The bits where they lean too much on their chemistry are grating, and it feels very scripted at times, but mostly its just a load of fun.
I like the replacement for star in a reasonably priced car is to pretend that celebrities keep dying on the way to the tent. It was boring watching the celebs going round the track again and again.
The first episode was absolutely dire. It picks up from there, but it still feels a bit tired and formulaic. The scripted banter is a bit too scripted, the characters are drawn a little too broadly. The production values are impeccable, but there's a paucity of new ideas.
If you were dying to see more Top Gear, then it ticks all the right boxes. Personally, I lost interest by episode four.
Were they brainstorming backstage thinking 'we have to say something that will get us into the papers again', and then Hammond pipes up with 'ice cream is gay?' and Clarkson clicks his fingers and says 'yes. go with it'.
I thought it was really shit, but I hadn't enjoyed the regular episodes of Top Gear since about 2010/11.
And, I'd like to make a different point, despite my odds of catching shit for it being high. When I visited the cinema last month there were two adverts for Amazon prior to the film. The first was centred around the Lady and the Tramp-esque relationship between an Eskimo Shaman and a Catholic Arch-Nonce, in which they used the power of online shopping to buy each other knee protectors so when they're committing the relevant forms of idolatry their old man bones don't ache. Dumb, cynical, trite. Just another advert. Five minutes later, after a piracy warning and some glory shots of an Audi or whatever, Clarkson turns up and says something that might have been edgy were he still on the Beeb, but he's not so it isn't. As he's throwing drones into the sea for no real reason, it occurs to me that this is a fella' most famous for calling an anonymous Burmese chap a "slope" on national television, and that Amazon are displaying their black hearted avarice by having him follow their prior ad like I wouldn't fucking notice. Well, I definitely did notice Amazon, you massive bastards, and just as soon I've spent the twenty-five pound gift vouchers my uncle got me for Christmas, I don't think I'll be using your service ever again.
>>21489 They really do - it's just a touch more edgy and stupid than TG was, they actually properly laugh-out-loud. They're 8 and 11 before you ask. I think they also love being able to binge-watch it. Many of the episodes are completely over the top in a lovable way (the one with all the dressing up in guns and military, with the Audi, particularly).
Personally I think it's a pretty good show. I've also taken Amazons shilling for a living (no longer), so I know what it is like to work for them. It's not Top Gear, and not bad for it.
I didn't like the "killing the guest" thing at first, but its actually quite amusing now and saves a lot of sycophancy ("So, you've a new book/show/film out...") that is required of such things. The later episodes are definitely better.
It's interesting how risqué they can be now - nailing the dildo to the steering wheel in the latest episode, for instance, just not the kind of thing they would ever get away with on the BBC.