The first thing you have to say about James May's Big Ideas is that no, this is definitely not an episode of Top Gear.

James May is of course one of the three hapless hosts of Top Gear. Together with cohorts Jeremy Clarkson and Richard Hammond, they have arguably set the definition of a good car show. Or perhaps even a good TV show.

Now it might be a case of good luck, or great producers, that brought the three men together. But whatever the reason the trio just click. It's TV magic and, in case you haven't noticed, I'm a raging fan.

So it's always a bit odd when you spend time watching one of them on their own for a considerable period of time.

For example, a very kind neighbour of mine gave me a copy of Clarkson's new DVD Thriller for Christmas. Clarkson does a great job, but somewhere into the second of three long DVDs I started wishing Hammond or May would pop up, tell Clarkson he's insufferable and run away.

For me, it's a similar experience with James May's Big Ideas. You find yourself imagining what creative way Clarkson would tease May as he enthuses about the wonders of a little flying car from the 1950s that miraculously still works.

It's worth saying I was genuinely intrigued watching this little old car take off into the sky. Indeed, all the inventions profiled on ...Big Ideas are the stuff of boyhood dreams.

But I suspect that's why my wife, who dutifully agreed to watch the show with me started playing Bejeweled on her iPhone. She's not exactly ...Big Idea's target audience.

So with that said, ...Big Ideas must be evaluated on its own merits. And on that score May's efforts could be considered a success.

May is, as many would know, fascinated with how stuff works. He has a pilots license, is a skilled car mechanic and seems to revel in anything vaguely related to science.

May's plot in this series is simple. Ever since he was a small boy he has dreamed of backpacks that would carry him through the air, of flying cars anyone could use, or ways of controlling the world around him simply by the power of your mind.

And so the BBC partnered with The Open University to give May the chance to fly around the world meeting inventors, geeks and people he rightly suggests are possibly possessed.

The first episode, dedicated to flying machines, doesn't fail to deliver on the weird and wacky front.

May visits the former Soviet Union where we are introduced to the Ekranoplan, a secret flying boat the Soviets developed during the Cold War to avoid enemy radar.

With only short wings, the Ekranoplan hovers above the water or ground at speeds above 250 mph. May's fascinated and even gets a turn in the cockpit, but as he points out these things don't stop well, and only skim small waves.

So if the Ekranoplan is limited in usefulness for the masses, what about a small airplane in the driveway to solve the world's transport problems?

May visits a "flying community" in Florida where all the residents have light planes in hangars next to their houses and taxi out to a shared runway when they want to visit interstate relatives.

It's an interesting idea, but flawed because it requires too much space and the world isn't big enough for everyone to live in these sprawling communities.

Likewise he discovers other flawed ideas when we are introduced to an eccentric Brit and his rocket pack which burns up fuel at an astonishing rate.

Or the "bonsai helicopter for bonsai people" in Japan. It might work well for the Japanese, but not the rest of us.

But the failures don't matter. The lesson we learn from Big Ideas is that some hair-brained ideas like the flying car could actually succeed.

May might be the man his Top Gear colleagues love to call "Captain Slow" but in his own uniquely British way he's reminded us that innovation and dreams are what makes the world go around.