So for past half an hour or so I have been reading comments on TGUS filming on Jalopnik and here. It sounds like the producers did a reasonable job in retaining the brilliance of the UK version. If you read my past comments, you'll see that I was (and to extent still am) critical of the show's success. However, I'm pleased to see that there is a real attempt being made to make this thing work.
What I hope will happen is as time goes by, the American version won't deviate too much from the UK one. I believe this happened with US The Office. If Clarkson holds the rights to the show, or at least a majority, then I hope him and Willman are keen on holding a tight grip on show's continuity.
They must not let some marketing goofball at NBC dictate how the show should be more adapted to the American audience. In other words, they must not let it get dumbed down for the "average" viewer. It's a force to be reckoned with, so they must anticipate handling these sorts of "TG challenges."
Also there will be difficulty with cars themselves because US car market is very very very very very very dull. Yes there are some cars on horizon which are worth getting excited about, but for the most part there are very few interesting products. Will Adam and gang going to be ripping apart every boring car (and there is a ton of them here in US)?
Look at Europe with the newly revived Alfa range, Fiat, Seat, Renault, Peugeot. Or the fantastic Ford products (which are not sold in US...it is pathetic, I'm sorry, but Ford Fusion is nowhere close to Mondeo by any measure).
There is an underlying fabric here of US car market which is going to be a major challenge to overcome. I don't see anyone getting excited about Mercury Sable, or Buick LaCrapCrosse review.
Good luck to all. Lastly, I really hope that US car market will start to change soon. I am just fed up with mediocre cars sold here. I much rather be driving 2000 328i w/ sport pckg, than a VW GTi for NA market...decontented, and raised suspension where damn thing now looks like Golf Plus.