30mins is that all
I think you'll find it was 45min, ie 1hr of commercial channel TV. But that does water it down.
Watched it yesterday, I'll probably watch the other episodes to see if it gets better. I think they've tried to jump in and emulate British Top Gear as it current is, without having gone through the evolution that happened over the first couple of series.
Why not simply make more uk episodes?
Because there's no more money to make more than they currently make.
Would you like to pay more for your TV licence ? Don't think so. The cost of the TV licence has been frozen (unlike many other bills we pay) and so there's only so much the BBC can do with the money.
Top Gear's budget is essentially frozen and with costs going up (with inflation etc) they had to decide, either a) make the same number of episodes or more, but spend less on each one, or b) spend the same amount on each episode making better quality episodes and make a shorter series.
If they'd gone with the former option (a) then everyone would be complaining about a drop in quality.
Top Gear is a marmite thing anyway, either you like it or you don't. Same with imported versions.
I'll watch it (the US version) if I'm bored and to see how they evolve.
