Top Gear

Tonight's top gear nearly gave me a physical injury it was so damn funny.

The caravan burning scene was obviously staged (like most of the antics), but was so brilliantly done it was memorable TV.

For the usual arguers about re:license fees- Top Gear is shown on BBC World (one of their most popular programmes) and so generates advertisement revenue, and the Top Gear magazine is one of the most popular car magazines going- in fact a brief glance at the BBC annual report shows that it shifts 175,000 copies a month- even if you take an annual subsciber's rate of £35 per annum, this amounts to £6.1m of revenue, of which I would guess at least £1m is clear profit for the BBC (a VERY conservative estimate).

As with many programmes the anti-license fee brigade complain about, Top Gear generates significant income for the BBC and you the license fee payer.

Sorry to piss on your bonfire.

Agreed, it had to be staged, just the fact that the cameras were in the right place tells you that, and by implication pranging into the awning of the second caravan probably would have been too.

But still bloody funny!

And just to clarify my first post in this thread, because on re-reading it it may be ambiguous, it was intended as a dig at the BBC's "official" comedy output rather than at Top Gear.

So? They have to spend money to make interesting, entertaining programmes.... which they did.

And if you believe that the caravan cost the BBC 3 grand then you're very misguided

Yes...Hammond's throwing out the window of the cushion was just too hard and deliberate to be purely off-the-cuff and panicky.

Although one must remember other things - like the survival of the Toyota Hi-Lux, the Boat Cars, the races and the record attempts - are not staged.

Top Gear is one of the BBC's funniest programs, the viewing figures are in the millions for every program! I'm afraid an average of 4.2 million people disagree wih you, Sascha

I'm not very sure it was staged. Remember the home-made convertible people-carrier? It set fire to a brand-new 'Arc' car wash. That can't have been staged.

Of course it was staged.

Do you really think the BBC would broadcast, and make light of, fires and destroying other peoples property? If that was real there'd be such a who-hah about the health and safety risks of 3 presenters and a camera crew being in a burning caravan that the footage would never make it to air

Yes... I'm still unsure as to how their car could have set a car wash alight without there having been a significant design fault in the car wash.

Or some pyrotechnics courtesy of the beeb.

Being a fan of Top Gear and having been a Caravaner for 10 years it was staged, given the crack that caravan took there was NOOOO way the towbar would have done that, unless that subframe on the caravan had been bent badly in a previous accident and the front had been replaced....... God I'm such an anorak.

So what was the point of the whole programme then?
Is it a comedy show now? What jolly antics will the lads get up to next week?
We all know that the show is contrived, a set up, and that the Stig is really ****** *********
For me it’s a finger to the off switch in 0.01 seconds, now that’s “power......”

He is

He's not actually.