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Top Gear: The Complete Season 12 |  | Actors: Jeremy Clarkson, Richard Hammond, James May
Studio: BBC Warner
Category: DVD
List Price: $39.98
Buy New: $28.93
as of 3/9/2010 21:34 EST details
You Save: $11.05 (28%)
New (18) Used (2) Collectible (1) from $28.93
Seller: blowitoutahere
Rating:  4 reviews
Sales Rank: 1503
Format: Box set, Color, DVD, Widescreen, NTSC
Language: English (Original Language)
Rating: NR (Not Rated)
Region: 1
Aspect Ratio: 1.78:1
Number Of Discs: 4
Running Time: 502 Minutes
Shipping Weight (lbs): 0.3
Dimensions (in): 7.5 x 5.3 x 0.6
MPN: 1000117731
UPC: 883929105465
EAN: 0883929105465
ASIN: B002SAMMQK
Release Date: January 12, 2010
Availability: Usually ships in 1-2 business days
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| Editorial Reviews:
Product Description
Studio: Warner Home Video Release Date: 01/12/2010 Rating: Nr
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| Customer Reviews:
 bloody brilliant February 15, 2010
Don K. Rhodes (Norwich, NY United States)
This has to be the best way to watch Top Gear! Has the play all feature which is a must for TV series on DVD. The shows are so smooth compared to how they are on TV.
 Extras aren't enough to achieve perfection. January 18, 2010
Kristan O. Overstreet (Livingston, TX United States)
12 out of 12 found this review helpful
Yes, the mad men of Top Gear are back again- engaging in the insanity that the world of car lovers (and British comedy lovers) have joined in for years. This set contains the full Season 12 of the show (fall/winter 2008)... or does it?
Although the cuts generally aren't as bad as they were in Season 10's DVD release, they are there. As with the Season 11 set, Top Gear Stuntman is totally absent. Fortunately, other cuts are apparently quite minor- with every episode retaining both its News and Star in a Reasonably Priced Car segment.
The box advertises numerous extras... but don't be fooled. Half of the extras are confined to the Director's Cut of the Botswana Special (re-released here after its prior Season 10 set printing). The other extras are scattered- I didn't find the extended Boris Johnson interview or uncut Cool Wall on disc 2 until the second viewing, for instance. Take out Botswana (which was Season 10, not 12), and the extras are rather meager... although, it must be admitted, ANY extras are more extras than the BBC has put on the other Top Gear American releases.
The best bit of this set, of course, is the massive Episode 8- the Vietnam special. Unfortunately, one of the minor annoyances of the set as a whole cripples a major portion of the humor in that episode- specifically, the alteration of music from broadcast version to DVD version. The BBC have, apparently, decided to cheap out on getting clearances for the music used in the show, with the result that a LOT of the music you heard on the televised version has been replaced by public-domain and/or BBC Archive music tracks.
This results (I apologize for any spoilers, but if you're looking at this you've almost certainly seen the show anyway) is that the Bruce Springsteen bike (a Stars and Stripes bedecked motorcycle used as a punishment threat, should our heroes break down during the Vietnam trip) no longer has "Born in the USA" blaring from its iPod. It's been dubbed over with the Star Spangled Banner. This required one series of jokes to be cut entirely (so the ep, though a little longer than broadcast on BBC America, is NOT uncut) and other jokes, including the one immediately in response to the first playing of the music, to make absolutely no sense whatever.
This minor maiming of the Vietnam special wipes out any extra bonus points that the Director's Cut of the Botswana Special might have won the set. The same problems that bedeviled the Season 10 release- not uncut, annoying auto-play trailers, and no skip points within each individual film- also infest this release. There are also incidents of misspelled or mistranscribed words in the subtitles- and even at least one misspelling in the scene-selection menus. (The name is TESLA, not TELSA. And no, it's not a town in Oklahoma, that's TULSA.)
Don't get me wrong. You WILL love this. If, like me, your only dose of Top Gear usually comes from the extremely edited BBC America broadcasts, you'll discover all sorts of little extra bits you've never seen before in this set. You'll want to laugh again and again at the crazies driving anything from Vespas to muscle cars to the near-worshipped Bugatti Veyron. You'll see the definitive test of what kind of buses should be used in London... a race on an oval that's just one step above demolition derby. You'll see a Ford Fiesta chased by a sports car through a shopping mall.
And through it all, you'll see three car nuts bickering at each other, mocking the failures of the auto industry, and sharing a deep love of cars and the use thereof.
But it's not a perfect release, and so I can't give it a perfect score. Sorry, BBC- try again, and next time don't pinch the penny so hard.
(Note: Edited when I found some more extras on a second viewing of the set. Makes it a little better, but still not five stars.
Great Show, Well Done DVD Release January 17, 2010
Alexander M. Walker (Chicago, IL USA)
7 out of 8 found this review helpful
America needs reality television like Top Gear. The fact that we don't air this program on a mainstream network channel baffles me. Do Americans like cars? Yes. Do we like comedy? Yes. Do we watch far worse things than this on average? Regrettably, yes. Top Gear has the laughs, has stunningly good production values, and can keep audiences of all types entertained. It's twelfth series sees an increase in runtime from last season by two episodes as well as an entire episode in the extra features. The set rounds out to about eight and a half hours of entertainment, a definite improvement over the paltry offerings in Top Gear 11.
Top Gear 12 has some of the more amusing episodes in recent memory. It starts off with a bang as the trio purchases a Lorry (comparable to a Mack truck) apiece and deck them out for a series of challenges. Now, driving one of those monsters certainly appeals to the love for all things motorized the show has become known for, but watching Jeremy Clarkson, Richard Hammond and James May stare in disbelief as the Stig's overweight trucker cousin makes a Lorry drift through turns will put a smile on your face. Other notable episodes include a "purely factual" (supposedly their permits to tape in the U.S. required the show to tone down the comedy) trip to the states to investigate muscle cars, the end verdict of which is decidedly positive; James May learns to drive like a Finnish pro courtesy of Mika Hakkinen; and the guys are asked to drive a seemingly impossible distance on a single tank of gas in economy cars in order to switch on the Blackpool Illuminations.
For the car enthusiasts in the crowd, a good number of classy automobiles are showcased in the season: the Lamborghini Gallardo LP560-4, the Bugatti Veyron, the Pagani Zonda Roadster F, the Ferrari Daytona, and the Tesla Roadster. If you have absolutely no sense of which cars should be incredible and which should be worthless just by their name, don't worry. The starry-eyed narration of the hosts will give you more than an adequate perspective of which vehicles should make you swoon. A lot of the time however, you won't need their help. The curves and the roars of their engine make it obvious to even the most laymen of automobile folk exactly which ones are the most impressive. Nothing instills a sense of wonder for a car until you've seen the Stig make it scream around the test track in an attempt to top the show's running scoreboard.
As in every series of Top Gear, a guest is brought on for every episode to try their luck at "Star in a Reasonably-Priced Car". This season's guests include Michael Parkinson, Will Young, Mark Wahlberg, Harry Enfield, Kevin McCloud, Boris Johnson and (amusingly) Sir Tom Jones. It's always sad when a star comes on the show and fails miserably, because Clarkson then attempts to give them some commendation like "Well, Sir Jones," after he did rather poorly on his lap, "I think we can say you have the highest time on the board by anyone who's ever sang in Vegas." He was the only one on the board with that distinction.
The season may be longer, but it, like series 11, doesn't have one big moment to define it. Its final episode, the Vietnam Special lacks any real pizzazz due to the rather clumsy vehicles chosen for it (motor scooters). It's hard to get excited about a challenge where the team's maximum speed is about 30 mph. But at least this series had a special, I guess.
DVD Bonus Features
If you remember back from Top Gear 10, the Botswana Special (which is a lot of fun) has been included in this set in its Director's Cut incarnation. It's just as fun, so if you haven't seen it in awhile the jokes still get laughs. A few extended scenes and commentaries for the Botswana and Vietnam specials comprise the rest of the extras, with some deleted scenes and a photo gallery bringing up the rear.
BBC did us right this time....THANK YOU! January 15, 2010
J. T. Brooks (Sterling, VA USA)
3 out of 7 found this review helpful
Top Gear Season 11 and 12 are the best dvd's they have ever made for Top Gear. Unlike season 10 they DID NOT CUT ANY FOOTAGE OUT!!!.. so there are full news segments and track/test segments its great!!!! the special features are great to. we finaly get full episodes here in the states and its great. MUST BUY!
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