Top Gear

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.