Originally Posted by topdeck

They did the Star in a Reasonably Priced Car first, to accommodate the guest. The celebrity guest was actually The Hoff! David Hasselhoff himself. Actually a funny segment and a great way to loosen the crowd up once we saw the track was a respectable copy of the original. The first turn is called Talledega and the last big left turn is called the Al Gore.

They then reset for the show open, the three guys introduced themselves and they showed the opening titles which got everyone excited. The shots from that 20-30 seconds looked amazing. After the titles they introduced the fourth team member, The Stig. This was another film with an Ariel Atom dropped from a cargo plane by parachute and The Stig with a parachute pack chasing it. The car lands but you don't see The Stig open his chute, it cuts right to Stiggy driving the Atom through the desert. The photography is exactly what you would expect from Top Gear. I assume that's because its the same people making the show and they know how its done.

Next was the cheap car challenge. Each guy was given $2500 in Las Vegas and told to buy a classic 80's sports car. Adam had to buy an American car and the other two had to buy a foreign. Eric bought a Porsche (not sure what model I'm not a car buff), Tanner bought a Japanese car I can't remember and Adam bought a Pontiac Firebird. The first challenge was to drive to a track, with penalties for breakdowns. Once they were at the track, Stig set lap times with the fastest time winning. They then set up a corridor of junk and the guys had to drive the car through the corridor at 30 MPH with no hands on the wheel. This had some great 80's TV crash references with boxes flying everywhere. They were then given $100 to prepare their car for a trip to the bottom of Death Valley. After the guys wandered around a junk yard looking for ideas there was a commercial break.

Next was a Adam reviewing the new Audi R8, which was then joined by Tanner in the new Aston Martin. Both cars were in the $120K range for comparison. They then argued about the cars in the studio before showing the Stig taking both out for a lap. These were the first two cars on the leaderboard. Adam made fun of the Aston Martin for being the "third best Aston Martin on the market" and Tanner called the Audi boring and German.

And now, the news. There were a few reshoots of this segment so the guys could adlib new takes and I'm sure only a few will make the cut. Adam Corolla is very, very funny. Clarkson is the best at the in car review obviously, but I really enjoyed watching Adam in the studio. There was a planted bit where a girl in the audience was asked a question and I'm pretty sure she was an actress I have seen before on television. She stayed for the whole shoot as an audience member though, so I'll give her props for sticking it out with the rest of us.

After the news they finished off the cheap car challenge. All three guys had made ridiculous "cooling" modifications to their cars in true Top Gear fashion. In fact, I could easily see the same gag being used for their UK counterparts. They then drove to the bottom of Death Valley where they were given one final challenge. This was the highlight of the night. Each car was dropped off a bridge, connected to a massive bungee cord. There would be points deducted for each bit that fell off of the car.

After the film the guys went over the points for each challenge. This was reshot several times. Mostly because none of the guys could do math or remember how many points each challenge was or why they were assigned. There was plenty of opportunity for Adam to adlib some funny lines with each retake so it wasn't too boring. Everyone was dead tired by this point but they had to bring up a shot from the opening of the show (which was like 6 hours ago) and rearrange everyone into the same positions they were in the audience to do a 10 second pickup. Mercifully that was the last shot.

The show looks great, everyone had fun watching the filmed segments, the audience was filled with fans of the original show and I think everyone was impressed with how much they were able to live up to it.