The first official trailer for Netflix’s The Crew released Friday and it looks bad. The show, which debuts on the streaming app on February 15, follows a NASCAR racing team as the team boss retires and puts his young daughter at the head of the operation. Obviously, there will be plenty of room for the lowest common denominator in this show humor, including perhaps the mockery of a young woman who works in an old boys’ club.
Obviously they’re going for a King of Queens vibe with random NASCAR shit in the background to look semi-interesting. Take a look, an unassembled Goodyear, a welding machine and a powerful motor. Wow, it’s like we are in a real NASCAR store. Look, NASCAR is on the wall!
I don’t want to be too bad for Kevin James. After a recurring 8-episode side character on Everybody Loves Raymond, he managed to divide that little character into nine seasons, almost topping the list on CBS’s sitcom roster. He is typecast as an affable comic buffoon, and he continues to take the roles because they pay well. He’s Larry the Cable Guy to the thinking man. That’s a shame, because he was fantastic as a murderous neo-Nazi who gets his head run over by a lawn mower in the independent film from 2020 Becky.
On the other hand, he has a habit of regularly appearing in projects use sexism and homophobia as punchlines. Obviously a much bigger Hollywood-sized problem is going on there, but if the shoe fits I guess.
The premise of the show, based on the trailer, seems to be that a group of team members must work together to somehow thwart the ambitious young woman who takes over as team boss. Kevin James’ character is apparently the crew chief or something, making him the figurehead of this apparent mutiny. The new team boss enters a failing team (which does not have the option finish the season in the top 20) looking for changes to make it more successful. For some reason, the people on that team don’t want to be more successful, I guess? And for some reason, they want to hold on to a driver who crashed because he was distracted by a cloud that looked like Abraham Lincoln.
With NASCAR working hard to rehabilitate its age-old image as unwelcome to women and minorities, I’m curious to see how this show will thwart all of these stereotypes. I fear it will only serve to exacerbate the tropes surrounding NASCAR and its fan base.
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If your idea of hilarious one minority character eating a rock, or a fish-out-of-the-water city girl accidentally shooting a baby deer, or more damn premature ejaculation jokes, or one of the heads of a massive motorsport operation that doesn’t understand how technology works, then this show is really something for you. If you’re like me and your ears bleed when a show has a damn laugh track, maybe just leave this one.
Based on the trailer, I can only hope that this show qualifies 43rd for the Daytona 500, rides three laps in the back of the pack, and strolls back to the garage to collect the entry trophy. It’s the same show that Kevin James has always done, but wrapped in one NASCAR facade. I don’t often look for things to fail, but this looks like a wreckage similar to the big one at a restrictor plate track.