Gearing Up

The last time I was home, Country The Brother-In-Law was watching this… thing… as his sons ran about the room, shrieking.  They called it “Fast Cars.”  My sister called it “The Stupid Show That I Hate.”

It was, in fact, the BBC’s Top Gear, and at the moment all I knew about it was that it was causing Will The Smaller Child Nephew to totter about the house saying “Unfortunately” and “Lamborghini” in a full-on Yorkshire accent.  This was occasionally broken by “Uncle find Queen!” when Josh The Pilot was unable to locate the house’s well-worn copy of Cars and I was unable to produce Freddy Mercury as a substitute.

What Will and his older brother shrieked as Top Gear unspooled into the living room was “Truck on fire!” Because that’s what their favorite episode involves:  A truck on fire.  And why was it on fire?  Because one of the hosts had been driving it down a hill with a bale of hay and an electric heater in the cargo hold.  And why was he doing this?

I have learned very rapidly that “why” does not apply on this program, because, as Josh explained, “… It’s Top Gear.”

Julie The NephewsMama is correct:  On its surface, Top Gear is highly annoying.  You walk through the room in which it’s playing and they’re racing a BMW against a skier with a parachute or delivering a ten-minute mash note to a gear shift or building a police car out of a Land Rover or some other go-to-hell adolescent thing, and it is, unless you’re in on the joke, largely stupid. I dug in my heels against Top Gear for this and a million other reasons, the most compelling of which is that I hate car shows, I hate car racing, and I hate, in fact, cars– as long as the one in my driveway starts up when I need it to and glides to a stop at the proper liquor stores, I spend precisely 0% of my day fretting over how it happens.  The only thing I really enjoy about automobiles is the fact that they enable me to use the drive-thru.

But as it happens, Top Gear isn’t a show to be watched, even though much of  its cinematography is gorgeous; the BBC has a helicopter, and it’s not afraid to use it.  Top Gear is a show to be read.  This program has some of the best writing I’ve ever heard on any show of any genre.  Smart, vibrant writing.  The cars are often addressed as anthropomorphic beings, and a desert-dry sense of humor makes the shop talk not only bearable, but actually entertaining:  “Inside,”  one host said about some big honking unpronounceable car or other, “it’s the usual blend of dead animal and rainforest.”  Even I’m able to bend my brain around that.

The talk itself is, of course, highly attractive to the American ear.  Since all three of the hosts have a strong  British accent, nearly everything they say sounds five hundred times more intelligent and definitive than it would if it came out of the mouth of, say, Dennis Rodman.  This bodes well for little Will; if he continues acquiring his verbal skills from Top Gear, he’ll interview his way into a post with the State Department by the age of five.

And then there’s The Stig, the show’s anonymous professional driver, who is only seen careening various supercars around a track in a white firesuit.  He never talks.  He never puts his turn signal on.  He just drives.   As with all things Top Gear, you don’t question why all this drama is necessary; you simply submit to the program’s assertion that it is.  So powerful is The Stig that when I found an online article outing him, Josh The Pilot turned away from the screen.  He likes his Stig enigmatic with side of F-U.

There’s something to be said for that.  The Stig is a snappy dresser, drives great cars, and never, ever speaks.

He just may be the perfect man.

don’t worry, Uncle eventually found Queen at:  mbe@drinktothelasses.com