OK, first off it ain't Top Gear. Now that we have that out of the way...
The latest episode was the best one yet. The guys are starting to get more comfortable in their roles and the segments are getting much better. If anyone was wondering if they would trash talk the cars they tested like the BBC version does, they should be satisfied by now that, yes they will. It looks like there won't be any sponsor scripted reviews and the guys will speak their minds. I enjoyed all the reviews tonight, especially the F150 VelociRaptor. I want to drive one of those bad boys!
Big Star, Small Car is starting to come together as well. Kid Rock is the first legit "car guy" they've had (and it showed). He also didn't hold his opinions back (other than network bleeps).
Don't get me wrong, there's still LOTS of room for improvement. One thing that's lacking is the visual look of the segments. It's clear they are not working on the same budget as the original. The scripted studio banter desperately needs to be worked on as well. But if they continue to progress at this rate it may become a legitimately good show in a season or two.
I see it being picked up for a 3 year deal.
It is coming along, the show overall seems to be warming up from a very very cold start. I feel the first episode should of been cut, I've seen a lot better shows/episodes cut for less motives in the industry, but then there would be this void that was the first Big Star in a Small Car, though that could of been edited and put into another episode and made to eventualy work.
One glaring thing that needs to be polished are their race/challenge segments. Or at least get a director and editor that grasps basic physics so things don't keep magicly going from where they're supposed to be to somewhere that makes it obvious to be scripted. The one episode with the snow traction 4x4 vs snow boarders was very poorly edited and orchestrated, and was obviously a scripted/staged race, likely to hype the product. The car having to "switchback" down the hill through trees, the guys are shown departing the trail and cutting through the trees, should be 0.25-0.5 a mile ahead at least by the time the car makes at least its second switchback after they departed (since before departing the car and snow boarders were keeping the same pace of speed), but no - somehow the car overtakes them to have enough of a lead for them to "randomly" jump over the car at a spot and time that is cinematicly convenient. The slow truck on the mountain road (should of been edited out, like undoubtedly all the other traffic they encountered on that open public road/cource... so then), lets think, why they put/left it in... suspence? Kinda hard to convince anyone else who has been in that same situation that you've been behind a truck for long without any other car stumbling upon the same conjestion behind you, and adding to it... so since there were no other cars that after all that time caught up behind him... was it then really a closed cource? Maybe a camera car was trailing behind him far enough to cause a traffic break... but if they had that control/coordination of the cource, with all those pre-set camera positions along the road and camera cars to follow/lead the car, someone would of been able to of flagged down that truck and have it pull aside in less than a 1/4 a mile.
