...On American Top Gear

For years the frankly brilliant piece of Sunday night fun coming to from BBC2, Top Gear, has been brightening up the time you spend before going to bed knowing that when you wake up your back to the work of the daily grind. The combination of the trio's cliche'd personalities makes for excellent 'good time' viewing. The show has been shown all around the world and dubbed and subbed into many different languages but now the format has been sold so countries can start making their own. If the american version is anything to go by, this was a colossal mistake.

As I'm writing I'm watching the first episode of the american show and although it has all the right ingredients there's just something about it that doesn't seem genuine. Maybe this is purely because I don't like formats being sold to America because it's never as good as the original. Or maybe it's that the presenters seem like their heart isn't into what their doing, despite the opening video being a Dodge Viper being chased around a town by a helicopter, similar to what British Top Gear did a couple of times a few years back. I don't mind that their copying, they kind of have to, I mean what else is there left to do? But it's lacking the fun element of it. Maybe I've just got this all wrong and the British trio are just better actors.

I think to sum it up I'll say this; it's doesn't seem quite as well polish or it has a smaller budget that the original. But it's kind of like watching a series of the original Top Gear and then watching a series of Fifth Gear. Both very good in themselves but you know which ones better.