I agree. It's great entertainment, but spoiled by the knowledge that it's completely set up.
The caravan exploding, the car always just winning. It's just too contrived.
Yeah, I found myself thinking "well, it's all set up". They made it quite clear how much help and backup they had, and I find myself wondering just what proof we have that they actually got to the pole.
Still laughed though. Despite the environmental vandalism (I'm not thinking of CO2 here, but the physical damage to the ice, the fuel spillage etc), the crass incompetence (although I'm sure that's a bit of an act), the drink-driving (although I suspect they actually only sipped it for the camera, rather than actually glugging back gin while driving) and the glib anti-climate change remark at the end, I giggled at the hamper, the chablis, the gin and tonic, Clarkson sticking a metal nut to his lip, the "eat lots of chocolate despite the fact we're driving" theory... Oh, and the tow bar mounted toilet seat...
Brock said "I detest the way it's contrived, scripted and engineered to look spontaneous and exciting, when it's clearly just a poorly staged heavily edited sitcom."
That's just it. For me, it is now a sitcom, and makes me laugh more than a lot of programmes actually billed as comedies... I'd rather watch the show like that than the version diluted with all the tedious fast car stuff... Although that runs the risk of getting very stale.
And of course, The Hamster's admission that he was so tired he had a little cry while skiing, and it froze up the inside of his goggles, well, that just made me want to mother him even more. Well, maybe not 'mother', exactly...
