Top Gear – Vietnam Special (BBC Two)

Clarkson and co. take a Two-Wheeled Route Through the Country

Dec 28, 2008

To mark the end of another series and to deliver their own form of festive motorised based fun the Top Gear guys travel through Vietnam, but who said it had to be by car?

BBC’s Top Gear does love a challenge. They’ve sped through parts of the US while being chased by angry Alabamans, made it across dangerous salt plains in Africa and even been the first people to make it to the North Magnetic Pole by car.

Now the lads – Jeremy Clarkson, James May and Richard Hammond – take on another unusual event as they race the length of Vietnam in eight days. It’s not so much the challenge itself but the method that’s most bizarre for Top Gear being that they were only given enough money to buy motorcycles, to the joy of bike hater Clarkson. Oh, and the finish is out in the middle of the sea.

A Car Show...with Motorbikes

No that’s isn’t a typing error, Top Gear have abandoned their car based roots for this 75-minute special all in the name of entertainment. And fair play to them as this turned out to be a darn sight more watchable than Ewan McGregor and Charley Boorman’s Long Way Down and assorted programmes.

Along the way they ate snakes, got lost in Hanoi, painted Hammond’s bike pink and bought heavy presents to slow each other down. But as ever there was a catch in case any of them broke down, this time the forfeit being an Americana motorbike with attached flags and blasting out Bruce Springsteen’s ‘Born In The USA’.

Overall the whole thing whole thing was a mix of banter and tomfoolery that the show has become known for. Okay it was brash and childish in places but, as ever with Top Gear, the camera work and editing was as brilliant as ever and the music, some of which borrowed from The Dark Knight soundtrack, was of the usual high standard.

The Cutting Edge of Cocking about

Since the new format of the series kicked off in 2002, Top Gear has evolved from being merely a factual car programme with hyperbolic reviews to resembling more of a knockabout entertainment show for more than just car fans. While this has angered what Clarkson and co. call “people in cardigans” who want to see more “normal” cars and less Ferraris it certainly hasn’t dampened Top Gear’s popularity.

The boys have come to discover that the challenges, such as the one in this episode, make up the most watchable portions of the show itself. Yes some people do want to know what car to buy in this world of cash strapped punters but who doesn’t like a white knuckle, edge-of-your-seat race that goes down to the wire that Clarkson somehow ends up winning?

That and the fact that Top Gear is consistently one of the funniest things on TV, so much so that it should feature in the British Comedy Awards. Who doesn’t laugh at Clarkson’s non-PC comments, May’s attempted refined gentleman act or the jibes aimed at Hammond’s height and his apparent obsession with teeth whitener?

The Vietnam Special, with its over the top antics, slapstick buffoonery and blokey enthusiasm, is proof that even after Hammond’s brush with death in a jet-powered car extreme and the stunts even more crazy.

However, with the consequences of the current financial crisis yet to play out and with the cuts at the BBC Top Gear might not be able to be, as Hamster puts it, at “the cutting edge of cocking about”. But surely even if they are forced to reduce the extravagant behaviour meaning that great specials like this would be a thing of the past, just having the three of them sitting in a room talking would still be a ratings winner and still undeniably entertaining.

A repeat of Top Gear: Vietnam Special can be found on that nifty iPlayer thing and probably on DVD at a future date.

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Jan 2, 2009 9:32 AM

Guest :

this was brilliant, I laughed til I fell of the settee. I now want to take the same route and see this amazing country. Keep up the good work lads!

Jan 3, 2009 3:10 PM

Guest :

Slapstick Buffoonery is accurate, the clearly staged gags are ridiculous, I can't even watch Top Gear anymore the features are a joke. What happened to serious reviews about what the show should be all about, CARS! Not three dimwits challenging each other in dumb, irrelevant, orchestrated crap!

Jan 4, 2009 2:03 AM

Steven Cookson :

I do agree with the obviously set up situations, it is becoming a little over done on Top Gear. But the stupid stuff does get ratings and in television that's the only way of justifying your existance.

Looking back on some of the older episodes on Dave there's is some of the jokey nonsense but there were at least two reviews per episode, you're lucky to get two per series now. I do think there should be more actual motor journalism if the show still wants to consider itself factual (which I suppose it doesn't).

I like the challenges if there's a means to them, such as what does a £1,000 Porsche run like etc. But with this one being a special I'm not bothered about the factual nature, I just want entertainment even if it is horribly staged.

Jan 4, 2009 2:38 PM

Guest :

Oh, lighten up, guest number 2. The drama on Gladiators is staged too, but it's still eminently entertaining and supremely watchable. Of course almost all of Top Gear is staged and scripted, especially specials like this - all you need to do to realise that is watch the camera angles and how they change - but everyone who works on the show, including the three blokes themselves, have never denied that.

I'd rather be lied to by an entertaining programme that admits from the outset that it's lying than a hoity-toity programme passing itself off as a serious piece of work. Or, worse yet, one that charged me money for the privilege.