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The US version of Top Gear....

Scotty

Scotty

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Rear Admiral
The US version of Top Gear is set to air on The History Channel (there's a logical choice(!)) in the states later this year, accoring to this IGN article.

According to the BBC the spin-off will be hosted by comedian Adam Ferrara, racing analyst Rutledge Wood and stunt driver Tanner Foust. At present 10 episodes have been commissioned.
Hosted by Jeremy Clarkson, James May and Richard Hammond, the UK version of Top Gear is a humorous look at the world of motor vehicles, and BBC Worldwide's Jane Tranter believes the show's popularity could translate.

"There's a different relationship with cars in the US and a fascination with customisation that's much greater than in the UK", explained Tranter. "There's the potential for the US Top Gear to have even greater traction with an audience."
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How fast will this show crash and burn? Who here thinks like me, that the success of Top Gear is due to the incredible chemisty between Clarkson, May and Hammond. It can't be duplicated or improved upon. It will like, the Aussie version, crash and burn.
 
^This is totally different from the deceased NBC project.

It will still suck, but I'll give it a shot. I'll bet it ends up being more like Fifth Gear meets some terrible gear-head show on Spike TV. I hope I'm wrong.

I think if I go into it expecting Top Gear (I'm not going to call it Top Gear UK) I'll automatically be disappointed, so I'll try to watch it on its own merits. The hosts don't excite me though.
 
Dear God, No!

I was thinking, that if they'd just air unedited versions of the original (even the episodes from 2001), they would probably get better ratings.
 
Roger Wilco said:
FordSVT said:
^This is totally different from the deceased NBC project.
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Yeah, but this sounds even more commercialised and un-Top Gear.
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Exactly. *I* watch Top Gear, and I don't know sweet FA about cars, nor do I really care to. I watch it because of the hilariously stupid things those three guys do (often to each other)--for instance, the long trek through the rain forest. It's about them, and how their personalities clash; the business with the cars is fairly incidental.
 
^^ Exactly. I can't tell apart a Toyota from a Chevrolet but I love the show because of the chemistry between the hosts, and the insane challenges. Also, Top Gear has that typical Brit humour that just wouldn't translate to any other version of the show.
 
I hope it gets cancelled quickly because the History Channel has no business doing a show about cars unless it's the history of cars. (Which would be pretty interesting come to think of it.)

Frakken History Channel, clean up your act! Their idea of history is Nostradamus bullshit. At least they aren't obsessed with Nazis anymore. They need to look at what the Discovery Channel is doing - actually focusing on their supposed subject matter!

And then there's Animal Planet. Time was, it was a great place to go to get away from all the humans that infest everything else on TV (even the Weather Channel). But now their shows are all about humans - saving whales, training dogs, being attacked by lions. ARGH! NO PEOPLE! :rommie:
 
Temis the Vorta said:
I hope it gets cancelled quickly because the History Channel has no business doing a show about cars unless it's the history of cars. (Which would be pretty interesting come to think of it.)

Frakken History Channel, clean up your act! Their idea of history is Nostradamus bullshit. At least they aren't obsessed with Nazis anymore. They need to look at what the Discovery Channel is doing - actually focusing on their supposed subject matter!

And then there's Animal Planet. Time was, it was a great place to go to get away from all the humans that infest everything else on TV (even the Weather Channel). But now their shows are all about humans - saving whales, training dogs, being attacked by lions. ARGH! NO PEOPLE! :rommie:
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Agreed about the History Channel and Top Gear. I don't understand how that sort of car show would be appropriate for History? It seems very off-brand to me.

As for Animal Planet, the network has completely changed their programming strategy over the last couple of years. Gone are most of the "cute" animal shows, in favor of things like "River Monsters" or "Monsters Inside Me"... essentially saying that nature and animals are all evil and deadly. Plus, there are a lot more humans being showcased than before. And now they're giving Mike Tyson a show about pigeon racing. Are you effing kidding me?! But guess what - ratings for APL have gone up. So someone out there must be loving this stuff.
 
It's a bit premature to hope for the cancellation of a show no one's even seen. I'm pessimistic about it too but I'll at least give Top Gear USA a couple episodes before passing judgment.
 
I watch the real thing on BBCA, and love it. These shouldn't be any more US "versions" of British shows. The US mostly has no sensibility for British humor, even if that humor goes into a US version. And if not, the show isn't even going to be close to the UK version in content, outside of being about cars.

The problem with History channel doing this type of thing is, that all cable channels have become amalgamated crap channels. SyFy does wrestling, Cartoon network (I think) hardly does any cartoons anymore but movies (maybe it's one of the other cartoon channels). Even VH1 Classic hardly ever shows music videos anymore. When I got satellite 5 years ago, it was showing videos most of the time. Now it's movies and (somewhat) music related programming.

Instead of many, very specific channels, we get many generic channels showing the same crap.
 
Mr. Adventure said:
I'd have thought that Speedvision would make a good home for this show.
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The Channel is called SPEED, has been for years. I'd rather a channel I can subscribe to that has more than 800,000 peak viewers. Most get History (along with Discovery, TLC, etc) in their basic cable package, not so for SPEED. History shows like Ice Road Truckers routinely float about 2-3 million people with more for premiers. It definitely sounds like a better fit at SPEED content-wise but I don't think it would get a very high sustained viewership there.

Ar-Pharazon said:
I watch the real thing on BBCA, and love it. These shouldn't be any more US "versions" of British shows.
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I torrent Top Gear because I don't want to watch a paired down 3/4 version of the original.
 
Even if they have the fat american STIG on I wont watch this. Now if they would have just renamed the show Gear Heads or something ok I would have given it a look. But trying to duplicate a terrific show like Top Gear. Dont try!!
 
FordSVT said:
Mr. Adventure said:
I'd have thought that Speedvision would make a good home for this show.
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The Channel is called SPEED, has been for years. I'd rather a channel I can subscribe to that has more than 800,000 peak viewers. Most get History (along with Discovery, TLC, etc) in their basic cable package, not so for SPEED. History shows like Ice Road Truckers routinely float about 2-3 million people with more for premiers. It definitely sounds like a better fit at SPEED content-wise but I don't think it would get a very high sustained viewership there.
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Haven't watched "SPEED" since they used to show unedited widescreen road movies like "Two Lane Blacktop" and "Vanishing Point" so what do I know.

I'm sure we'd all like the shows we're interested in to be on the channels we get but I just thought it sounded like a better fit. Besides more viewers doesn't necessarily equate to better treatment for the shows in question.
 
Icemizer said:
Even if they have the fat american STIG on I wont watch this. Now if they would have just renamed the show Gear Heads or something ok I would have given it a look. But trying to duplicate a terrific show like Top Gear. Dont try!!
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Bullshit! If the Brits can do a Brit version of This Is Your Life, then Americans can do Top Gear.

Frankly, I think that Top Gear is overrated shit about a bunch of auto snobs going on and on about expensive high-performance cars that most of us can't afford while blasting more ordinary vehicles (their put down of the Ford F-150 pick-up truck rubbed me the wrong way, as does their denial of global warming.) I don't think that Top Gear UK is a show that could work on Speed anyway-the Americans that watch it would be getting very bitchy about anything said about the Big Three's products.
 
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