A lot of people are being awfully hard on the american version of the show but how differant is it really from the British version? Granted the new host sucks, I won't dispute that but the host isn't what makes or breaks the show. Some people complained that the american teams lacked the personality of the british teams and I agree that in the dragster episode the teams were a bit uninspiring but come on, who couldn't love the Rusty Juveniles against the Young Guns? Both of those teams had great personality. There have also been complaints about resusing the same concepts from the british show (i.e. dragsters, missile launchers), but I don't mind that one bit, I enjoy seeing different solutions to the same problems. During the british version of missile launchers my first thought was that someone should build a trebuchet (sp?). I was disappointed when nobody did so it was great to see it here. Also, although the dragster concepts were similar they were hardly clones, and the american dragsters walloped the times of the british dragsters. Keep in mind that the americans can't have seen the british version before their own competition. Give the show a break, tune out the new host, focus in on Cathy, and enjoy the engineering!

-- marshall philips (mdp4828@yahoo.com), January 04, 2001

Answers

It isn't any different, other than in one of the hosts and a slightly different timing for commercials. And I don't mind the host a bit - Cathy is always the one asking the interesting questions of the teams anyway (There's a very smart person behind that weird vest thing she wears all the time). Robert's job was more to make silly noises and destroy a series of white suits.

As an anglophile all my life I miss the accents a bit (and learning words like "bodge"), but since the english version is in production too, I assume both will be shown on TLC. If you all want to gripe here, gripe to get that done! Since all the episodes for this season have already have been recorded (they have to have done [1], since these obviously aren't taking place in winter...), yelling to have stuff changed immediately isn't going to work. All it's going to do is turn off people to a great show. Can anybody really say they would have never watched Junkyard Wars if George was the original host?

It's about time that engineers and insane tinkerers (such as the NERDS, who were just a blast to watch) get some attention. Shows lke these have already had positive effects - My favorite local store, American Science and Surplus, is overrun with robot builders, including parents and children together. Imagine that!

Complaining about seeding, which makes it possible to build dangerous things that (probably) won't blow up and kill everyone, or at least make it possible to come up with more options for interesting machines, is stupid. Hassling a bunch of amateur teams, who are working themselves half to death for basically room and board, is even more stupid. PV

[1] I am not British, but I sometimes play one in message groups.

-- pv (pjgv@yahoo.com), January 04, 2001.

My observations of the two series, has led me to think that that the teams of the 2000 (US) series *appear* less creative. Now, allow me to support my argument, before anyone jumps all over me. It appeared to me (and this may only be a result of the editing), that the teams were becoming too reliant on the "expert". Too often, in my opinion, the teams would retire to the whiteboard, turn to the expert, and ask.. "ok.. what are we building?". Leaving the entire design to the expert, and simply becoming manual labour (as simply as such things can be :o) ).

When I compared these with the earlier UK episodes, I was disappointed. I felt that there was a loss of "invention" in the process.

Well... that's my 0.02 worth (that's 0.008 cents US.. 0.02 Canadian)

-- Andrew Williams (jwfan@film-can.com), March 09, 2001.