I tried a little experiment yesterday.
I have a friend who watches TGUK primarily for the presenters as she has no interest in cars. I wondered how she would react to the TG format without the presenters she knows and - well, to be quite honest has a middle-aged crush on (it's a recognised phenomenon; a book that has just been published recently,
Wendy: The Bumper Book of Fun for Women of a Certain Age by Jenny Eclair and Judith SomeoneWhoseSurnameEscapesMe even includes, amid humorous tips on coping with hot flushes and full page pin-ups of Richard Madeley and Phillip Schofield, a follow-the-lines game entitled "Which Top Gear Presenter Do You Fancy?"). So I showed her the latest ep of TGA.
Here are her exact words.
"It's a clone. But it's a
good clone."
She immediately slotted the Australian presenters into their UK-equivalent roles but beyond that, she didn't go into the kind of analysis we've all been going into a bit here. And simply by taking it on face value, she actually enjoyed it. She might not watch every week, but then... and I know this is unthinkable... she doesn't always manage to watch every single episode of TGUK either
But anyway, my deeply scientific survey shows that a casual viewer* can enjoy TGA.
*well, my survey only covered
a viewer...