Saturday, November 30, 2013

Top Gear

Top Gear features insightful reviews of practical everyday cars, to seemingly ironic critiques of ear-splitting supercars, as if that was to say they were cost-efficient. The producers always seem to know when to break from reviewing cars in order to avoid monotony. They do this by throwing some challenges into the mix. The challenges vary from utterly absurd acts of impossibility, to demonstrations that are made out to appear far easier than they presumably are, courtesy of our dear Stig. The Stig is almost Top Gear's mascot. He is a wordless driver, dressed in white Alpinestars overalls, with a mysterious white helmet, whom of which outmatches any of the charasmatic speaking hosts in terms of lap times and inherent driving skill.

The car reviews progress as your average novel, film, or video game review would, and use understatement and fictitiousness to their advantage. The reviews take place on Top Gear's own test track, which evidently, was previously owned by Lotus Motors, and even before that, served as grounds for manufacturing aeroplanes for the Allies in World War II.

The reviews themselves have a distinct formula that nearly every successive one either improves upon, or follows exactly. Traditionally, the reviews inevitably come to a "But", "However", or "Although", and will degenerate into harsh and senseless criticisms, evicerating either the minute or gargantuan failings of the particular manufacturer. But what makes the reviews genuinely entertaining are the gleeful expressions of sensation any of the three presenters may use, which is certainly refreshing to know the person you are watching on television is greatly enthused with whatever he is presenting.

I simply love the unabashed approach the Top Gear crew embraces in order to run with the unknown racecar driver cliché, or in this case, the Stig.

There has been some criticism of efforts to identify the Stig.[34][51] The Times criticized the outing of Ben Collins by the Daily Telegraph in an article which asserted that the "identity of the white-suited Stig ... has been an open secret within the motoring world for some years, with newspapers refraining from publishing his name, to uphold the spirit of the programme."[40]

Written 9.8.09

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