Top Gear: Patagonia Special

Summary

All three presenters met in an area near Bariloche, where they brought and compared their cars. Clarkson had bought a Porsche 928, which both Hammond and May berated for being "boring". Hammond had bought a Ford Mustang, which though both Clarkson and May initially liked, they pointed out the numerous flaws with the car, in that most of the car's features were "pointless". May, arriving last, bought a Lotus Esprit, which was mocked outright by both Hammond and Clarkson for its unreliability and faults. The producers then presented them with a challenge; they were to drive from Bariloche to Butch Cassidy's final resting place. Amazed by the apparent ease of their challenge, the three set off towards their destination. Though May and Clarkson enjoyed the journey, Hammond's Mustang struggled, with poor steering and heavy fuel consumption, causing him to break down a mile and a half from the destination and be abandoned by May and Clarkson. When Hammond caught them up, they were informed by producers that they must continue driving southward to Ushuaia. Once there, they were to play a game of football using their cars. Their route to Ushuaia - planned by Jeremy - took many odd turns along the way. The trio took a side road that ended up leading them to a strange area where the road essentially disappeared. Eventually, they encountered an unstable bridge which they had to cross in their cars. May was the first to cross, who discovered that the end of the bridge led to a dead end, though chose not to inform Clarkson or Hammond about it. Around this time, the presenters noticed that a Citroën 2CV had been following them, allowing them to realise this was the back-up car if one of theirs was to fail. After heading back, they encountered a swamp, which bogged down the Mustang and the Porsche. Clarkson admitted that the Lotus had been performing better than anyone had expected, as it had not suffered any breakdowns thus far. After stopping at their hotel for the night, Hammond became extremely upset with his drive along the route and sought to take control, taking them on a different route where he believed the roads would be better. This route, however, ended up taking them on worse terrain than before, causing all three cars to struggle and Clarkson's Porsche to break down due to an electrical fault. Though he managed to fix the fault, Hammond was stripped of his leadership and Clarkson took back control of the route.

When setting off the next morning, the trio found a large, desolate area, which they used as a race circuit. When attempting to relocate the road, they discovered that their route had been blocked by a fence, meaning the cars could not continue and that the journey would have to continue on foot. Clarkson, in protest of this, found some nearby horses, to ride, though when May fell and cracked three ribs, the presenters abandoned this idea and located another route. At a nearby town, Punta Arenas, the team stop for supplies in preparation for their football game, though end up using most of their supplies to drive across a nearby beach, filled with boulders and other various rocks, where they were landed by a commercial Chilean ship, which cannot transport the three directly to Ushuaia for political reasons. Shortly before arriving in Ushuaia, Hammond's Mustang breaks down again in the snow, leaving May and Clarkson to continue, in belief that Hammond would follow them in the 2CV. May and Clarkson crossed a nearby river, after which Hammond joined them for the final straight to Ushuaia.

Prior to the trio's arrival in Ushuaia, the residents of the town got word of their upcoming arrival. Preparations were made by the residents to protest their arrival. The trio had received news about the protests, which prompted them to check into a nearby hotel, but there a small number of Falklands War veterans gathered outside of the building with a nationalistic designed van, which had "Las Malvinas son Argentinas!" ("The Falklands are Argentinians!") written on his car body. Protesters entered the hotel, followed by the local police. The protesters noted that if the crew didn't cease filming, then they would have to cause trouble. The show's producers attempted to negotiate with Argentinian officials, saying that the number plate was not fake, which the officials claimed it was, and that it would be removed before the game of car football would commence. However, attempts to please the officials were unsuccessful. Afterward, Clarkson received word that they must leave the Tierra del Fuego area immediately.

It was estimated that it would have taken 24 hours to organise a full departure from Ushuaia, but protesters warned that there would be violence unless they left in just under 3 hours. The crew made a hasty departure, though the presenters - the source of the trouble - had to remain in the hotel. The crew were to be escorted by the police to the border town of San Sebastián. Protesters had found the travelling crew and were searching for the Porsche with the offending license plate. As they got to the town of Tolhuin, a large mob prepared for their arrival. Once there, the mob blocked off the exit and began egging the cars and pelting them with rocks. Car windows were shattered and two crew members were hit. After a while they pulled over to attend to the injured crew members and repair the windows. Since the Porsche was to attract more trouble, they had to leave behind all of the presenters' cars. A mob containing about 300 cars was awaiting the crew in Río Grande, which prompted everyone to move cross-country, leaving the main road. Arriving at the river border crossed previously, the crew were to illegally cross the border into Chile, which they were all able to do successfully. Once in Chile, their escape had been completed, leaving Clarkson, May and Hammond to pay a Butch Cassidy-esque homage to Patagonia.

Reception

Viewing figures for both parts were exceptionally good, with the first part attracting overall UK viewing figures of 7.21 million, while the second part was slightly higher with overall UK viewing figures reaching 7.38 million; in January 2015, the first part of the Patagonia Special was reported as being the most watched show on BBC iPlayer during the week of Christmas, achieving 2.1 million requests for it, while the second part only achieved 1.5 million requests, but became the third-most requested show on the iPlayer.

Despite good viewing figures, the show drew mixed reviews from critics. Gerard O'Donovan of The Telegraph wrote a favourable review for both parts, each earning a four star rating, with the critic declaring that he enjoyed both parts, and that the ending of the second part "left us in no doubt how serious the situation in Tierra del Fuego had got back in September." Ian Burrell of The Independent was also generally favourable of the ending for the special. While Christopher Stevens of the Daily Mail also liked the ending, the rest of the special received a negative review, each earning a one star rating. Stevens described both parts, right up to the ending, as "the most boring that Top Gear has ever filmed" and being lacklustre, criticising its "rehashed jokes" and quotes that were pulled from Butch Cassidy and the Sundance Kid. He also criticised the BBC's approval of Jeremy Clarkson, who had become notably controversial in recent months, for entering Argentina with the controversial license plate, despite claims to the contrary. Fans of the show also gave mixed reactions on Twitter following the broadcast of the two parts, but were generally positive about its ending.

Controversy

Filming for the episode garnered widespread media attention, after an incident occurred in which the presenters and film crew became the target of a group of protesters upon drawing in close to Ushuaia, who believed that the licence plate on the Porsche being driven by Clarkson, which read "H982 FKL", was a deliberate reference to a significant battle in the Falklands War and the year it took place in. Comments about this first appeared on Twitter, which were soon discovered by a member of the film crew during the initial days of filming, and led to the subsequent replacement of the plate with one that read "H1 VAE" as they neared the city. The change of plate did little to help, as the group encountered the protesters on 2 October 2014, after being forced into a hotel upon hearing news of the growing protests of their arrival; had it not occurred, or the controversial incident in general, filming would have continued for three more days in Ushuaia before the presenters and crew left. Discussions between the show's producers and representatives of the protesters failed to achieve calm with the growing tensions, leading to the group being forced to leave the country as a result; the presenters left with the women of the film crew for Buenos Aires, while the rest of the team were forced to drive back to the border with Chile with their equipment, taking the presenters' cars with them before eventually abandoning them during their retreat. The special featured video footage of the events that the remaining team recorded, which included the moment that they were ambushed and became the target of an attack, with missiles from protesters causing minor damage to their cars and resulting in two crew members being injured.

Following the incident, Andy Wilman, executive producer for the show at the time, stated on 2 October that "Top Gear production purchased three cars for a forthcoming programme; to suggest that this car was either chosen for its number plate, or that an alternative number plate was substituted for the original is completely untrue"; on the same day, Clarkson tweeted that the number plate had been a coincidence and that "for once, we did nothing wrong", "H982 FKL" has been registered to the Porsche since its manufacture in May 1991. before later writing in an article for The Sunday Times that he "had to hide under a bed" due to "a mob howling for his blood". He regarded the incident as "the most terrifying thing I've ever been involved in." Later that month, on 31 October, Argentine ambassador Alicia Castro demanded a formal apology for the incident when he met with Danny Cohen, the BBC Director of Television, which was refused by the BBC after they stated their intention to broadcast the two-part special as a fair representation of the events that occurred. On 25 December 2014, prior to its broadcast, Carlos Cristofalo, an Argentine journalist who had first spotted the number plate of the Porsche, slammed claims by the show's crew that the number plate had been a coincidence. On 28 May 2015, the BBC Trust ruled that there was no "cover-up" with the number plate or that it had been a deliberate reference to the Falklands War, taking no further action as a direct result of its own ruling.

The number-plate controversy was later lampooned by the hosts during a feature in Australia, where the cars' number plates were very tenuously linked to anti-republican themes.