Top Gear?

[bodmin16]

I think that the format of the show has been dated for some considerable time and no matter who presents i wouldn't watch it. There are only so many tines that you want to see some super car with smoke pouring from the tyres for no good reason, chopping cars up to make some adolescent joke and smashing up caravans can only ever be funny once and that's pushing it! And as for any programme that infers by its very nature that exceeding the speed limit on the public highway is ok, is wholly irresponsible. I have known far too many lives that have been ended prematurely or changed dramatically because of speeding or irresponsible driving.

[Andy Y]

Good news...

 

Evans has been dumped as they wanted to get a quieter lead presenter; Barry Scott is reported to be delighted with his new role.

[Peter Kazmierczak]

That should go with a "bang" then.....

[chris p bacon]

That should go with a "bang" then.....

Willit...

[Dagworth]

Never been a fan of Evans, the bloke is a post turtle.

 

Andi

[Two_sugars]

Nah!!!

[DavidB-AU]

[enginelane]

Mr Evans was hoping for 5 million as the first audience which it will have got, how many will be there by the end of the season will be the more important factor. Clarkson wore clothes as if he had slept in them whereas Mr Evans still thinks it's his past Friday night show.

 

The first challenge with the super cars did not work and in the edit suite they must have been desperate to cobble together enough footage.

 

The ride up to Blackpool on the back of a wagon?!

 

Tug of war on a beach - what did they think would happen apart from bogging down plus who owns a mark 1 Land Rover to allow it to be pulled apart.

 

Star in the car - it will be rolled at some time and I hope no one gets hurt

 

2 gezzers emerged from the shadows at the end of the show and provided a garbled message - basically there is a real motor show somewhere on a red button.

 

Mr Evans, I am not a fan, is on record on saying Top Gear is his dream job and would do it for free, perhaps he should be giving back or donating his fee to charity - and not setting it off against tax.

 

This hobby is about replicating the past . Top Gear last night was a very poor copy of a past show. Time for it to find a new identity or time for a new show all together

Edited May 30, 2016 by enginelane

[Dunsignalling]

I can foresee it'll get a lot of negative reaction from anyone who enjoyed what has gone before. I know much of what we were used ti was scripted and staged but this incarnation serves to show how well it was done before. Chris Evans was just shouty and irritating with Matt Leblanc possessing as much natural charm as a used car salesman.

Chris Evans only does shouty and irritating.

 

New TG needs a lot more of Sabine, more witty and engaging than those two put together (and a much better driver). 

 

John

Edited May 30, 2016 by Dunsignalling

[DavidB-AU]

The reviews in the papers are universally scathing. "Flop Gear" has been used by several.

 

Cheers

David

[RJS1977]

I notice some Top Gear production 'values' seem to have strayed over into Countryfile, namely a race against a train where the non-train competitor wins by a narrow margin, not withstanding that John Craven managed to change clothes en-route.

 

That and the much-vaunted visit of Countryfile to the Welsh Highland Railway using the FR's new carriages, which turned out to be ten seconds at best, and just long enough for John Craven to refer to it as the "Welsh MOUNTAIN Railway"!

 

Thirty years of respect for John Craven have vanished in the space of an hour and now I'm beginning to question everything I ever heard on Newsround....

[Andy Y]

I bet there's a few "Oh crap; how are we going to get out of this one?" meetings at the BBC this week. Even the BBC's news pages reference negative reactions from several critics but it looks like they've removed the Comments section beneath the article overnight where the reaction was predominantly very negative*, something which seems consistent across other forums and sites which squarely target Chris Evans.

 

I did watch 'Extra Gear' later on and Chris Harris was very, very good so hopefully he may form part of a damage limitation exercise by being bumped up the billing.

 

Was it just me or did anyone see several issues in the Rialtos to Blackpool part which would have seen most other motorists booked? Just how many cars did pull over onto the hard shoulder for filming?

 

Meanwhile Amazon must be laughing their socks off; the best opportunity they could have ever wished for.

 

[Edit - correction, I was looking in the wrong place - http://www.topgear.com/car-news/top-gear-tv/tg-tv-episode-1-your-post-show-discussion]

[ELTEL]

I didn't bother watching.

Me neithe knew it would be c**p

[darrel]

The old top gear had me crying with laughter so many times. Last night I didn't laugh once.

Can see the series getting pulled or put on bbc4 before the end of the series.

The old series was less about the cars more about the chemistry between the presenters. Chris Evans and Matt Le Blank have no chemistry at all.

[Butler Henderson]

No one remembers the first series of Clarksons Top Gear nor the next series when James May started nervously or do they seem to be repeated on Dave. It takes time for presenters to gain an understanding and chemistry. The brand brings in +£50m a year for the BBC in overseas sales and merchanising so anything that needs changing probably will be, but people do not like change - remember the outcry when Huw Edwards started on the national news?

Edited May 30, 2016 by Butler Henderson

[Arthur]

No one remembers the first series of Clarksons Top Gear nor the next series when James May started nervously or do they seem to be repeated on Dave. It takes time for presenters to gain an understanding and chemistry. The brand brings in +£50m a year for the BBC in overseas sales and merchanising so anything that needs changing probably will be, but people do not like change - remember the outcry when Huw Edwards started on the national news?

The difference now is that they are following an immensely popular and successful format, not trying to resurrect a moribund show. They are carrying a baggage of expectation that Clarkson/May/Hammond never had to contend with.

 

They are not helping themselves by continuing with the same format, a format which worked, probably uniquely, for the old trio. This lot needed to build their own show to have any chance of success. As it is, it's too easy to compare it unfavorably to the last lot.

 

.

[Revolution Ben]

 

Hello all,

 

I rarely watched Top Gear (I'm not much interested in cars) and missed last night's reinvented programme.

 

However I would say that in general programmes, and presenters, need a little time to find their "voice."

 

 

You can do all the rehearsals in the world, but you never really know how a programme, format or presenter will "play" until transmission.

 

Many programmes (Only Fools and Horses, Red Dwarf and the former iteration of Top Gear spring to mind) started off a little subdued, with the dynamic between the main characters clearly a little undefined, and then went on to great things as that was developed.

 

However, they all had the advantage of being "sleeper" hits that people discovered organically, without a huge amount of pre-publicity and expectation.

 

Pleasing fans of the old format of Top Gear was, if you think about it, an almost impossible task. I would strongly urge people who like the show to give it at least a few more goes before giving up. Or come back to it in a few weeks, when hopefully it will have started to find a more coherent, confident and self-knowing voice.

 

Cheers

 

Ben A.

[Taz]

I must be the odd one out then as I thought Matt LeBlanc was quite good.

 

.....The REAL top gear with William Woolard and Chris Goffey and others actually gave the viewer information about cars that were current at the time.....

These sort of reviews are covered in depth on the web now. Put '#car model# review' into a YouTube search and there will be plenty of content to choose from.

[APOLLO]

What we need is a Car and Motoring program, just like what the (very) old Top Gear used to be. I was an avid viewer back then.

 

What we have since Clarkson took over was an ego display program.

 

I'm not a fan of Clarkson's top gear, though the program had its "moments". My son however is a big Clarkson fan. His verdict on Evans - Absolute Rubbish !!!!

 

Bring back Jeremy & Co !!!!!!!!!!!!

 

Brit15

[TheSignalEngineer]

Saw the last three minutes when I tuned in to watch the programme about the Battle of Jutland. Glad I decided to spend the previous hour doing some modelling.

Edited May 30, 2016 by TheSignalEngineer

[The Stationmaster]

I changed channels ready for the Jutland programme and was lumbered with the last 5 minutes or so of the Chris Evans loves mud show - that bit was like Clarkson and co without the fun and humour, oh and the skill of making something look more entertaining than it probably really was.  Then came the end bit with the two presenters,couple of cars, and audience - could not help but compare with the old endings and it was dire, absolutely dead flat and no touch of humour.

 

Evans has been in broadcasting for more than sufficient years to know how to perform and hold a show and I get the impression he can't, it is simply not his style or within his ability range (he's been bad enough on 'The One Show' to put me right off it on his night under the spotlights). And I can't see him getting the right idea for this one.

 

I might look at it again to see if the first 5 minutes is as bad as the final ones but I wouldn't bother to look at anything in between - there was more animation in 'The Woodentops' than there is in Chris Evans.

 

And apart from locating various wrecks the Jutland programme hardly told us anything that we didn't know already - despite saying it would.

[Wheatley]

Pleasing fans of the old format of Top Gear was, if you think about it, an almost impossible task.

But this is a problem (almost) entirely of the BBC's own making. They should have accepted Clarkson's apology and got on with it instead of jubilantly crowing that they'd sacked the oik. Evans will polarise any audience you put him in front of even when he isn't trying to take over someone else's formula. I can't stand him but I can't help thinking he's been set up to fail here.

 

What we need is a Car and Motoring program, just like what the (very) old Top Gear used to be. I was an avid viewer back then.

 

Unfortunately you were almost the only one. 3 million viewers in 2000 to nearly 7m in 2014.

[Arthur]

And apart from locating various wrecks the Jutland programme hardly told us anything that we didn't know already - despite saying it would.

Glad you said that Mike. I too watched it and afterwards thought that I already knew most of that. I've been left wondering if I'd missed something.

[SHMD]

I thought it compared well to any episode in the first series of the Clarkson era of TG.

 

I didn't watch / like those either...

...at the time that is. I caught (was inflicted with) the last 5 minutes last night only.

 

 

Re-runs of the old series - ad infinitum - do give hints to their (Clarkson, May, hammond) relationship developing though.

I truly wonder if this lot could also develop a team bond as the old TG team clearly did.

 

 

I came to like that TG - but only in time.

 

 

Kev.

 

[Revolution Ben]

But this is a problem (almost) entirely of the BBC's own making. 

 

<snipped>

 

Hi there,

 

I think it was a problem of Jeremy Clarkson's making.

 

I think most people would feel that attacking a colleague in a public place because you couldn't get the dinner you wanted is unreasonable.

 

He is a talented presented and a good writer, undoubtedly, but in a publicly funded organisation that is invariably under more scrutiny than most he left his managers with no choice in my view.

 

cheers

 

Ben A.