[Polar Challenge Special] July 25th, 2007

This was definitely a brilliant episode, however I must admit I still hold the American special closer to my heart than this. Although, it may have to do with me being an American myself and that's why the American episode tickles me in the way it does.

Besides the above though, the TopGear team is truly amazing and their production abilities are vastly unmatched. They really do have the skills and abilities to go to whatever the bloody hell they want and have it be top-notch.

What a terrible ending though? Seriously that ending had to be some sort of quick re-edit, because that was quite possibly the worst ending to one of the better specials to ever air on TV. It definitely did not feel natural to me, I suspect there is some sort of reason that it was such an abrupt end and not much closure on Hamster reaching the destination. I'm not trying to rock the boat at all, but that ending just did not feel right.
 
If this was the first time this was ever done why wasnt there no mention of this in any mass media?
 
Because they went to the magnetic north pole, not the geographical. The other one is much harder to reach..
 
They didnt even go to magnetic north they where hundereds of miles away.
Where they went was magnetic north 11 years ago.
 
yes this is my very first post on the forum, actually i've been reading threads on the forum for quite a while and finally registerd ... so to make a long story short(well not quite) ... this Top Gear special was indeed very very astonishing , but i recently reviewd the Winter Olympics and i've started to see the direction that top gear takes , then they drive tested the q7, xc90, the swift and so on, they may have been short but they were drive tests never the less. And in this tg special the only thing that i remember that was mentioned about the car that it is an astoinishing car - or he cloud talk about how is it to drive even though it was modified - right about when they reached the magnetic pole, so this brings me to my main point, is top gear - as jeremy clarkson wrote in a column one day - slowly becomeing an entertainment show featuring cars rather than a car show that was entertaining ?I mean this tg special and the american special were really great, but at least i want beside the funny road trips a bit of proper road testing , not those that you start talking about the ultra thin crankshaft the give a 15.342 per cent more power but a road test that is like the tt-brera-rx-8 trio that was again entertaining and a proper road test, Am I right ? or i've just wasted, really, about 10 mins of your life - wich i'm sorry to say ,you will never get back - while you read this really long post even thought i tried to make it short - i really did -. So to sum up is the new series going to be like the 6th 7th and ... um ... 8th series or is it going to be jeremy richard and james beeing in a car for about 15 seconds - remember the lp640 test and the zonda f test ? - and half an hour of star in a reasnobly priced car?But actually ... it'll be great, i'm sure, whatever it's going to be, road test or just a day time show. - you're confused right ? - p.s. sorry for off topic
 
I think Tobias just showed then what I thought was the best part of the episode - The cinematography.

Most documentaries to the North Pole would be the same - A rather boring picture, mainly the blue sky and white snow beneath. In contrast, look again at the shots - It makes the whole thing look beautiful.

Top credit to the three for making the trip, but the production crew deserve their own praise for giving us a visual treat.
 
One of the best TV shot ever...and one of the greatest ad for Toyota and ArticTrucks, but I don't care...it was awesomely good to watch it again and again :D

http://www.arctictrucks.com/
http://www.toyota.co.uk/

In the cabin of the Hilux, the little glass hammer is not the only special thing, look at that :


The glass hammer exposed the discontinuity of the editing if you watch closely it appears and disapears many times int he same "scene".
 
This was definitely a brilliant episode, however I must admit I still hold the American special closer to my heart than this. Although, it may have to do with me being an American myself and that's why the American episode tickles me in the way it does.

Besides the above though, the TopGear team is truly amazing and their production abilities are vastly unmatched. They really do have the skills and abilities to go to whatever the bloody hell they want and have it be top-notch.

What a terrible ending though? Seriously that ending had to be some sort of quick re-edit, because that was quite possibly the worst ending to one of the better specials to ever air on TV. It definitely did not feel natural to me, I suspect there is some sort of reason that it was such an abrupt end and not much closure on Hamster reaching the destination. I'm not trying to rock the boat at all, but that ending just did not feel right.

Forget Hamster not reaching the pole. How the hell did they get back? Supposedly they were out of fuel, and JC looked near death anyway, I doubt they were up for a return trip.
 
One of the very best no doubt. The scenery was just astonishing, using the Requiem for a Dream music all through it certainly worked great, showing JC actually having to work was brilliant and it was just such a fun special to watch!

Kind of a bummer they never showed Hammond getting to them and meeting up for a proper ending but that an epic episode none the less.

And BTW Tobias how do you take screen shots from the video? I can't seem to do that, just gives me a black jpg.........
 
The scenery is just gorgeous. Weird how such a harsh environment is so beautiful.

Nature is full of examples of the most beautiful being the most deadly.

Once you go HD, you can't go back. Hopefully this is just the beginning of Top Gear in HD.

By the way, just wanted to point out, they had to keep deflating and inflating the tires depending on the terrain. Hummers have a system built into the wheels so you can inflate/deflate without getting out of the vehicle, kind of neat.
 
Forget Hamster not reaching the pole. How the hell did they get back? Supposedly they were out of fuel, and JC looked near death anyway, I doubt they were up for a return trip.

The presenters and part of the filmingcrew were flown out, the arctic trucks guys drove the cars back with diesel the plane brought with.
 
One of the very best no doubt. The scenery was just astonishing, using the Requiem for a Dream music all through it certainly worked great, showing JC actually having to work was brilliant and it was just such a fun special to watch!

Kind of a bummer they never showed Hammond getting to them and meeting up for a proper ending but that an epic episode none the less.

And BTW Tobias how do you take screen shots from the video? I can't seem to do that, just gives me a black jpg.........

Try VideoLanPlayer, its simple with that.
 
Amazing all the way, not HD, but either way, it was bloody amazing, and funny. Cant wait for regular TG :D
 
And a race on the moon? It wouldn't be right if the first auto test on the moon was won by anyone other than Jeremy Clarkson.

It's already been done, Apollo 15 IIRC.

lunar_rover_II.jpg


South Pole challenge, anyone?
 
hmmm does anyone know what is the soundtrack for that episode "the one that they played alot

They tapped E.S. Posthumus's "Unearthed" quite a bit in the special. The first Spider-Man trailer featured the song "Pompeii" (which they also used in the special) and I had to have it, it was hard to track down.

I think some of the usual Rob Dougan was in there too.
 
I heard Paul Oakenfold's Zoo York a lot, or did he take that from another song?
 
The presenters and part of the filmingcrew were flown out, the arctic trucks guys drove the cars back with diesel the plane brought with.

I figured as much. I think this trip was in the planing long before the Top Gear crew decided to tag along, right after they reached the south Pole I remember reading ont heir web site about going to the North Pole soon.
 
Bit off topic what the hell, funny as hell.
i assume you all know the music from Requiem for a Dream thats playing throughout this episode (some call it "Requiem for a Tower" some call it "Summer Overture" didn't quite get that) but anyways there's a video on youtube about it and it's just hillarious, mainly cause it's true :D
watch it here
 
As far as I am aware Hammond never made it. He was miles and miles away which is why he was not shown getting to the "Pole".
 
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