Top Gear Visits Vietnam

Okay, last time for this season – which I only say because last night was the season finale – the genius that is Top Gear.

One of the great pleasures of watching Top Gear, or if you prefer Three Fools with Motorized Transport, are their insane cross-country trips.  We've been treated to a few of them this season.  There have been visits to the States (remember that one?  They were just a few miles from me and didn't bother to phone) and Japan, but last night we got one of the best trips they've ever done.  Last night, the boys went on a road trip in Vietnam. 

Their task was simple, just drive from the south to the north, going from Saigon to Ha Long Bay.  Okay, fine, that's not simple at all, particularly when the task has to be accomplished Top Gear-style.  That pretty much consists of giving the guys no information in advance and not enough money to buy a decent set of wheels.  In the case of this Vietnam road trip it meant them buying old motorbikes – and Jeremy Clarkson doesn't bike.

It was so big and episode so bad (in a good way) an episode that it required way more than an hour to pack it all in.  It took a full one hour and forty minutes to get the bad boy out there.  What I have to wonder though is why the episode wasn't two hours long.  If it had been two hours long we could have seen the Stig's Vietnamese cousin.  How did Stig's Vietnamese cousin not appear last night?  Was Stig's Vietnamese cousin in the full version, not the worldwide cut?

It's an intriguing enough proposition that he might be that I'm considering getting the episode from iTunes to find out.  I just found out a few weeks ago that at iTunes they don't air the worldwide version, they have a longer cut.  And, for what it's worth, I've also learned that from time to time over there at iTunes they do stuff like give away free episodes.  In fact, a quick of that Apple-based website indicates that the "Vietnam Special" episode runs one hundred and thirteen minutes, fully 13 minutes longer than the version we got last night, and in the version that aired over the air we got commercials.  Perhaps the Stig's Vietnamese cousin does appear in that version.

Article Author: Josh Lasser

Josh Lasser, formerly known as "TV and Film Guy," and complete with a Masters Degree in Critical Studies in said areas, gives his opinions on TV, Film, and Entertainment in general. All of which he does in a shameless attempt to try to get paid to do the exact same thing. …

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