Netflix’s Kevin James-Led NASCAR Sitcom Looks Like a Start-And-Parker

The first official trailer for Netflix’s The Crew was released on Friday, and it looks bad. The show, which will debut on the streaming app on February 15, follows a NASCAR racing team as the team leader retires and puts his young daughter in charge. Obviously, there will be plenty of room on this show for the lowest common denominator. humor, perhaps including the derision of a young woman working in an old boys club.

Clearly they go for a King of Queens vibe with some random NASCAR crap in the background to look semi-interesting. Look at that, an unmounted Goodyear, a welding machine and a lifty-majigger motor. Wow, it’s like we’re in a real NASCAR store. Look at that, it’s written NASCAR right on the wall!

I don’t want to be too down on Kevin James. After a recurring secondary character of 8 episodes On Everybody Loves Raymond, he managed to split this little character over nine seasons near the top of the poster on CBS’s sitcom roster. It was typed as an affable comedy buffoon, and he keeps taking the roles because they pay well. It’s Larry the Cable Guy for the thinking man. Which is a shame, because he was fantastic as a murderous neo-Nazi who takes his head crushed by a lawn mower in the 2020 independent film Becky.

Here again, he is used to acting in projects which use sexism and homophobia as punchlines. Obviously there is a much bigger problem in Hollywood, but if the shoe fits I guess.

The premise of the show, based on the trailer, seems to be that a bunch of team members have to work together to somehow thwart the ambitious young woman who takes over as as team leader. The character of Kevin James is apparently the crew chief or something, making him the figurehead of this apparent mutiny. The new team leader arrives in a failing team (which does not have the capacity to finish the season in the top 20) by seeking to make changes to make it more successful. For some reason, members of this team don’t want to be more successful, I guess? And for some reason they want to stay with a driver who crashed because he was distracted by a cloud that looked like Abraham Lincoln.

As NASCAR works diligently to rehabilitate its age-old image as unwelcoming to women and minorities, I’m curious how this show is going to sidestep one of those stereotypes. I’m afraid this will only serve to exacerbate the tropes surrounding NASCAR and its fans.

If your hilarious idea is a minority character eating a rock, or city girl fish out of water accidentally shooting a baby deer, or more premature ejaculation jokes, or one of the heads of a massive motorsport operation not including how the technology works, then this show is absolutely for you. If you’re like me and your ears bleed when a show has a fuckin ‘laugh track, then maybe this one is missing.

Based on the trailer, I can only hope this show qualifies 43rd for the Daytona 500, runs three laps at the back of the field, and returns to the garage to collect its participation trophy. It’s the same show Kevin James always did, but wrapped up in a NASCAR facade. I don’t often look for things to fail, but it looks like a wreck on par with the big one on a restriction plate track.