Product Details

• Actors: Jeremy Clarkson, Richard Hammond, James May
• Format: Subtitled, Color, DVD, Widescreen, NTSC
• Language: English (Dolby Digital 2.0 Stereo)
• Subtitles: English
• Region: Region 1 (U.S. and Canada only. Read more about DVD formats.)
  
• Aspect Ratio: 1.78:1
• Number of discs: 3
• Rated: NR (Not Rated)
• Studio: BBC Worldwide
• DVD Release Date: April 21, 2009
• Run Time: 506 minutes
• Average Customer Review: 4.4 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (31 customer reviews)
• ASIN: B001PMRK0K
• Amazon Best Sellers Rank: #11,838 in Movies & TV (See Top 100 in Movies & TV)
  • #68 in Movies & TV > DVD > Reality TV
• For more information about "Top Gear 10: The Complete Season 10" visit the Internet Movie Database (IMDb)

Editorial Reviews

Amazon.com

Calling Top Gear "a car show" is like describing the Titanic as "a big boat" or Dom Perignon as "sparkling wine"--not inaccurate, just inadequate. Oh, motorheads (especially those fixated on fantastically fast, expensive autos) will surely get their fix from the ten episodes (on three discs) collected here from the British program’s tenth season. But Top Gear’s reach is much broader than that; more than merely informative, it’s funny, thrilling, smart, and just plain entertaining enough to appeal to viewers of all persuasions. That’s due to a variety of factors. The three hosts (or "presenters," as the Brits call them), James May, Richard Hammond, and Jeremy Clarkson, are knowledgeable and witty--especially Clarkson, who, although a bit of a snob, has a gift for droll turns of phrase (driving the Audi R8 "supercar," he says, "is like smearing honey into Keira Knightley," while the more humble Honda Civic is "eager, urgent… like a penshioner’s terrier"). From a technical standpoint, it’s excellent; the camera work and production values are first-rate, and the show is filled with beautiful shots and judiciously chosen effects work. Most important, the actual content is compulsively watchable. A typical 50-minute episode will include a hands-on review of an automobile, be it some fabulous rich man’s toy (an Aston-Martin roadster, say, or a self-parking Lexus) or an oddity like the minuscule Peel P50, which is all of 54 inches long and 40 inches wide. Most episodes also include a segment entitled "Star in a Reasonably Priced Car," in which a celebrity drives a lap around a racetrack in some ordinary sedan (this season’s guests include actress Helen Mirren, Rolling Stone Ron Wood, singer James Blunt, and a very smug and catty Simon Cowell). And then there is the weekly challenge, in which May, Hammond, and Clarkson are given some kind of daunting task. These range from finding "the best driving road in the world" (turns out it’s in Italy) to concocting an amphibious car capable of crossing the English Channel; there’s also a race across London by auto, bicycle, boat, and public transportation, a drag race between the Aston-Martin and a roller skater with a rocket pack, and a two-mile sprint matching the extraordinary Bugatti Veyron against one of the Royal Air Force’s state-of-the-art Typhoon jet fighters. Great stuff. --Sam Graham

Product Description

Who in their right minds would try to drive through the Kalahari Desert in 20-year-old bangers? Or cross the English Channel in amphibious cars? You guessed it: Top Gear's intrepid and wonderfully entertaining hosts, Jeremy Clarkson, Richard Hammond and James May. Buckle up for exciting road tests on the International Emmy®-Award winning series, including thrilling rides in the Porsche 911 GT3 RS, Lambo Gallardo Superleggera and Aston Vantage N24. Power test the world's most exotic supercars. And join The Stig on training laps with the rich and famous. Includes The Botswana Special.

Special Features:

English Subtitles for the Deaf and Hearing Impaired

Interviews

Customer Reviews

Most Helpful Customer Reviews

54 of 54 people found the following review helpful:

4.0 out of 5 stars A slightly less-than-excellent release of an excellent show., April 23, 2009

By 

Kristan O. Overstreet (Livingston, TX United States) - See all my reviews
(REAL NAME)   

Amazon Verified Purchase

This review is from: Top Gear 10: The Complete Season 10 (DVD)

The product description and the other reviews give a good breakdown of why you should like Top Gear- a trio of insane presenters who'd be as at home in a sitcom as they are behind the wheel of the supercars they love.

I'll stick with the DVD itself, which is nice to have but has a few flaws.

The first flaw is that the contents aren't perfectly uncut. Most of the "news" segments that featured in eight of the ten episodes of Season 10 are missing- only two are included. Some of the Star in a Reasonably Priced Car segments are also missing- specifically, rugby star Lawrence Dallagio, Absolutely Fabulous star Jennifer Saunders, and comedian Keith Allen. The back of the box says, in tiny print, "For clearance reasons certain edits have been made." Presumably, to save license payments to certain carmakers and celebrities, they dropped less memorable and more Brit-centric material. However, so far as I can tell these are the only cuts; there is ample material remaining that wasn't present on the BBC America broadcasts. (And the Star in a Car bits retained include Simon Cowell and David (Doctor Who) Tennant, and the two News segments retained are pure comedy gold... so it's not a total loss.)

Other cuts include: a very short attempt to do the Cool Wall (Season 10 was shot right after a studio fire destroyed the Cool Wall and other props); the in-studio conclusion of the Silverstone Britcar race; the Stig speed-testing the Vauxhall VXR8; and other bits and pieces here and there that I can't verify based on secondhand info, not having access to the original BBC versions.

The second flaw is that there's really not much in this three-disk set besides the episodes. There's no outtakes reel. There's no information text, background on the cast, or even optional trailers. (Each disk does have auto-playing trailers for other BBC DVD sets, which you can't play voluntarily after you get to the main menu.) There's no alternate language subtitles or dub- this is strictly an English-language release for what the BBC apparently believes is a one-language-if-that-many United States. Granted, there are English subtitles, but that's pretty much the only feature.

The final flaw is minor indeed; a dearth of track skip points. The credits (front and back) are NOT separate tracks; skip the opening credits and you also skip the opening film bit, and you can't skip to the end credits, period. None of the segments has skip points partway through, so you can't queue up anywhere close to a specific point in the film- you have to start at the beginning and fast-forward through.

These minor imperfections rob Top Gear 10 of what, otherwise, should be a well-deserved fifth star. Next time, BBC, when the package says "Complete Xth Season," please give us the complete season...

... but even if you don't, I'll still buy it. Now give us 1-9 and 11-12, please.

26 of 29 people found the following review helpful:

1.0 out of 5 stars Horrible DVD set of the world's best TV show, May 28, 2009

By 

Aiken Drum (Woodinville, WA United States) - See all my reviews

This review is from: Top Gear 10: The Complete Season 10 (DVD)

I'm not even going to bother extolling Top Gear's virtues. It's the best show on the air. Go watch it. However...

This DVD set is terrible.

First thing to notice is that the packaging is cheap, flimsy, and extremely minimal. The retention clips in mine were already broken in two places. Two of the DVDs overlap, like shingles, and scratches are inevitable. There is no insert, other than a BBC survey about the discs, which you might want to keep and use, though I suspect no one actually reads those things.

Second thing to notice is the quality of the video. It's oversharpened, probably to try to cover up the blurriness. The blurriness is probably because the widescreen video appears merely to have been zoomed up from the central portion of the letterboxed BBC America/Canada airings. You end up with blurry, sharpened, aliased mud. It's almost painful to see on anything other than a 23" tube TV.

Third thing to notice is that, content-wise, these are apparently nothing more than the BBC America/Canada airings. Language is bleeped and the shows are cut down to make room for commercials. I could have made these discs, nearly verbatim, for pennies, by archiving the identical recordings off of my TiVo.

There's more fiddly stuff, but isn't that enough already? Unless you need an archive of what's already been on the air, pretty much as-is, for $32+tax, don't bother.

Do a better job next time, BBC. I won't buy another set if you don't. I'd even go so far as to say you should recall these discs and (re)do them properly.

18 of 19 people found the following review helpful:

3.0 out of 5 stars 5 star show 2.5 dvd release, April 23, 2009

By 

Jimbo Jones (Las Vegas, NV) - See all my reviews

This review is from: Top Gear 10: The Complete Season 10 (DVD)

I have waited for the day when TG would be released on dvd and I am slightly let down by series 10 dvd release. First off all the episodes are EDITED on this 3 dvd release which does include the Botswana special. I have not fully viewed each episode but on the 1st episode supercar challenge (looking for the best driving road in Europe) the music had been changed and I can only assume its the same through out the series. As I have stated this series is broken down into 3 discs which is as follows

Disc 1: run time 204 minutes

Ep 1 51:27

Ep 2 50:25

Ep 3 50:32

Ep 4 (Botswana special) 51:28

Disc 2: run time 150 minutes

Ep 5 50:08

Ep 6 49:08

Ep 7 50:35

Disc 3: 152 minutes

Ep 8 50:34

Ep 9 51:06

Ep 50:04

you would have thought they would have left the language unbleeped for dvd they didn't I guess they thought I'd be offended by such words as "[..]". I would have been even madder had I paid the $[...] (I bought this as a pre order in a combo with Clarkson's Heaven & Hell for $[...]) pricewise I really shouldn't complain but still the cuts are unforgivable. If Auntie Beeb intends to release any other Top Gear series I say don't bother unless you go the whole way and release them with NO cuts. I would have gladly paid $50-$80 (call me mad) for an uncut uncensored series. Despite all this I love the Witter banter between the presenters and that was worth every penny.