I've been watching this since the beginning and feel now is the time to chime in..
Filmography has been top drawer. Honestly, you can tell they've invested in the camera equipment and kept what made TG great. On that note you could say that the quality has been equally (if not) as scattershot. I wasn't expecting a hard hitting TV series but there's been some serious variation in the episodes which gave the impression like they mucked about with the broadcast order or went back and filmed extra pieces because they could.
This may come across as negative and it's not meant that way. I have enjoyed almost all of the episodes for what they are: entertainment but just feel that there was a distinct lack of consistency in the content. Those containing decent info pieces were few and far between which has made the more sparse episodes looking like inferior filler, evident by the inclusion of multiple tent pieces in some episodes.
The track... is rubbish. The introduction to the course was humorous but it doesn't look particularly engaging for the driver. Nothing against "the american" but he himself needs more screen time or binning.. having a guest driver thrash a car around a track with no additional comments feels a bit pointless. At least TG used to include mentions that "the stig thought xyz" which gave you a bit of insight. Have the american seriously discuss the handling, how fast the car feels etc for the lap if you have to but the cheesy digs and "communist" crap gets old quickly.
Celebrity brain crash... should have been binned after episode 2 at the very latest. It adds nothing to an established viewer, especially if you know the celeb is going to die...only serving to waste time. Will we ever see an interview? I doubt it, but why waste a section in every episode ramming home a point? None of the deaths have even raised more than a smile, so really I don't see the need. Some may disagree.
Conversation street... meh, it's just "the news" rebranded. I'm not against the idea of having an informational piece (it was always a place that seemed relevant to dump little nuggets of info) but they've blurred the line by discussing random car "news" in the episodes, so much so that it feels like they're shoehorning news for the sake of it.
Scripting... honestly can't see how this is any different to TG. The silly nonsense is there, the "I can see it a mile coming" gags and the obvious play acting is still there. The genuine laughs and banter is there (albeit limited)... everything is the same as TG was. I firmly believe that people forget how much TG suffered from this toward the end.
Special... Easily a 1 part episode which suffered from being stretched over 2 episodes. I was disappointed that the first episode of the Namibia special was basically "lolz we went in a big circle on the beach", when the second episode showed more potential. The ending was also cut short IMO as they'd spent the better part of the 3rd act building up to the beach and essentially chopped it off with no conclusion. There was also what appeared to be an end montage shoved in 10 minutes before the beach segment which felt a bit out of place
It has potential to be better, but what they've tried to do is made TG with a bigger budget and suffered from the fact that no one has the ability to reign them in making it a parody of itself a lot of the time. Definitely going to watch Season 2, but I think they need to take on-board some community criticism and build on it.
That said, there have been some laugh out loud moments and its a show that I love watching but it could be so much better! Hammond being danced around by the tribes women was cringe inducingly funny
