Today, I opened my Google Reader to find excellent news...Top Gear is back for another season! As far as I know, I'm the only one doing Medicine who also diligently watches this half-serious car show. So, in remembrance of 14 seasons, I thought maybe I should give a little spiel on it...to see if I can bring up their viewer numbers (or...maybe I've just gotten too bored of studying and am just trying to find something else to do)

I've been watching this car show since 2002 when it was just a very small car show. Back then, there were probably no more than 20 odd people at the studio when they were recording but now, the crowds are packed and the hosts have a hard time walking through the crowds to the cars. So who are the hosts? They're three English guys...Jeremy, Richard and James. Jeremy is a tall, slightly overweight imbecile. Seriously, he can be cultured in some ways but totally stupid in others. Of course, all of it could be just for 節目效果 but there is a tendency for him to do stupid things on the show. Richard is a short guy...like really short. He's always getting mocked by the other two for being short. He also happens to be from the country side. Then there's James, also known as Captain Slow. It should be quite obvious why anyone on a car program would be called by such a name. But besides being a slow driver, he's also got many quirks and possibly OCD. So there you go...an unlikely combination for hosts.

Even though Top Gear is meant to be a car program, much of each episode is devoted to some impossibly stupid or ridiculous car-related experiment/race/theory/game that the three undertake. For example, playing soccer with cars or sailing amphibious cars across the English Channel or racing a plane across Europe in the latest super car. I think most people watch this show for the entertainment more than the cars. Either way, somehow they've risen to glory, the audience lap up their show and their budget to perform crazy stunts just keeps getting bigger and bigger. I haven't watched the latest episode yet but I'm expecting something big for the first episode of the new season.


This person in the white jumpsuit and helmet is known as "The Stig". He's supposed to be their test driver, taking the latest cars they reviewed onto their test track to set lap times so they can compare how fast or slow the car is. The public doesn't know who this person is, he's never seen on the show without his helmet and the hosts give no clues. All we know is The Stig sets lap times faster than anyone else...suggesting that he's probably an ex-racer of some sort.

Haiz...enough of this evading...time to get back to studying I guess =(