you don’t care about cars.
10 episodes
Season 1 of Top Gear premiered 2002-10-20 and ran 10 episodes through 2002-12-29.
10 episodes
Season 2 of Top Gear premiered 2003-05-11 and ran 10 episodes through 2003-07-20.
9 episodes
Season 3 of Top Gear premiered 2003-10-26 and ran 9 episodes through 2003-12-28.
10 episodes
Season 4 of Top Gear premiered 2004-05-09 and ran 10 episodes through 2004-08-01.
9 episodes
Season 5 of Top Gear premiered 2004-10-24 and ran 9 episodes through 2004-12-26.
11 episodes
Season 6 of Top Gear premiered 2005-05-22 and ran 11 episodes through 2005-08-07.
7 episodes
Season 7 of Top Gear premiered 2005-11-13 and ran 7 episodes through 2006-02-12.
8 episodes
Season 8 of Top Gear premiered 2006-05-07 and ran 8 episodes through 2006-07-30.
6 episodes
Season 9 of Top Gear premiered 2007-01-28 and ran 6 episodes through 2007-03-04.
10 episodes
Season 10 of Top Gear premiered 2007-10-07 and ran 10 episodes through 2007-12-23.
6 episodes
Season 11 of Top Gear premiered 2008-06-22 and ran 6 episodes through 2008-07-27.
8 episodes
Season 12 of Top Gear premiered 2008-11-02 and ran 8 episodes through 2008-12-28.
7 episodes
Season 13 of Top Gear premiered 2009-06-21 and ran 7 episodes through 2009-08-02.
7 episodes
Season 14 of Top Gear premiered 2009-11-15 and ran 7 episodes through 2010-01-03.
6 episodes
Season 15 of Top Gear premiered 2010-06-27 and ran 6 episodes through 2010-08-01.
6 episodes
Season 16 of Top Gear premiered 2011-01-23 and ran 6 episodes through 2011-02-27.
6 episodes
Season 17 of Top Gear premiered 2011-06-26 and ran 6 episodes through 2011-07-31.
7 episodes
Season 18 of Top Gear premiered 2012-01-29 and ran 7 episodes through 2012-03-11.
7 episodes
Season 19 of Top Gear premiered 2013-01-27 and ran 7 episodes through 2013-03-10.
6 episodes
Season 20 of Top Gear premiered 2013-06-30 and ran 6 episodes through 2013-08-04.
7 episodes
Season 21 of Top Gear premiered 2014-02-02 and ran 7 episodes through 2014-03-16.
7 episodes
Season 22 of Top Gear premiered 2015-01-25 and ran 7 episodes through 2015-03-08.
6 episodes
Season 23 of Top Gear premiered 2016-05-29 and ran 6 episodes through 2016-07-03.
7 episodes
Top Gear is back! The new series of the world's biggest motoring show sees Matt LeBlanc, Chris Harris and Rory Reid at…
6 episodes
Season 25 of Top Gear premiered 2018-02-25 and ran 6 episodes through 2018-04-01.
5 episodes
Season 26 of Top Gear premiered 2019-02-17 and ran 5 episodes through 2019-03-17.
5 episodes
Season 27 of Top Gear premiered 2019-06-16 and ran 5 episodes through 2019-07-14.
6 episodes
Season 28 of Top Gear premiered 2020-01-26 and ran 6 episodes through 2020-03-01.
5 episodes
Season 29 of Top Gear premiered 2020-10-04 and ran 5 episodes through 2020-11-01.
4 episodes
Season 30 of Top Gear premiered 2021-03-14 and ran 4 episodes through 2021-04-04.
5 episodes
Season 31 of Top Gear premiered 2021-11-14 and ran 5 episodes through 2021-12-12.
5 episodes
Season 32 of Top Gear premiered 2022-06-05 and ran 5 episodes through 2022-07-03.
5 episodes
Season 33 of Top Gear premiered 2022-10-30 and ran 5 episodes through 2022-12-18.
