[Matt Holcomb]

I caught the 8th episode of series 12 of Top Gear last night, the Vietnam special -- an entire, extended episode (75 minutes) devoted to the Top Gear trio's cross-country motorcycle ride from the south of the country to the north. I've enjoyed some of the Top Gear challenges, especially the '£1500 Porsches' one, but I found this challenge to be painfully emblematic of why I think the show has lost its way.

Top Gear used to be a charming and unassuming show about cars -- by car geeks for car geeks. As the show grew in popularity, the producers and the presenters obviously decided that the show's recipe needed some tweaking. So they added some spice -- elaborate vehicular challenges for the presenters to complete, designed to showcase the chemistry between Clarkson, May and Hammond, and skew the show toward a broader demographic. And it worked, so well in fact that women all over the world starting tuning in. Almost overnight, the show had become a mass-market, cross-gender entertainment. The fact that it was a show about cars was almost beside the point. Clarkson, May and Hammond had successfully amplified their laddish, private boy's school repartee, which often made for compelling and amusing viewing. The show had also become bigger and more lavish, complete with cinematic production values. The challenges had become more elaborate, too. Clarkson, May and Hammond were now unlikely rock stars, quickly cashing in on their newfound fame and the strong awareness of the Top Gear brand by touring the world with a live version of the show.

But while watching the 75-minute 'Nam special, and even the North Pole challenge from the previous series, it has become clear that the challenges, like the cars, are moot. Top Gear is no longer a quirky little show about cars or a big budget entertainment about cross-continental adventures. As evidenced by the 'Nam special, it's now a self-conscious, self-indulgent paean to wealth, fame, ego, and Peter Pan syndrome. Clarkson and co. have traded journalistic insight and their uniquely British cynicism for ribald banter and frivolity. Clarkson wearing a tin bucket instead of a helmet because he couldn't find a helmet big enough for his head in a South-East Asian country isn't witty. It's not even funny in a Vaudevillian kind of way. It's just insipid. And Clarkson buying Hammond a large scale model of an 18th century Spanish sailing ship that Hammond must somehow strap to the back of his motorbike is not clever or funny television, either. The model ship's visual incongruity with the episode's Vietnam context makes it pure self-indulgence. But it's also unintentionally symbolic of the current state of the show: at sea.

It's time for the H.M.S Top Gear to return to port.