An open letter to the guys at Top Gear USA

You guys have been taking a lot of flack and it’s not deserved.
You are a brand new show on a basic cable channel. Instead of being compared to Auction Hunters or Parking Wars, your benchmark is a show on the largest broadcaster in ..... the world. Top Gear has had a decent budget and eight years to perfect their craft.

          BBC World Headquarters

            

The History Channel Headquarters



They started with hosts that were fairly well known and they had a clear vision of what they wanted. The cinematography is on par with anything Hollywood has to offer. Their choice of music is sublime; it often has a cheeky tangential connection to what is being discussed. Most importantly they had a clear vision of what they wanted. There was also time for them to develop organically. Segments were expanded or dropped; there was even a host that was replaced. Much of this happened while it was just another car show. There is a lot of freedom when you are not in the spotlight.

Because Top Gear has a large and loyal fan base there was a lot of internet chatter long before your show ever started to film. It was going to be on NBC, it was going to be hosted by Jay Leno or Adam Carolla. Was there going to be a Stig? Would it be the same Stig? The biggest threads seemed to be that there was no way that any copy would be anywhere as good as the original Top Gear. Once people have decided that they don’t like something, even before they have seen it, you have an incredibly tough job convincing them they were wrong.

So far I have seen exactly one episode of Top Gear USA. It is the one with the “moonshine challenge”. I would have watched them all but the History Channel‘s website has been a little wonky and there are not any channels carrying it in Canada.

I don’t really know the hosts yet. There is the Kevin Smith looking guy, who is apparently from the south, the guy from New Jersey who sounds vaguely like Joe Pesci and the drifting guy. It will take a while to learn their personalities. We saw a flash of potential when they were reviewing the new Mustang performance package. One of them loved it and the other was very critical of it. This was very reminiscent of the Top gear we know and love. Do more of this. The audience is afraid that you will be too scared to give an honest appraisal of a car unlike our British friends.

Who are these guys?

 I was disappointed with the cheap car challenge. The challenges are some of my favourite parts of Top Gear. You missed a pivotal part of the traditional Top Gear Challenges. The guys were sent out to buy cars for $ 1000 but, unlike the British version, they were not given the theme. We are used to the hosts being told they are going to drive to a certain location or prove a certain point. From what the audience was shown, the guys were not told what the objective was until they had purchased the cars. This made it a little less interesting as there was less justification for their choices. It was also a little weird that while we are still trying to figure out who is who, two of the hosts were wearing plaid shirts, unless this is the Top Gear USA uniform.

Somebody forgot their checked shirt

It was a little odd that there seemed to be no reference to the original Top Gear show. There were things that a Top Gear fan would recognise but things like the Stig may be a little odd for somebody who is new to the brand. The studio audience didn’t seem to know what to make of the hosts bickering. Maybe there should be some sort of warm up act to draw the audience in.

There are a couple of changes that could make a world of difference:

I think your best value for money and time would be to introduce the Top Gear Cool Wall. It is so cheap to do. All you need is a wall segmented in to “Seriously Un Cool”, “Un Cool”, “Cool”, ”Sub Zero” and some pictures of cars. The audience learns a lot about the hosts as they debate where the cars should sit.

Very entertaining, good value for money

Expand the news segment. It is a great opportunity for the hosts to debate and inject some humour in to the show.

Reference the British show. It would help to explain things like the Stig, well as much as he can be explained.

I want to like this show. I like the idea of seeing more cars that are applicable to my world. We don’t see many Peugeots or Austin Marinas here in North America. The original Top Gear is known for dropping pianos on Austin Marinas. I would like to see the USA boys doing something similar with the North American equivalent, the K-car.

Marina about to be crushed by a piano

     

         










One Klassy K-car



 It is unfair that you are being compared to the original Top Gear. In reality it should be compared to the almost unwatchable Motorweek. No offence to the men and women who made this show but it is awful. Everything on Motorweek is presented in the most scripted and wooden way. They have also never reviewed a car that they didn’t love. It can be hard. All of these shows walk a fine line. If they are too critical the manufacturers might not let them play with their toys. If they are not critical enough their opinion is worthless.


In short, keep up the good work guys. I don’t think you have the recipe exactly right yet. You have all the components. As you work together you will get more comfortable, less of the show will have to be scripted and the more natural it will feel. Keep working the mix and, if they give you enough time, you’ll figure it out.

Top Gear America

As you may have seen earlier in my blog I am a big fan of the TV show Top Gear. For those of you who are not familiar, it is a TV show, magazine and a website (http://www.topgear.com/uk/ ). Last year NBC had planned to do an American version. This went sideways with the economic downturn and the failure of Knight Rider. Now there are reports that the History Channel has picked it up for 12 episodes. This idea has me very excited and very worried.

Of course I would like to see top gear produced on this side of the pond. There would be more coverage of cars and situations that are applicable to my life, more in jokes that I can catch and more guests that I recognise.

This would not be the first time that a TV show has been re-done for a North American audience. There have been some great successes; The Office, All in the Family (Till Death do us Part U.K.) and Three’s Company (Man About the House U.K.) and some great failures; Red Dwarf, Fawlty Towers (Chateau Snavely U.S., Amanda’s U.S. and Payne U.S.) and Coupling.

My fears:

What I am really worried about is somebody doing a bargain basement version of my favourite show. You can make a relatively cheap car show. I have seen many of them. You get a couple of hosts, it is helpful but not required that they know something about cars. It is more important that they can read a teleprompter. Your set needs; a couple of chairs, you can steal them out of the production office, a sign with the shows name on it, this can be done by any 2nd year graphic design student for a line on their resume and a case of beer, and some random car bits borrowed from your local scrap yard. Some shows haven’t even bothered with a set, saving even more money.

I am sure that the people who work on these shows are good, hard working folks but their goal seems to be filling a ½ hour of TV as cheaply as possible. They know that as long as they are relatively positive about every car they look at, the car companies will be more than happy to drop off vehicles for them to look at. It won’t be the big, expensive and cool stuff but that doesn’t matter. The 5 minute “news” segment will be easily filled by somebody reading from the stack of press releases sent over by the manufacturers. It is the same formula they use on the entertainment news shows, just substitute actor for car and add in Ben Mulroney if you happen to be in Canada.

What it will look like if they do it right:

First thing they will need is a cinematographer. There is a lot of artistry that goes in to the Top Gear shoots. It is done so well it makes other car shows look like that wedding video shot by your weird uncle with the tremors.

They also need to choose their hosts very carefully. Ideally they would be entertaining and have some opinions on cars. There are a few names that have come up repeatedly around this. Jay Leno is often mentioned. He does know a lot about cars and he does own his own automotive museum but I don’t think this is the right gig for him. His personality and celebrity would turn it in to “Jay Leno’s Top Gear”. I know Adam Carolla has a car podcast and that his name often comes up in connection with this project. He seems to know his stuff and he doesn’t seem to be afraid of giving his opinion. Christopher Titus would be another good host. He loves cars and is outspoken. If they need a third host, yes I would be interested ;) Yes I know that I am just one of a million Top Gear fans who would want the job but ..... i said it first. Mind you, if they really need a Canadian host Jim Kenzie is both qualified and funny. http://jimkenzie.com/

In the original show they do a segment called ‘star in a reasonably priced car’. It is exactly what it sounds like. They drop these people in a cheap car and send them around the track and time their laps. They throw in a short interview as well that usually involves Jeremy Clarkson teasing them about the cars they have owned. In North America I am sure the agents and lawyer s would have coronaries thinking about their clients whipping around a track. Jay Leno tried to bring a version of this to his ill fated 10 pm show. By the time his ‘star in a car’ segment made it to air they were driving a hybrid car around a parking lot past cardboard cutouts.

This is exactly what I am afraid will happen to the whole show. They will suck all the joy out of it. They will run it through focus groups and make sure nobody’s feelings are getting hurt and it will be Top Gear in name only. I really like the original show. It is fun and silly. If they think a car is a piece of junk they will say so. On time they hated a car so badly, they bought one, drove it off the lot and destroyed it with a sledge hammer. It is a show where they celebrate guys being guys and they manage to do it without objectifying women.

To sum up, this is a plea to whoever has any pull with anybody who has pull with the producers of Top Gear USA (if they ever manage to get their stuff together and get it made), please please please for the love of God please don’t screw up my favorite show. I promise, if you do this right not everybody will like it, but those who do will be fiercely loyal fans.