At long last. Top Gear Australia is here!

SPOILER ALERT for all those ex-pats and Toppyists out there! I wouldn’t want to deprive you of those moments where you laugh out loud at a piece of genuinely unscripted spontaneous hilarity.

After weeks of eager anticipation, I am very happy to report this was NOT an anticlimax! The hosts work well together, even if they are slightly imperfect clones of the Britons. But they’re genuine Aussie and it’s words like “grouse” that really bring this home. Oh, and the fact that they’re all three of them quite capable shit-stirrers

The production values are as good as ever, and while I’m yet to be blown away by music selection, it shows promise. I’ll be very interested in what, if any, awe inspiring landmarks they’ll visit down under. We don’t exactly have a Millau Viaduct running through the middle of the continent. I’ve been across the Nullarbor and it’s BORING AS SHIT, so if you’re gonna do it guys, chuck a great big slab of Threat-O-Death™ in there like they did on Top Gear Africa. Uluru will be on the list of course, but it’s only open for climbing on a couple of days a month due to high winds and public liability bullshit, so good luck. A race around it against some rock climbers over it could work, though I’m not sure the numbers stack up. I want them to get lost on the ring roads in Canberra, as most drivers would relate to this. Make a challenge out of it, I dare you.

My favourite moment from the first episode:

Charlie Cox: “Beautiful! Get out here, commune with nature… and rip the shit out of it.”
Seconds later, he becomes airborne at the top of a sand dune, very nearly ploughing nose-first into the sand below.
Warren to Charlie: “What did you think when you sort of became airborne?”
Charlie: “I could see I had an issue…”
Warren: “You’ll have to be cleaning up that issue this afternoon.”

So what about them hosts. I’ll try and keep the UK comparisons to a minimum, but this will undoubtedly fail as it’s clear the producers have tried to replicate the dynamic. And why not? It works.

Charlie Cox’s introduction of their mysterious guest reviewer set the tone.

Now, This guy here is an absolute expert on giving advice on Porche driving in particular. It’s his job. He gets paid to teach people how to drive their Porches properly. He even races them sometimes. So when it came time to review the brand new Carrera 911S, it was obvious who should review it… Me.

At first, Cox comes across as somewhat of a know-it-all overachiever, with an ego to match. While this grates briefly, it doesn’t really bother me at all. He reminds me of several men of similar age and attitude that I knew growing up, so I’m genuinely used to it. As long as Cox avoids talking down the other hosts and keeps his self-promotion to a minimum, the equilibrium will be preserved. He just needs to be as funny as Clarkson, then we’ll love him as we do the great JC (those initials are no coincidence).

His discussion with Steve about gear boxes was a clear reminder of the age difference between the two, and the obvious generation gap (Cox was born in 1960, Steve in 1974). Steve actually compared a paddle shift gearbox to the controls “just like on an Xbox”. The look on Cox’s face was priceless!

Steve I would describe as a blokey version of Frank Woodley. He has the same quirky eccentricity and enthusiasm, which makes for great entertainment. He’s a self confessed science geek, so will represent the youthful Knight Rider generation, excited by in-car gadgetry, rather than those old fogies who are scared by it and prefer manual labour to convenience, satisfying some vain desire to get their macho on.

Representing the more tasteful motoring enthusiast, Warren is a less pedantic James May with shorter hair, and a few more balls. He climbed into a shark cage-cum-car for God’s sake! We’ll see over time if he becomes the scapegoat as James has. May’s lack of direction is one aspect that was preserved intact during the cloning process and makes for much amusement.

Now I must state my sheer admiration for the editors of the shark bait stunt. Step one: fill the cage with a lovely blood-red offcuts-and-entrails stew, creating a cloud of crimson fog which conveniently obscures the “host” who is suggestively trapped perilously “inside” the cagecar. Step two: suggest in a voiceover, the worst-case scenario of the cage becoming separated and sinking to it’s depths. Step three: LOTS of quick-cut shots spliced together with artful precision and some scary music. The result (you hope) is a shit-scared audience.

I’ve watched that scene a few times now and I’m regrettably not convinced. I wish I was. I want to be scared up to the edge of my seat, and I do get that for the first few seconds, but then my stupid brain kicks in and I start to go “yeah, right!”. There are a couple of shots with Warren in bloody water, but they contain no evidence of shark. It unfortunately reeks of one of those fake Top Gear moments the cynic in me can’t help discerning. A prime example is the caravan fire incident from the UK series, which was obviously staged. They deny it of course but seriously, what would be cheaper: buy a used caravan for a few thousand pounds, or pay out the insurance on someone else’s caravan you’ve just destroyed? Think about it.

There was only a couple of things that bothered me about the show, and it was Charlie’s way too noticeable references to upcoming ad breaks. “When we come back” is fine, but “It’s time to pay the bills”??? Get off! Then there was Warren’s cartoon of the shark cage. OK, the guy’s a cartoonist, good for him. But I don’t really want to watch him draw a bloody diagram for 10 seconds with a dreary narration… Snore!

Next week: Ford vs. Holden. Good luck avoiding to alienate half your audience (or more) with that one. These Aussies are SERIOUS about their vehicle allegiances, especially when it comes to those two brands.