Top Gear is Top Notch

I'm not exactly what you would call a car person, having driven a 1997 purple Plymouth Voyager the past six years. Bear this in mind when I say that Top Gear is one of the best shows that has graced TV in some time.

Top Gear, a British show centered on cars that originally started in 1977 and ran through 2001, and was picked up with a new format the next year, is currently hosted by Jeremy Clarkson, James May, and Richard Hammond. While these names may not sound familiar to Americans, they are fairly well-known columnists and personalities across the pond.

But why in the wide world of motor vehicles would someone who is not a car enthusiast watch this show? Because it is far more hilarious than the majority of sitcoms clogging the airwaves. While there are the segments where the hosts, or professional driver "The Stig," test-drive cars, usually ones that I would never be able to afford, there are also guest segments, featuring celebrities from both America and England, as well as segments that challenge the hosts to complete tasks.

For instance, one episode had them building RVs out of normal cars. Clarkson created a three-story "apartment" that was not built with wind resistance in mind. May used a luggage-carrier on top of his car for sleeping. Hammond packing siding onto the sides of his car, and unfolded it all to create a mobile motel. The challenge ended with Clarkson being interview during breakfast, while his car/RV fell off the side of a cliff into the bay in the background.

Other challenges are absurd, such as transforming a Reliant Robin, a 3-wheeled car, into a rocket, with the intention of it being a spaceship. It would have worked, too, if they were able to land it properly after takeoff.

Another episode finds the hosts in the deep south of the States, with only a few hundred dollars to buy a used car and get from point A to B. They attempt to sabotage each other by writing slogans on the sides of each others' cars meant to infuriate the Bible Belt. Another trip, this time to Vietnam, saw the hosts driving scooters and motorcycles across the country, while "gifts" to each other - a small, weighty statue, a large painting, and a large wooden sailboat model - were strapped to the backs of the vehicles. None of the "gifts" - obviously meant to sabotage each other - made it through the trip unscathed.

Other episodes are races: Clarkson, in a Nissan GT-R, raced Hammond and May, on the shinkansen bullet train, across Japan.

There are few cons to the show. There are some segments, based on judging new cars, that simply won't hold interest for non-car enthusiasts. Thus is the miracle of Netflix and DVR.

Which leads to another pro - Top Gear is on Netflix On-Demand. Seasons 2-16 are available.

Be warned, however -The American version of the show is also available, and making it through a single episode of it was much less enjoyable. The humor just is not as funny as the original U.K. version.

In short, while there are some boring parts to Top Gear, namely where they test-drive new cars, the challenge segments, which sometimes comprise entire special episodes, are what makes Top Gear a hilarious show that just happens to revolve around cars.