Top Gear [1], possibly the best thing the British have ever managed to ever create, is coming to the United States. NBC announced today [2] the details behind what is being called "Top Gear USA" which has to be the lamest title ever... You may remember a few years ago when the BBC version of Top Gear [3] started showing up on the Discovery Channel, which begs the question, "WTF?" Well, apparently the kinds of Americans that like insanely expensive and insanely fast cars are the same Americans that think all Englishmen are homosexuals and do get the Discovery Channel. So what's gonna be different this time around? Well, everything...
NBC is going to be responsible for the show this time around, so there will be a bigger audience to cater to right off the bat. Considering that this is the network that has brought us My Name is Earl and American Gladiators, I'm not too optimistic about the yankeefied version of Top Gear.
The greatness of the BBC Top Gear series is that it's fancy and pretentious without being snobbish. Which doesn't sound like a compliment, but it is. It's a very very English show. There are tons of jokes that I don't get and I always fast forward through the celebrity interviews because I don't give two shits about what Sir Chatworth McKensingsmith thinks about the new Vauxhall Astra or how fast he drives it around the test track. What makes up for this, as far as I'm concerned, are the driving films. One of my absolute favorite shows in the history of television is the episode of Top Gear where James May and Richard Hammond fly from Italy in a small Cessna as Jeremy Clarkson races them to London, in a Bugatti Veyron [4]. The entire episode was just clips of the Bugatti racing through the Alps, through the south of France and through the London at night. All the while Hammond and May are having their odd couple moments at 10,000ft. It was awesome. It's moments like these that make Top Gear popular.
So what'll the bastardized Yankee version of Top Gear look like? Here is a press shot from the new set:
The first thing that came to mind when I saw the photo was that this looked too much like one of the low budget car shows [5] that air on Spike TV before noon on Saturdays. You'll certainly recognize one guy from the press photo. Adam Corolla is joined by two dudes I've never heard of before, Tanner Foust and Eric Stromer. One of them is a rally car driver but lists Fast and Furious: Tokyo Drift and The Dukes of Hazard movies on his resume, the other guy drives a hybrid and works for HGTV... I don't care which is which, it won't make the show any less lame. Seriously, this is the best they could do?
All I can hope for is that the format of the US Top Gear show remains true to the original. I know there won't by an ten minute long segments about how the new BMW 6 Series handles itself on the Isle of Wight, but there better be some decent 'on location' reviews and not just, "Hey, we've got the new Ford F350 in San Diego and then we'll show you the new Dodge Ram live from San Antonio." I want to see a Ford GT in Alaska or a Dodge Viper drive through the Rockies. The worst possible incarnation of this show would be to have The Stig be a NASCAR driver and every week we have to watch him take a new model around Talladega. That'd probably get better ratings than the BBC Top Gear series, but it doesn't make it a good idea.
I'd rather everyone just leave well enough alone. Americans don't need their own version of Top Gear... If anything they just need the BBC version of Top Gear, don't change anything. If people are too retarded to appreciate it the way it was meant to be then it's their loss.