Top Gear: The Better Ambulance

Top Gear centered around the creation of a faster ambulance for the people of Britain and went about as well as to be expected.

The show starts out with the Stig driving around their insane one person car as an ambulance. In order to make it so, they have created a gurney with a ball hitch. The scene was for some laughs, but in some ways does bring up a pretty good issue. How do you reduce the amount of time it takes for an ambulance to reach a patient in a congested city? This is not the group of people to figure out a real solution, but their solutions are amusing nevertheless.

The trio go out to find cars for their new faster ambulances. Hammond returns rather predictable with a late model full sized van and Clarkson with a late model Porsche. The amusing aspect was May showing up in a hearse. This provided a few jokes as they explained to May the connotation of the hearse and why he was an idiot, but this all leads to a drag race. Predictably, the Porsche was able to beat a full sized van and hearse, but the race was closer than you would figure.

The group then decide to outfit their cars into ambulances. May actually turns the hearse into what looks like an Ecto-1 50’s style ambulance with everything working but the door. His design was not the worst at all. Hammond returns with a van that looks like it is evading the zombie apocalypse. It had a siren that was to recreate a nuclear fallout, had markings to make it look like a nuclear transport, and best of all an exhaust pipe that allowed him to shoot out green smoke. It was all quite amusing. However, Clarkson turning his Porsche into an ambulance may have been the best. He put in a rear access door modeled after a Range Rover, painted it like it was a racing car, added a hydraulic brake and best of all put a steel ram on it. The newly dubbed “ram”-bulance was the most amusing of the three.

The next challenge was probably the most amusing. The trio were forced to work on a practice mannequin to perform basic medical services. They were required to put someone’s guts back in, place a catheter and clear the airway of their patient. Richard was actually able to accomplish everything and put up the best time as he did it. James’ ambulance was actually the best designed for everything, but his hydraulic door fell and delayed his start. However, Jeremy again was the most amusing.

Clarkson was forced to get into the back of the Porsche and while squeezed behind the Stig do the work on his patient. However, Clarkson was never really able to accomplish as he became transfixed on the dummy’s fake penis. The entire two minutes were him staring at it and at one point proclaiming that they almost went in his mouth. His lap was only second fastest as the Porsche struggled with the speed bumps, but the total lap was the most amusing.

The next test involved the transport of the patient from the ambulance to the hospital. Clarkson actually did design something quite clever with the Porsche. Upon opening the rear doors, the gurney would roll out. He was able to take the turn with the hydraulic and send the gurney out of the back and into the doors. May created something clever with essentially an RC gurney that rolled out of the back of the ambulance. However, the funniest aspect of this whole test was Hammond’s gurney cannon that launched the gurney out of the van and into the side of the ambulance they are trying to replace. It was one of the better laughs of the show.

The tested the sirens next, but that was not nearly as amusing as the rest of the show. The final test was next and the trio were to go to pick up a body each from a meteor crash site and deliver the body to a hospital. Upon arriving at the scene after a forty minute drive, they started going through the bodies discarding some as having too little time left to bother with. They each find a body with about 8 minutes left until they die. After loading the bodies, Hammond and Clarkson proceed to race through the city. The “ram” part of the rambulance was put to good use and Hammond ended up crashing. May went about his business as usual but in doing so, his door failed again and he lost his body. So even though he arrived first, he arrived with no body. Next to arrive was Clarkson and with his hydraulic brake and rather ingenius gurney idea, he was able to deliver a live body. Hammond’s gurney cannon actually shot the body through a window and his body was dead.

The show featured the news where they discussed the new Ferrari, immigrant drivers and what appears to be their “cause” for the year which is that the 70mph speed limit is too low. The star in the reasonably priced car was their first Formula 1 driver of the year – Daniel Ricciardo. He put up a very fast lap and provided the best laugh of the night when he was asked what the back of Lewis’ car looked like by an audience member. Definitely glad to have the news, but I still wish that they had provided the time to review a car. So far this year they have not had the news, a review, and a star in the same episode.

The final segment was to tally the scores for the ambulances. May’s was brushed aside for being too slow and losing his body in the final test. Therefore, it was a two man race between Clarkson and Hammond. It was withing 3 points in the final category, but that was the category on whether or not they delivered a live body to the hospital. They only gave Clarkson 1 point for this, thus he lost. Due to this, the bombshell for the evening was that the best the trio could offer to compete with the current ambulance was a van that caught on fire, had a terrible siren, and couldn’t deliver a live body and had thus failed miserably.

The episode provided a lot of laughs but there were a few dull moments. It is definitely one that is best served for the hour long final cut it is destined to receive for later broadcasts.