The first official trailer for Netflix’s The Crew was released Friday, and the boy does not look bad. The program, which appears in the streaming app on February 15, follows a NASCAR race team as the team boss retires and puts his young daughter at the head of the operation. Of course, there will be enough room in this show for the lowest common denominator humor, including perhaps mockery of a young woman working in an old boys’ club.
Clearly, they are going to have a King of Queens atmosphere with random NASCAR shit in the background to look semi-interesting. Look at this, an unassembled Goodyear, a welding machine and a hood. Wow, it’s like we’re in a real NASCAR store. Look at that, there’s NASCAR right on the wall!
I do not want to be too deep on Kevin James. After an 8-episode recurring side character on Everybody Loves Raymond, he managed to transform that little character into nine seasons near the top of the bill on CBS ‘sitcom schedule. He is typed as a sweet comedy buffalo, and he keeps accepting the roles because it pays well. He’s Larry the Cable Guy for the thinking man. This is unfortunate because he was fantastic as a murderous neo-Nazi who gets his head run up by a lawn mower in the independent film of 2020 Becky.
Then he also has the habit of acting regularly in projects uses sexism and homophobia as extremes. There is, of course, a much bigger problem in Hollywood, but if the shoe fits, I assume.
The premise of the show, based on the trailer, seems to be that a group of team members need to work together to somehow stop the ambitious young woman taking over as team boss. Kevin James’ character is apparently the crew chief or something, which makes him the archetype of this apparent mutiny. The new team boss comes to a failing team (who does not have the ability to do so) ends the season in the top 20) to make changes to make it more successful. For some reason, the people in the team no longer want to be successful, I think? And for some reason they want to stick with a driver who crashed because he was distracted by a cloud that looked like Abraham Lincoln.
While NASCAR works diligently to rehabilitate its age-old image as unwelcome to women and minorities, I’m curious how this show will thwart any of these stereotypes. I’m afraid it will only aggravate the tropics around NASCAR and its fan base.
G / O Media can get a commission
If your idea of hilarious a minority character eating a rock, or a city girl accidentally shooting a baby deer out of the water, or more fucking premature ejaculation jokes, or one of the heads of a massive motorsport operation how technology works, then this show is absolutely something for you. If you’re like me and your ears bleed when a show has a damn laugh track, you might be able to put it out.
Based on the trailer, I can only hope that this show is 43rd for the Daytona 500, run three laps in the back of the pack and return to the garage to pick up his participation trophy. This is the same show that Kevin James has always done, but wrapped in a NASCAR facade. I do not often root for things to fail, but it looks like a wreck the large at a restriction plate track.