Top Gear for the USA??
I just came across the new trailer for the proposed new Top Gear (America) that will be shown on the History Channel this coming fall. While I very much so anticipate the show, and hope it will be able to deliver the same as the british version does, I also feel as though I know it never will. Follow the jump for the trailer and more.
It shows promise to be a good show, but like various posts have already alluded to back when the show was supposed to be shown on NBC, it comes down to whether or not the hosts will be able to have the same say anything do anything creative control that they do on the BBC.
Jay Leno puts it best in a post he wrote for The Times Online:
I like the show just the way it is. Jeremy and the guys are extremely talented, so maybe it would be an idea to do an American show similar to Top Gear but not with the same name, because I think it would be impossible to recreate or live up to the standards of the British show.
Another problem for Top Gear in America is the biting humour and criticisms of the cars. My great fear in America is that, for instance, if Kia was our sponsor this week, we’d have to say the car was fantastic.
I said on The Tonight Show recently that the new Kia was available with a heated rear window, so if people needed to push it in winter they could keep their hands warm. Boy, the phones did not stop ringing. So imagine what Jeremy would have to put up with.
I don’t think you could be quite as freewheeling with your opinions as you can on the BBC, because sponsors pay for the programmes. Sponsors would be unlikely to embrace any criticism.
Americans don’t really see personalities like Jeremy on commercial television. They know that they have to be somewhat watered down. When Jeremy rips into some sponsor such as Ford or Chrysler, well, that’s the last time they sponsor that show. Then what you have is “the meeting” after the show, where they tell him to tone it down. That’s just not what they do at Top Gear.
— http://www.timesonline.co.uk/tol/driving/features/article3638037.ece
I really hope that the presenters (none of whom I am familiar with, but will try to read up on) are able to create the same energy and humor that the BBC version does. If they are able to do that, and not have to bow to the advertisers will all the time, I think that the show might just have a chance at being one of my new favorite shows on History channel.
Oops, nothing else quite matches this post.