Archive clips shown during the programme and discussed with Knievel include his jumps at Caesars Palace, Las Vegas, Snake River Canyon, Idaho and Wembley Stadium, London as well as his conversion in the Crystal Cathedral in California.

Knievel is sympathetically but, at the same time, revealingly portrayed as a bitter old man that surely lives up to his legend, showing up for disturbing screenings and even more challenging interviews about his former traumatic failures, despite being ill and in excruciating pain, but displaying nothing more than a grudging attitude.

He is reluctant to face the moral challenges that come with re-living his relationships with his family, his "rock star" behaviour patterns and, ultimately, the issue of surviving his career by a lengthy period of time.

Hammond said that during the filming, Knievel "shouted at me, the crew and the people with him constantly"[4] James Walton—writing for The Daily Telegraph—said he was surprised to find Richard Hammond Meets Evel Knievel "a pretty rich documentary" describing its real strength as "[serving] up lashings of the kind of pure Americana that many other British documentaries have striven much harder for, without matching.

"[5] The Scotsman presented a more mixed view saying it was a "much more reflective Top Gear-related product than usual" but commented that "Knievel was clearly getting fed up of Hammond and, frankly, I was getting tired of him".

[8] David Belcher's article in The Herald was far more critical describing it as "hellish to witness grievous damage being done to the Hamster's cuddly reputation by the ill-advised documentary farrago that was Richard Hammond Meets Evel Knievel."

He described Hammond's "worship" of Knievel as "oddly punitive" as he "pursued the dying man through the streets of his shabby home town, Butte, Montana.