There has been a resolutely one way traffic flow with regard
to TV shows appearing on US and UK screens; every over show on in the UK is an
unchanged, American import whilst everything that goes the other way gets
remade on the journey. Maybe there is an island for the process somewhere in
the middle of the Atlantic with a machine for carrying out the remodelling
process.
Anywho, Top Gear USA,
whilst being a remake, shares enough of the genes of its British forefather to
be recognisable to audiences over here in Blighty but enough differences to
give it a sense of American….ness.
We’ll start off with the stuff that has been packed up from
UK Top Gear and shipped over the
Atlantic. Same theme music, same warehouse-style set, same combination of car
reviews and challenges, same number of presenters, same dicking around, same
interviewing segment with a celebrity driving around their version of the Top Gear test track. Basically what I’m
getting at is the format is very, very similar. Not quite sure why that
surprises me, kind of comes with the territory of “being a remake”.
One thing they haven’t tried to copy exactly like for like is
the three presenters of British Top Gear.
There was a larger, nerdier guy with a beard (a bit like James May at a push),
a guy with a sticky up fringe (Richard Hammond-esque) and another guy with
receding hair who looks a bit older and does the interviewing (Jeremy Clarkson,
therefore), all of whom made such a large impression on me that none of their
names stuck. And so, for the rest of their review, they shall be referred to by
their British names. Oh, and another difference, the gratuitous amount of
swearing.
The montage they put together at the start of the show to
showcase what would be coming up over the series looked promising; similes,
quips, fast cars, challenges that threaten injury, low level property damage
and piss taking and the first show of the series pretty much was par for the
course.
It involved “Hammond” and “May” trying to outrun a military
helicopter in a Shelby Cobra through the streets of a Georgian town, “Clarkson”,
“Hammond” and “May” going really, really fast on a long, straight road to find
the best Lamborghini ever made and “Clarkson” interviewing Buzz Aldrin for
about two and a half minutes followed by the poor old fella tootling around the
track in a Suzuki. All pretty standard Top
Gear fare then. Which is fine by me as each of the segments worked, if not
quite as polished as their British counterparts just yet.
Now for the bad stuff; to begin with, the backing
soundtrack, usually such a strong element of the Top Gear package was lacking
with inappropriate music being used or it just being too quiet
Secondly, at times all three presenters suffer from a wooden
on-screen style and the banter between co-presenters seems somewhat forced
though, to be fair, on-screen chemistry just doesn’t happen overnight, even if
the participants do happen to be perfect for each other. UK Top Gear took a good four years to
develop the interchanges it has now between its presenters and there were
glimmers of chemistry, particularly in the out and about, recorded segments.
Overall, I wanted to hate this show. I wanted to despise the
fact it was an American remake of a British television institution. I wanted to
mock its attempts to import British humour to an American audience. I wanted to
belittle it’s presenters for having the gall to try to recreate it. I wanted it
to blow up in an explosion of American bombast.
And yet, it was far from unwatchable;
the presenters are knowledgable and passionate, the filiming is splendid and
the content is thought out, if a little bit on the short side leaving things
being rushed through or not fully explored. If it was called something other
than Top Gear, I probably wouldn’t
watch it so it’s living on its brand for the time being but it’s certainly
worth sticking with, just to see what else they’ve come up.
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