HOWEVER, TGUK had nothing to base off of for Series 1. All they had was old Top Gear which was cancelled due to appalingly low viewership so you really can't work off that if you want to create a successful show. Top Gear USA on the other hand had 15 Series' of TGUK to base on (which has about 300 million viewers per episode worldwide) and 2-3 Series' of Top Gear Australia to base on.
Fixed.
That's the problem a lot of those who've said "TG USA SUCKS!" have, I think. They're comparing what was (at the time) an essentially brand new show* to its predecessor after it's had eight years' worth of stuff in the can, and they set themselves up for disappointment.
Of course TG USA would have some growing pains. Of course it wouldn't be as slick as the UK one is after eight years. Of course the chemistry between Adam, Tanner, and Rutledge would need to develop a bit. So IMO, you
have to compare like for like. Comparing US S1 to UK S2 (I chose S2 because that's the first season with James) would've been better. Or even US S1 to Australia S1. (IMO, US S1 is miles ahead of Aus S1...and I didn't mind Aus S1 that much.)
I'm not saying TGUSA Series 1 was total rubbish, it wasn't THAT bad, but it wasn't nearly as good as even TGUK when they were scripting everything (Series 13-15 generally) and not as good. IMO, even The Car Show is better than most of the episodes of TGUSA, except for 2 (Alaska Special and Episode 3, with the Moonshine challenge).
Fixed some stuff again.
The word "scripted" makes me want to stab something every time I see it in the same sentence as "Top Gear" (any version). EVERY season of every version is "scripted". Every car review has a point to be made; every challenge and race has a basic premise behind it. They're not just going to throw stuff together haphazardly; otherwise, it'd be chaos. A better word than "scripted", to me, would be "contrived".
And personally, after watching the first episode of
The Car Show, I passed on it. I found it lacked soul and personality, and I'm surprised I watched it all the way through. I thought TG USA S1 was better.
I will be watching tonight though because i really do hope they took a look at the comments topgear.com and the history.com forums (do they even have forums on history.com?) and FinalGear and actually put some of that advice to practice. They kind of couldn't for Series 1 because by the time any of it aired, everything, including all the studio bits were probably all already shot.
US S1's films were done throughout last summer, I think; the studio stuff was done in mid-to-late October for a November premiere. (They had some guidance from the UK crew; for example, Richard Porter (UK script editor) was there.) For S2, they started filming reviews and challenges around springtime, and studio bits were filmed throughout last week and up to last Monday.
The History Channel website doesn't have a forum that I can see, but there's a Facebook page for TG USA (look for "Top Gear on History" or something like that), and all three hosts have Twitter accounts. Adam and Rutledge seem to engage the most with the fans.
* While the UK version has aired in the US somewhere since 2005 (at that time, it was on Discovery; BBC America picked it up in 2008), and while it clearly has a US following, I would daresay that, until the US version came along, most still hadn't heard of it.