Tom & Ray Please Help out the Hosts of the History channels version of “Top gear”
They just need some mentoring from the car show pro’s.
They don’t need mentoring, they need a non-lame show. Driving a Honda CR-Z around San Francisco? Oh, exciting…
The US show has the same basic format and the same production values as the BBC2 version. Too bad nobody bothered to notice that it’s the hosts that make the UK show. I’ve watched every epsidoe of the US version, and quite frankly it’s almost like the hosts are reading bad jokes off cue cards. Clarkson and company do it better, much better.
I only sat through about 1/2 of one, seemed like a repeat of an exact episode from the Brit version, minus the surprise and humor. Not that the “History” channel has better shows awaiting, so many are anything but “History”. Tonight: “Ancient Aliens”, “Prophets of Doom”, and “Nostradamus Effect”. TRUE history there, right???
Now that I have finally seen the American show, I don’t think Tom and Ray are what they need. Top Gear in the UK is successful, IMHO, because the hosts are (a) an opinionated journalist who loves fast cars, (b) a charming celebrity, and © a wuss who likes fine wine and driving slow.
You can’t just take the same show, and replace these three personalities with three out-of-work comedians. That’s the lazy way to do it. When I first watched UK Top Gear, I had no idea who the hosts were, and I got to know them through the show. Do the same thing with the American version. Find a relatively unknown automotive journalist with an overbearing personality, a charming celebrity, and a relatively unknown authority on anything other than cars. A female advice columnist who likes upscale luxury cars might be interesting.
The UK show has three male hosts, but the American show should have at least one female host to make things interesting. It’s 2011. We have female sports reporters now on TV. Get with it.
As I said in the other thread that I began regarding this sorry program, the three hosts of the US version appear to have had their personalities surgically removed. They make the show about as exciting as watching a glass of water.
I simply can’t make it through an episode. The show reminds me more of "Fear Factor’ than a show for automotive enthusiasts.This one can be labled “Fail”
I’ve got a large aquarium with an algae eater that is about 18" long. This fish spends most of it’s life stuck to the glass and not moving.
There’s more excitement in watching that one fish than all 3 of the TG America hosts put together. At least the fish bristles up now and then and shows some life.
This is why I don’t pay for cable… I can find almost anything I want online now anyway. I must confess. I had high hopes for this show, but after watching 1/2 a show (the one with out of production cars I.E. station wagon and Fiero) I gave up. It seems to calculated for me… I’ll keep watching Jeremy Clarkson though. 
I can see someone liking the show if they hadn’t seen the UK version before, but to those of us who have, a lot of it is just rehashed stuff from the UK version. I still don’t see why they took that Caddy out of commission in that one episode. If it had been the UK version, I’m sure it would have been allowed to continue on it’s way.
It’s like a cheesy mustache. It’s growing on me. Danika Patrick as Bikini Stig would be a good idea.
Glad to know I’m not the only one who hasn’t made it through a full show. My wife enjoys Top Gear UK as much as I do and it isn’t because of the cars.
As for Top Gear USA, the Viper versus the Cobra skit would have been considerably improved if the Cobra had live ammunition.
Ed B.
“Clarkson and company do it better, much better.”
They have had a lot longer to develop their on-camera personalities. And they have different writers and director. I think it’s the team that is in trouble, not just the hosts. I suppose it could be the hosts alone, but Foust and Wood seem better on camera in their other on-screen gigs.
"You can’t just take the same show, and replace these three personalities with three out-of-work comedians. That’s the lazy way to do it. When I first watched UK Top Gear, I had no idea who the hosts were, and I got to know them through the show. Do the same thing with the American version. Find a relatively unknown automotive journalist with an overbearing personality, a charming celebrity, and a relatively unknown authority on anything other than cars. A female advice columnist who likes upscale luxury cars might be interesting. "
They have a professional driver, a celebrity, and an automotive journalist already. I guess they couldn’t get anyone better to audition.
I hear that argument alot, that Top Gear UK hosts have had longer to gel and such, but even if you go back and watch their early episodes together from around 2002, even back then they were miles ahead of where the US hosts are. Foust has never been that engaging a host, his automotive knowledge is outstanding, and he’s an amazing driver, but even on his supercar show he’s just not that interesting. The only time he’s fun to watch is when he has someone with a more extroverted personality to work with, when he was paired with Paul Tracy and they were mic’d up whilst racing each other in exotic cars, he loosened up quite a bit. Rutledge Wood is pretty much the same on Top Gear as he is on the various NASCAR shows he hosts, he’s kinda goofy, but I think his goofiness is exaggerated on Top Gear USA, he’s the artificial comic relief almost. Wood is a car guy, he actually has pretty interesting stuff in his garage. Adam Ferrara is actually turning out to be the most tolerable of the hosts IMHO. You can tell his knowledge of cars is limited compared to the other two, but he seems to be the most opinionated of the three or at least the one that’s allowed to express his opinions the most among the three.
If it were me I would’ve cast Leno (he declined when NBC offered him the gig for their incarnation of Top Gear) Tim Allen, and Kenny Wallace.
Maybe Wallace and Allen were not willing to do it, or they wanted too much money. We’ll never know. But History had auditions, and these are the guys they liked best.
“Danika Patrick as Bikini Stig would be a good idea.”"
No, no. Milka Duno is the one for a Bikini Stig.
I will give the show’s writers credit for coming up with a few funny comments regarding some of the cars in the “selling a used car” segment.
I can’t recall all of the one-liners, but a couple of them were:
“The Dodge Caliber–The car for someone who is confused about everything in his life.”
“A used Jaguar for $6,995? That’s not a bad price since this is only equal to the annual repair costs for a Jag!”
Does anyone recall the other snarky comments that they made?
Edited to add:
I just remembered another of their comments:
“The BMW 3-series–The car for the young woman whose parents will buy her whatever she wants.”
Why does the History channel run the shows you mention so many,many times (you forgot about the “bigfoot” type shows that also run constantly). History really had a good thing going until these type of shows dominated. Sure it is OK to give these type of shows some air time but not so often.