Top Gear, BBC Two, episode one, review Top Gear hasn't had a great time recently. The BBC had to apologise after the series" Christmas special, a road trip across India, provoked a complaint from the Indian High Commission. A few weeks before that, presenter Jeremy Clarkson charmingly suggested that striking public sector workers should be lined up and shot in front of their families. Perhaps mindful of causing more offence, in this first episode of the new series the gang went to Italy to drive supercars; the closest thing to a sure thing in motoring journalism. May was in a Maclaren MP4, Clarkson in a Lamborghini Aventador, Hammond in a Noble M600. They learnt some obvious lessons. All three cars were very fast. All were impractical on Rome's cobbled streets. All were fun to drive. Though I imagine that the Noble PR people will be upset that the model they gave Hammond broke down halfway through and had to be replaced. They ended up at Imola, to test each car against a lap time set by the "Italian Stig" in a Ferrari 458. Before the racing, there was a montage of the track's history of horrendous Formula 1 crashes, which reached their tragic nadir with the death of Ayrton Senna in 1994. It was well done, and gave a richness to the driving that followed. History, risk, speed, beautiful machinery: all the joys of motoring, and a reminder that Top Gear, when it sticks to its purpose, can do it better than any other series. If only the rest of the programme had the same thought put in to it. The last time I reviewed Top Gear, I criticised some aspects of it. The sad banter, the forced blokishness, the exhausting predictability of it all. I was pilloried. It turns out that Top Gear fans, like climate-change deniers and Liverpudlians, are an easily offended lot. I stand by my criticisms. The presenters raced around a circular track to prove which of them had the "biggest testes." May and Hammond suggested that the "old man" Clarkson might be unable to eat toffee, or get an erection. Hammond made an explicit joke about masturbation. Will.i.am, singer from the Black Eyed Peas and tonight's Star in a Reasonably Priced Car, pulled off the rare trick of making Jeremy Clarkson look like a picture of humility. What I realised tonight, however, that there's no point criticising Top Gear. It's like throwing popcorn at a freight train. The programme pulls in debate, online hits, viewers, millions and millions of pounds in revenue. Nothing I can say will stop people from finding James May's magic eye shirts hilarious, or thinking Jeremy Clarkson a model of the modern man. Top Gear is just Top Gear, rolling ever onward, looking gradually more and more tired.