Wow.
Simply amazing stuff.
The scenery is spectacular. It is just so remote, alien, and harsh. I really must take my hat off to the entire cast and crew to have endured such trying, and dangerous, conditions in order to bring us a fluffy piece of televisual entertainment. They didn’t hit a blizzard, or other really bad weather, apparently, but I don’t want to make light of their achievement. What they achieved is amazing stuff.
Still, I’m a little disappointed that they didn’t show a reunion piece with Mr. Hammond reaching the pole after Messrs. Clarkson and May, perhaps telling us how much the time difference actually was. He did things the hardest, after all. He had never skied before, and yet he went for 10 hours a day, for many days, skiing with a dog sled. He was sleep deprived, physically exhausted, and we were denied seeing his triumphal arrival at the Pole.
Mr. Hammond: Though I’m sure you don’t care about the opinions of some anonymous geek from the other side of the earth, scribbled on a blog that no one reads, my hat is off to you, sir. Bravo. I hope that those people who are close to you, and whose opinion you do value, have given you the necessary congratulations that you most assuredly deserve. Well done.
I don’t know about other viewers, but this particular episode of Top Gear has inspired me to do… something… remarkable with my life. I’ve always wanted to, needed to, felt that it was somehow something that I was destined to do. But I don’t know what it is. Never have. I still don’t. But I am inspired, once more, to figure it out and to go do it.
Oh, and: Kite Skiing above the 45th parallel!? Beats the hell out of kite surfing off St. Kilda beach, no?