It was as I expected, fair. The previews however look like they have some pretty cool stuff coming up. So maybe with time it will get better

 

It was like a Camaro to Britain's Aston Marin Vanquish. Compare cars in a standing
mile, not on their road course? Call their professional driver 'Stig' too? The crucial
element that makes the real Top Gear good is that they found three well-spoken
and humorous JOURNALISTS who love cars. What's the chance in hell that these
new guys are simultaneously capable and allowed to make the politically pointed
side-commentary the Brits were? I wish these new guys well, but I can't hope
yet that they will do anything closer than a blow-up model to the original Pamela...

 

My criticism of the show is that it is too scripted. Maybe it was to give three guys without any dialog something to say, but it was too "fake." The zinger lines were all too rehearsed and they Americanized the challenge. I had the feeling that helicopter chase was shot over the course of 12 shoots instead of one like the real Top Gear and it was overly dramatic. Everything from the whiney guy complaining about the speed, the heroic portrayal of the only decent driver on the show, the accidentally ending up in a cemetery followed by the cheesy commentary, the sitting on the bridge not being able to see the helicopter till it was right on them... it just seemed too fake.

I think once these guys get to know each other and understand the audience it might work its way together... or it will be a season long ode to drifting cars that are not made to "drift"

 

Too forced, to scripted, none of them seem to "gel" together, when you watch TopGear UK you would think they all lived in the same dorm room for 10 years....

Not to mention the absolutely horrible camera work, not sure if they planned on the show failing and did not want to invest much into it, but wow the lambo videos were terrible. They failed when it came to slo-motion shots due to running low frame-rate cameras.

I agree, ** out of *****.

 

I agree with the rest of the points here - except this one.

Top Gear (UK) spends quite sometime to do editing, retakes, reshoots, reenactments of action scenes, etc...

They've admitted as much on the show.

 

Horrible show... besides Tanner the other two guys look awkward on camera. Not only that but there just seems to be such a lack of enthusiasm that the british show has... I was expecting more but left disapointed,.....

 

Its about what I expected. 2/5 stars... enjoyed the Lambo standing mile but dont know how they measured terminal speeds. Looked like speedometers but I hope not. The helicopter segment stupid, imo. The UK show has been this bad on occasion too though.

 

They better improve..would be fun to have 2 good shows as the UK one.

 

I think this review sets the stage pretty well

http://jalopnik.com/5694780/first-drive-top-gear-usa

I'm disappointed, but I expected to be. It will be difficult to live up to the original.

Tanner Foust is an impressive driver but his commentary is that of a dull corporate emotionless robot. If he plays the "Richard Hammond" role ...

I watched the show with my 9 and 7 year olds ... they loved it, though they lost interest before the Lambo event.

 

i dont get any channels worth a crap out on this stupid island in florida, and working most the time so i didn't get to see it =( sounds like i didn't miss much.

 

I'm very confident these guys will get it together with time and hopefully make it just as good if not better then their European counterpart.

 

I agree with this. Did anyone watch the first even 2-3 seasons of UK top gear? It was pretty bad. Not to mention with america everyone is trying to compare it to the UK top gear instead of being a actual car show. Yes some of the stuff needs to be there but its a different show as well.

 

You ever see the first season? They didn't have the current cast thats in there now. Maybe they will remove people. They didn't jell before that. Once they got captain slow it was a completely different show. I have seene very epsiode and this is bar none better then the first season or two

 

I didn't know the first few seasons of Top Gear were that bad. I also didn't know that they didn't have the current cast. I was thinking about watching all of the old Top Gear episodes because I can't seem to find much of anything to watch on TV anymore but after hearing this I might skip it. I haven't seen our version of Top Gear yet. Looks like I didn't miss much from what the guys are saying.

 

I can't remember if it was just the first season they had a different cast. I believe it was. Then the 2nd season it changed to the current cast. After that it changed and got a lot better. But I agree the commentary was a bit boring and they didn't have much character to the commentary. The skits were good tho and entertaining. Its worth watching if you like cars. The stig is a good driver in this show. I would bet its tanner faust being the stig lol. But that being said the original is amazing and will never be replaced but I love watching car stuff so the stuff they do is still good.

Would you rather watch boring shows like they put on speed sometimes or a full hour where they do skits and stuff about cars?