Let’s just get one thing straight right off the bat. “Top Gear” isn’t going to be the same show we all used to love. You can do all the same stunts, drive all the same cars, break all the same laws, but without the original trio of presenters, it can’t possibly be the same.

Jeremy Clarkson, Richard Hammond and James May are being hooligans on Amazon now. However, their new unnamed show isn’t coming out until the fall, so you can procrastinate a little longer on buying an Amazon Prime subscription.

For the time being, we’ll be watching their replacements on BBC try to outdo them. The “new” “Top Gear” has Shaq-sized shoes to fill. From the looks of the trailers that have been released to the public so far, they appear to be going all out.

As I watch the trailers, I think they’re going to retain the same focus and style of what the show was before. This could be a good idea, but history may prove otherwise. Back in 2010, the “Top Gear” franchise was extended to America, and that show was essentially a carbon copy of the original but with different presenters. That show doesn’t exist anymore. I don’t think that’s proof the new show will fail with different people, but it certainly brings up a few questions as to how it will survive.

Clarkson, Hammond and May had a way about them that caused people to have a strong connection to the show. I think that’s why they were so successful for so many years. Watching “Top Gear” became a sort of religious activity for many people because of how much they loved the show and the on-screen personalities. Once you take that away, the show feels a bit empty and soulless.

So really, it’s up to the new guys to reestablish that connection with the viewer. They’ve upped the number of presenters to five and the entire cast is star-studded.

Jeremy Clarkson’s ego may somehow be carried on by presenter Chris Evans. British tabloids and rumors everywhere say he’s even more ill-tempered and hard to deal with than Clarkson ever was. If you know much of anything about Clarkson, then you’d understand how big of a statement that is.

The show will premiere sometime in May, and I’m eagerly awaiting to sit down with a bowl of popcorn and absorb every second of it.

Meanwhile, Clarkson, Hammond and May look to be gearing up to make quite the splash when their show premieres in the fall. Because they’re with Amazon and not the BBC, they have even more freedom to do as they please, which can only mean more entertainment for us. However, I’m not going to assume their new show will be great just because they’re in it.

I think there’s room in the world for two great motoring shows. Let’s hope they don’t let us down.

Zac Palmer is a sophomore magazine journalism major. His column appears weekly in Pulp. He can be reached at zipalmer@syr.edu.

Published on May 1, 2016 at 9:25 pm