I’ll watch it and try to give it an honest chance. I predict thought that it’s going to be the worst European import since the Yugo.
Imagine being told that you have less charisma than James May.
Huh? James is a bit of a national treasure. Of the three he has the most work on primetime TV and rightly so. He has wonderful natural authority and dry wit.
I would say he is the most charismatic of the three, merely the least demonstrative.
I have a HUGE crush on James May. He can be Captain Slow with me any day.
Yes, didn’t mean he’d made them at the same time. But he was talking about how if he’d stuck with Top Gear it would have been his third show where the pilot was made for one network and then ended up on a different network.
But they were still shopping Top Gear around when he had to make the decision to commit to the other pilot. Since he couldn’t commit to it, they had to replace him as host.
But it’s certainly possible I’m misremembering. This was from a podcast from 6+ months ago.
I’d probably have to see him in something else, then. On Top Gear, he’s the one makeing sure all the tools get put away, or describing how negative camber affects a car’s contact patch as the screen fades to black.
Don’t get me wrong, I totally appreciate the technical geekery. If I were in the American version, I’d be the James May equivalent. (Our relative charisma coefficients have never been calculated.) But everybody else in that studio, probably even Top Gear Dog, just wants to hurry up and destroy another camping trailer.
And I will say this, the bit where they said they’d used up all their budget so James had to play the theme song on a hand-held Casio keyboard was brilliant.
i think it was just not picked up by the network (nbc? it wasn’t history channel). auto bailout and some other mumbo jumbo was the “reasoning” at least as far as carolla knew, but who really knows.
Carolla’s done close to a dozen different pilots for various networks over the years. The recent CBS one where he created the show is nor the same pilot that conflicted with Top Gear.
Anyway, I concur that without the commercial-free freedom to bash cars as rubbish, I can’t see how the US Top Gear can work.
me too. If I lived in London, I’d probably engage in some light stalking.
Look for “James May At The Edge Of Space” on Youtube. He gets to go up in U-2 spy plane. especially part 3
His wine shows that he did with Oz Clark are pretty interesting as well. James May with a hangover - that’s a sight.
Jesus H Christ. High fives! Back slapping! Frat boy giggling! Just dont get it do they.
Bump…21 Nov 2010 - 22:30 EPT
So far, its…there.
Hasn’t really bowled me over, but then again I haven’t seen the intial season of UK Top Gear, so can’t tell if that got off slowly or not.
So, did the big guy get them lost in the Viper on purpose (and so killed by the Cobra ‘missle lock’)? Note, I do like Vipers - Chrysler (Dodge) came up with lots of cool cars in the 1990s…Prowler, Atlantic, Viper, heh, even the PT Cruiser looked different even it was based on a underpowered Neon.
Boo, no funky radio soundtrack for the Stig time run.
Meh, right now, Big Star, Small Car - not my favorite portion on Top Gear UK. Don’t care it’s Buzz Aldrin or not…
Hmm, will Top Gear (UK) get a new Stig in a different colored suit…or will there even be a new series of Top Gear (UK) - they said the last series had budget problems.
And, it’s done.
I will say I could easily imagine many of the comments, wisecracks, even the challenge being done on Top Gear UK (actually, I think Jeremy did do some challenges to avoid the military from locking on his car).
Didn’t really click this episode, but wasn’t a train wreck…
It wasn’t as bad as it could be. And some of the early UK Top Gears were pretty bland as well. It’s going to take time for the three of them to gel, maybe even more than one season. I’ll keep watching.
Agreed - It wasn’t bad. It had potential. I kept getting annoyed as the Main host (Adam?) kept explaining basic concepts from the UK show, like the track, and The Stig. Then I’d remember that most of the viewers probably were unfamiliar with this.
Because of this thread I looked for Top Gear this weekend and recorded what I could. The Best of Top Gear apparently was the UK version, as they had the three guys each spend 10K on a supercar of their choice and then go through several surprise competitions with them. The chosen Ferrari, Lamborghini and Maserati we’re all dogs and in the end it went to the last horsepower-depleted clunker that could still roll. The guys were hilarious though and added immensely to the appeal of the show.
I’ve got the Cobra episode recorded and will compare tonite.
Well - I want to like it. But for me, it’s too close to the UK original (which I love). Everything is copied - from the furniture on the set, to the Stig, to the track at an abandoned airfield, to the magnetic laptimes, etc. . . . . It just confuses my brain, to see so much that is familiar, but then have it mucked up with new hosts. I would have preferred that they try some more original elements, rather than merely copying everything. (I think copying the Stig was the point where I said enough is enough - try something original, please)
The hosts did a solid job, but aren’t quite enough yet to keep me watching. That said - I probably will keep watching, in hopes that it will get better.
Sadly nobody won that challenge, as James’s car finally ‘ran out of electricity’ and so he couldn’t bring it into the ‘Gentlemen’s club’ with him.
Well, instead of a simple Stig banner they had some sort of projection display, so there’s that (and alas, no ‘Some Say…’ quips either). Actually the other part I like about Top Gear (UK), the ‘News’ which often has some good quips, was cut from Top Gear (US)…probably due to the need for commercial time on THE HISTORY CHANNEL!.
Actually, are those arfields even abandoned? I think they are general aviation fields (or UK equivalent), and they seem to be in good shape (I’m talking about the one they do the time trials on, not the airfield in Georgia the helicopter race took off front). I know they have complained in the UK version about knocking over the runway lights (e.g. the cheap Limo challenge), so maybe the fields are still active but closed during filming.
Well, I’ll give Top Gear (US) a few more chances (maybe even 9 more), lets see where it goes.
Yeah, I thought it was decent.
Clearly, the hosts have to find their rhythm. But the boys from the UK have had years to hone their patter, so it’s not a fair comparison. Let’s see how they’re doing by the end of the season.
But the show had a lot of the great elements of Top Gear - fantastic cars, tremendous production values (the cinematography on Top Gear UK and USA should be winning awards), some great driving, and some fun challenges.
The hosts are really the weak point, but they’ve got potential. Tanner Faust is a hell of a driver - better than any of the other Top Gear Hosts, and he’s got a pretty good sense of humor. He used to do a show on supercars where on occasion he had Hammond-level wit and charm.
The missing piece is there’s no one to fill the Clarkson role - a bombastic, over-the-top blowhard. They should have brought back Adam Carolla from the original pilot. He would have been perfect. But don’t forget, even UK Top Gear had to shuffle the lineup around until they found some chemistry. One of their original presenters was really poor, and they replaced him with James May in the second or third season. Before that, I don’t know if Top Gear UK was much better than the one I just watched.