As I’ve written in the past, I’m not an automobile gearhead. That’s odd, given my general affinity for ripping things apart and putting them back together, but that’s the way it is. I enjoy cars but am not passionate about them; I futz with them a little bit but not very much; I don’t understand the enthusiast’s thrill of driving at high speeds and a sportscar is a wasted opportunity in my hands.
But I really, really love Top Gear. Friends of mine have watched the show for years, and I caught snippets of it now and again on BBC America, but it was this piece on 60 Minutes that caused me to program it in to my DVR. I quickly came to realize that Top Gear was just an excuse for three enthusiasts to goof off in exciting (and hilarious) new ways — and have their follies funded by the British government. The fact that it’s wildly entertaining is just a bonus.
The last show I watched was from Season 14, where one of the hosts piloted an airship that had its gondola replaced with a much-hated caravan (the tiny British equivalent of a travel trailer). Regulars know that nothing good is going to happen when a caravan is involved in a Top Gear segment. Sure enough, by segment’s end, the caravan is being dragged along the ground on its side by the balky blimp.
Top Gear is enormously popular around the world, with the British version airing in dozens of countries and local-host versions in Australia and Russia. And now — finally — it’s coming to the U.S.
The show debuts at 10 p.m. Sunday on the History Channel — a disappointing location, given that NBC got very close to making it a mid-season replacement last year — and I can only hope it approximates its British parent. Certainly, the opening show sounds promising: There’s a segment where a Dodge Viper is chased through a town by a Cobra attack helicopter. Former colleague Jayme also notes that an upcoming episode will feature a little moonshine-running. And the three hosts have their own Stig, the “tame racing driver” that’s so much a fun part of Top Gear in Britain.
I don’t know if this show will be any good. I’m not too thrilled about the fact that the show’s most visible host is a comedian (you can almost hear the fake yuks now). But, hey, even if it’s awful, there’s always the British version to fall back on — and there are dozens of those shows that I have yet to watch.
UPDATE 11/22: Watched the first episode tonight. If I’d never seen the British version, I would have found this somewhat interesting/acceptable. Since I *have* seen the British version, several thoughts come to mind.
First, the hosts don’t appear to have any chemistry with each other, although that always might come later. Second, where’s the music? The music is one of the coolest things about British Top Gear. Third, I wish the hosts were a little older (or at least one of them was a little older). The lost-youth aspect of the Brit show, the almost Freudian (and often hilarious) way in which these older men try to seem virile by driving supercars, is completely lost in the U.S. version. The U.S. hosts appear to have been chosen to hit a certain young-male demographic.
Finally, all of the guys in the U.S. show need to remove their corks. Hopefully, that, too, will come in time.
I’m boycotting the show because they booted my boy Dan Neil after some kind of pilot a year or two ago. He would’ve given it exactly what you’re looking for!
Except for Tanner Faust, all of the hosts were 2nd or third or perhaps 4th choices. Why I do not know, perhaps money once it left major network to second rate cable.. but there is no way it can be as good as its BBC parent – it simply does not have the budget. That is one of the keys to its success – its perhaps the first “car”show I have ever seen that had a real budget to pull off these insane adventures.