Top Gear USA

[varjohaltia]

I finally saw an episode of the US copy of Top Gear, produced by the History Channel. Overall, it wasn't quite as horrid as some of the reviews I've read suggest. It appears that the production team took the original show and translated it to the US, as far as choice of cars and challenges etc. For example, the classic "buy a car for $1000 and run it through these supposedly surprise challenges" had the kinds of cars you would find here for a grand, and the premise was moonshine running in the Carolinas, which was pretty cool.

Visually a lot of the same techniques and gimmicks that the BBC team uses were employed -- it's still neat to watch, but not as original, and not quite as well done.

At the end of the day, though, the US hosts don't have the chemistry of the originals, and having them do similar things in a similar manner doesn't seem to suit their personalities. A lot of their banter and jokes came off as way too wooden, rehearsed and planned, and as trying to live up to the UK stereotypes; especially during the studio scenes. The studio seating is just like the UK one, which doesn't necessarily work so well since here there is no Clarkson and the dynamics just don't work the same. That being said, the hosts seem decent, so if they can figure out their own chemistry and gimmicks and are allowed to go with those, the show could be pretty enjoyable. Just let Adam et al. loose with their own opinions on cars and motoring and see what happens!

Also, while copying the comedy-show-with-cars aspect is all well and fine, they do need to figure out content that's actually relevant to US motorists. Clarkson puts in a fair bit of rather pointed and controversial political commentary, which I suspect is completely impossible on a US show for fear of complaints. We'll just have to see where it goes, and if the team comes up with more neat stuff.

Comments

[elusivetiger.livejournal.com]

I've watched the first episode and also thought it was pretty awful - but I do think the UK version is lightning in a bottle. I've heard the USA version gets a lot better after the 3rd episode and the hosts start to gel somewhat, so it may be worth sticking with for a bit. :)

In fairness, I thought the first several episodes of the current UK Top Gear reboot were also pretty bad (the ones with the heavyset host who left fairly early on, who focused more on mechanicals and prices). Even Clarkson was pretty wooden and much less confident then, and there wasn't much if any Hammond/May/Clarkson chemistry yet.

[elusivetiger.livejournal.com]

By the way, I've got something like 80GB of Top Gear, many more recent ones in HD, as well as some other terrific Clarkson series like Speed, Inventions that Changed the World, Clarkson Meets the Neighbors, etc. so if you ever get bored just bring a HD over and I'll load you up. ;)