Top Gear Australia

Tonight on SBS saw the debut of the local version of the hit U.K motor show Top Gear.

I'm a big fan of Top Gear. I love the antics of Jeremy Clarkson, Richard Hammond and James May oh I should mention The Stig as well. I love the fun segments and especially and this is the key here I love the sense of humor of the show. You see the main reason the UK Top Gear is so popular is because of the personalties and the wit of the hosts.

Top Gear Australia has none of that. The hosts of TGA (Charlie Cox, Warren Brown & Steve Pizzati) have no charisma and have the sense of humor of a office manager. Plus they trying too hard to be like Clarkson, Hammond and May with embarrassing results. SBS has put a lot of money into this show and left out the main ingredient on what made the UK version popular. I knew they would do this. I just knew that some suit at the network said 'Hey that car show is popular lets make our own version. It will be great cause it has Aussie cars and content and we will measure in Kilowatts' without sitting down to watch the original.

The U.S have done the right thing and have the UK crew film exclusive content just for them (With a lot of fat jokes I'm guessing). What SBS has done have taken a show and lot of people liked and what they have done is made a piece of junk that no one really asked for in the first place. A disaster.

I can imagine Jeremy Clarkson seeing this show and making fun of it in the latest season of the UK Top Gear (To air in Australia sometime in 2022) A huge thumbs down.

Gad, what an abomination. They hold an open casting call, creating the impression they're actually looking for good presenters, and instead they overlook all presenting ability and go for 3 dreary motoring columnists with all the wit and charm of Peter Lorre and all the dashing good looks of George Formby. Where was the humour? All we got was three ill-at-ease middle aged twits with no personality hooning around on some sand dunes, pretending to enjoy themselves and guffawing hysterically at every whimsical comment. How about Charlie explaining the technical details of a car's transmission by doodling a diagram in the dirt? I mean really, does your average Top Gear fan give a Peter Luck how the car works? And what exactly was the point of the shark stunt, and what did it have to do with cars?? About the only joke I can recall from the entire show was some nauseatingly unfunny quip about Victoria Police "busting a cap in someone's ass", which was followed by a round of self-congratulation and an appeal to the bemused audience for applause. Oh and of course there was the obligatory attempt to imitate some of Clarkson's outspokenness, by taking a cheap and unfunny shot at the government over their luxury car tax.

Maybe if they'd tried to do something a bit different, rather than just imitating all the personality traits of the original hosts, it might not have looked so bad. As it is, they look like really bad Cliff Richard impersonators in an Elvis impersonator's competition. The bloke who plays Richard Hammond, Steve Pizzati, got on my nerves too. I can only imagine how grating that whiny soprano and irritating cackle will be by the end of the series.

I was actually considering auditioning for the James May role when they had the casting call, but I wouldn't have gotten it as I'm way too funny.

I'm sure the BBC execs are sharpening their axe as I type. It's rather amusing that the only original segment was titled What Were They Thinking, as it summed up my reaction to the BBC's decision to commission this steaming pile.

The presenters are just not funny. The main guy is OK but the other two are just terrible. They they speak they try way to hard to be cool as if they are better than the UK crew. They are horribly wrong. The worst thing about them is that they THINK they are funny. They laugh at the littlest things they do. While the rest of us are sitting there with our pet crickets.

Now on to the show itself, too much budget went into this show you can tell by the way the presenters do the test driving and challenges. Every time they do the doughnut burning those tires it makes me want to weep. Every time they crash a nice new car into something, my heart tightens. They have absolutely no respect for the cars they drive.

AND They almost always use new cars in their challenges which IMO is stupid. 80% of my love for Top Gear IS their old junk challenges. Top Gear Australia is a huge disappointment. Major modifications needed.

My review is based on TG Australia First Season.

The first thing that sprung to mind within the first couple of minutes while watching this was that the program was trying way to hard to impress Top Gear fans. I mean sure, it is a daunting task to take on the duty and try to outdo the fabulous UK version but please! enough already.

The problem is that nothing was fresh, inventive. There was no new material, no new sets and no new personalities that would've, obviously, added much needed variety to the Australian show. It seems the BBC have tried to fool the public into believing that the great Jeremy Clarkson, James May and Richard Hammond can be easily replaced by a bunch of dull gits and everything would be great. How wrong they were! Where was the Australian wit? The individuality? The humour?! *Yawn* B-O-R-I-N-G. The segments were pathetic and over dramatized and for the love of God, shut Steve Pizzati up! Put us out of our misery BBC and run this down with a Geewiz and bring back the UK Top Gear pronto!

When I saw there was a new Top Gear Australia with all new hosts I had high hopes but sadly I was let down immediately!

The new hosts unfortunately are little improvement over their former collegues with all of the same problems.

Firstly there is no chemistry between the three of them. Their banter is that of uninformed drunk idiots at a party. Throwing our random comments of little intellignce that just dont gel with one another, they dont inform and they certainly dont entertain.

I only kept watching because i wanted to see the latest cars and innovations but the cast dont seem to know anything about cars or even how to drive them well!

I found myself fast forwarding a lot or turning the sound off so I didn't have to listen to their crap commentary.

I'm going back to rewatch the 3 original british boys weave their magic. Their re-runs certainly beat this rubbish.