Unfortunately, there are quite a few ways that the earth can face its demise: Natural Disasters, Meteors, Bombs, or even Death by Zombies. Then next thing you know you’re stuck worrying about your pets, family, food, or how much ammo you have left for that impending undead horde. These are all normal situations people think of when they hear “Apocalypse,” excluding those who think of horseman rising from brimstone, or that Marlon Brando movie. On the other hand, though, there are a few great men from the island of Britannia who are quite worried about what’s going to happen to their poor automobiles. Leave it to Top Gear to ask a question about post-nuclear motoring and then spend over 80 minutes answering every possible scenario, all while cleverly releasing it in time to go on your Christmas list.

First I should probably mention that Jeremy Clarkson is noticeably absent from this entire video, I assume mostly because he was shooting his own holiday DVD at the time. Although I like to think more along the line of the video’s theme and assume he went the way of Dr. Strangelove and learned to stop worrying and love the bomb. As weird as it is to see Top Gear not in the studios, it’s even weirder for them to be missing a member. I’m pretty sure if you went to see Crosby, Stills, and Nash, and David Crosby was out getting super high, the show wouldn’t be quite the same. As annoying as Clarkson can get sometimes, his energy and arrogance in competition brings out the fighting spirit in James and Richard. Otherwise May and Hammond are just calm, passive guys while Clarkson always makes challenges seem like they have a six-figure prize.

There are a few segments that fall under the classic Top Gear mantra of “ambitious but rubbish.” The segments seem fun in premise but a few don’t quite work out in either relating to the already loose plot of the film or the execution just isn’t that entertaining. One bit was to simulate driving in a nuclear winter by tinting a car as dark as possible then driving it, rendering the driver basically blind. Blackout driving seems like a perfectly themed test but you can easily imagine what happens to two blind drivers, they hit things. Smashing cars is usually fun to watch, but at max speeds of 20mph it’s only so exciting. Another segment involving remote control full sized cars seems super interesting on paper, yet led to another boring, low-speed segment.

For all the negatives I have to mention, there was a stunning amount of great segments featuring true motoring passion. A 3/4 mile drag race between an Aston Martin V12 Vantage and a Porsche 911 GT3 is one of the longest high speed races I’ve seen the Top Gear cameras capture, and it’s absolutely incredible. Yet my favorite segment was one involving what car you would use the last gallon on earth to drive. Richard chose a Pontiac GTO and James chose a Ferrari F40. The following drives are short pieces with the drivers going over the history and technical aspects of their vehicles while talking about the personal reasons they chose the cars. I love Top Gear for all of its silliness, but I really love it when they show how much they truly care about motoring.

It’s strange really as I constantly prefer Richard and James as hosts, yet I think this DVD proves they need Jeremy in the dynamic. The challenges felt bizarre as one-on-one contests, and even weirder since it seemed like neither of them cared about winning. It was great that Hammond and May’s knowledge replaced Clarkson’s opinions, but after 15 seasons the absence of him feels entirely strange. James and Richard put together quite a few fantastic segments for this DVD, but a world without three hosts plus a Stig just feels incredibly not right, like the Twilight Zone of British motoring programs.