There's not many shows like Top Gear (BBC Two, Sunday, 21 June, 8pm) in terms of polarising opinion. In one corner, you've got people who just like the fun of it. Racing cars, taking the piss out of things... the whole feeling of listening in to a bunch of mates having a laugh down the pub. Elsewhere though, you've got those who hate the whole zoo format. The self-aware casual xenophobia and sexism and... all that junk. Both are generalisations and both can be equally true. Sometimes, Top Gear is the best thing on telly... sometimes it's worse than listening to Steve Wright In The Afternoon. Last night, it got it pretty wrong... and that's including the 'reveal' of The Stig.

Related: Our Top Gear section

Last night's First In The New Series Of... saw a weird cloud settling over the show. It felt strangely out-dated, not in the way it has been celebrated for in the past, but rather, the Top Gear of the '80s seemed to creep back in the pores. Seeing the always pleasing James May driving along and slating a woman driver, hollering "y'daft cow!" wasn't exactly warming the cockles of my heart. A spate of knob gags clunked up the mid-section of the show, leaving it feeling like a show that has finally got it's own way with the bosses and, well, decided to serve itself as opposed to the audience.

Still though, it wasn't a complete wash-out. Like all super-popular shows, Top Gear gets a tougher judgement from the likes of me than most other programmes because it's hit such a high water mark in the past. As ever, worth your entrance fee alone, was the challenge, which saw three very different but very, very beautiful pieces of engineering racing each other from London to Edinburgh. For those who don't care about the serial numbers of pistons and rear windows, the race was between A Cool Old Motorbike, A Cool Old Convertible Car and A Really Beautiful Old Steam Engine.

This race threw aside the jokes about dead prostitutes and the like, to really celebrate engineering and the innovations of yesteryear, whilst still retaining a bit of a giggle. They made for great segments and, as ever with Top Gear, hammed up to the point where the climax was a race decided in split seconds rather than The Truth, whatever that was. To be honest, you shouldn't care. It makes for scintillating telly.

However, a huge squib was the revealing of The Stig. Basically, the show brought in Michael Schumacher and pointed... "Look! Look! That's The Stig without his helmet on!" Then, Schumacher talked about the perils of drink-driving via an almost conceptual video featuring a Fiat Panda and some mud. Aye. Like we're supposed to believe that the man (men?) who has been playing The Stig would bother with some overt-moralising like that.

Natually, this was all done with a bit of a wink and a nod, which will leave an opportunity to play it all down as a great big wheeze next week. Sadly, the wheeze wasn't particularly funny and not exactly believable. Next operation for Stigdom? Get a family of them in a variety of colours, heights and girth and make action figures of them. That'll sort this crap out.

Anyway, all in all, the First In A New Series Of... was a bit lame. The challenge was good and the rest was as grimly fascinating as Richard Hammond's new hair cut... which reminds me... Hammond... if you're reading this, Bon Jovi said they want that highlighted mullet back as soon as you're done with it.