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Returning: Top Gear

Good news and bad news for fans of Clarkson, the Hamster and Captain Slow.

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top-gear-hostsGood news and bad news for fans of  Top Gear, with the return of the UK original from 7:30pm Monday July 6th on SBS ONE.

The bad news is it kicks off with an episode from 2003, screening for the first time in Australia.

Jeremy creatively tests a Toyota Hilux, in the hope of disproving the manufacturer’s claims about its indestructibility; the boys look at the latest Mazda; James tests the Fiat Panda; and Simon Cowell spins out on the TG track.

Cowell also returned for his second appearance in Star in a Reasonably Priced Car four years later.

It continues with another 2003 episode on July 13th.

Amended.

11 Responses

  1. Thanks, Stiggie for your insights!

    That clears everything up. Especially for me, when I’ve watched Skins on SBS1 & wondered why the music is different here than the YouTube clips coming from the UK.

  3. The editing time could be the reason. But ultimately, SBS does show them pretty quickly these days. When they first started aring TopGear we were over two years behind the UK. By the time we got to series 12, SBS had cut that down to two months.

  4. Could the time it takes the BBC to create the international version therefore be a possible reason why SBS simply couldn’t have started the new series on Monday (Ashes not withstanding, but SBS could have previously shown episodes immediately after going to air in the UK).

    Does SBS show any other programs day and date?

  5. RoB – Series 13 began in the UK around 5am Tuesday morning Sydney time.

    Craig – No, I’m afraid that I’m not the real Stig.

    As for the bits that are cut out, there is no point complaining to SBS as it isn’t them who make the cuts. I’ll tell you how it works. The BBC makes each 1 hour episode. Due to strange laws in the UK that allow the BBC to use any music in their programmes without paying royalties, they can’t sell those episode to overseas networks, so they edit them. They make an “international” version which replaces some of the music and reduces the length of the episodes so that the customer networks can show some ads. Every overseas network gets the same international episodes. SBS doesn’t edit anything, they show all of TopGear as it is sold to them.

    What is cut depends on the series. It is usually the news and occasionally a small feature. During series 6 and 7 it was often the star in a reasonably-priced car.

  7. Thanks Stiggie (are you the real one?)

    Michael – I like the news bit and I will be fast tracking the show for the next 2 months. But I’ll watch it again on SBS, even if it’s to complain about the bits they cut out.

    Like how they cut Billie Piper in the reasonably priced car a few years back, according to SBS they didn’t have the rights to show it outside the UK, so I watched it on YouTube.

  10. don’t worry they nearly always cut out the news section of the show. Which I hate because despite by the time it airs here it’s old or UK/European centric. Has sometimes have great comedy moments that appear in other sections of the show

  11. So we get one week of TG before the Ashes, reminds me of what ch9 used to do with the cricket coverage over the summers!

    I was looking forward to the classic shows and from reports the Hi-Lux one is good…. BTW the first ep of series 13 is 65 minutes long.

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