Top Gear : Winter Olympics (BBC) [DVD]

Any Top Gear episode is worth watching but this one really is something special. Brilliant ideas, daring stunts and superb comedy fused with cars and general top gear madness. If you didn't see it you missed out but one star misses out for me. Why? Well that is a hefty sum to pay for one episode no matter how good it might have been. Still if you didn't see it I say if you are a top gear fan it's worth your cash.

So, it's summer time which means it's time for the third Top Gear DVD in succession to last years Revved Up. Revved Up was a pretty satisfying package, containing highlights from the series and some nice new content, whereas this years package is, sadly, pretty woeful in comparison.

What you get is the one off episode, the winter olympics special, which was Top Gear at it's absolute best with some brilliant humour thrown in for good measure resulting in an episode which was just bursting with entertainment. Make no mistake, because this episode is brilliant. However, the real offense comes under what can only be described as false advertising. You see, this dvd was in fact advertised with a running time of 120 minutes, twice that of a standard episode which implied there would be some sort of new content. I was therefore disappointed to find that it was only 60, and contained no differences whatsoever to when it was originally aired. Come on BBC, you owe us more than this surely.

They did at least not leave it as the bare boned package it could have been. As if to find a justworthy cause for the price tag, some new content was thrown in, with an outtake reel and some new stig footage, which was suspisiously similar to last year. The outtakes were admittidly amusing but the stig feature came across as an unfortunate borefest.

I cannot express enough of how much of a ripoff this was. Another highlights series may have sufficed, or at least a few more episodes to go with what was on offer. Yes, the episode is of such a high standard it deserved a DVD release, but they really should have taken advantage and added some more content to satisfy the fans to the full. And I really need to repeat what I wrote last year - what everyone wants are series box sets. Top Gear has sustained such massive worldwide popularity that it is perfectly tangible to suggest that they would sell well.

This is basically one episode of top gear, at under an hour, for 12 quid. Very funny, and a brilliant episode, but thats all it is - one episode. The extras arent worth mentioning (3 minutes 30 of outtakes and some very dull stuff about the stig). Get 'Top Gear:The challenges' instead - same price, even funnier, and has over 3 hours of footage.