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Top Gear New Series |OT| No Longer Starring Chris Evans

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Liamc723

Member
I'm seeing everyone look at this new series with a much more critical eye than anyone ever took on the old style. Imo seems fairly fresh so far though they need to stop mentioning how it's all new yadda yadda and just get on with it. Evans isn't as bad as I thought he'd be.

Fairly fresh?

Literally the only change I've seen is adding a dirt section to the Top Gear track.
 
I'm seeing everyone look at this new series with a much more critical eye than anyone ever took on the old style. Imo seems fairly fresh so far though they need to stop mentioning how it's all new yadda yadda and just get on with it. Evans isn't as bad as I thought he'd be.
It was always going to be the way, I'm afraid. Anything other than unambiguously better than the old version was going to result in a mauling.
 

Beefy

Member
That was pretty good. But back to more shouting now.

Lol Chris Harris is only on Top Gear Extra! That is on BBC3
 

Jarrod38

Member
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I enjoyed that. The films were good, the studio was awkward and Evans needs to have one less coffee. For a first episode of a show, not bad at all.

Also though note they're not really explaining the rest of the team and needed to make a bullshit extra show to do make the most of them.

It now depends if they know what they need to improve on. We'll see!
 

JonCha

Member
For the first episode of a relaunch I thought it was pretty good; I enjoyed it way more than I ever did the previous series. That's partly down to Evans imo: he's clearly enthusiastic and is like a big kid really.

LeBlanc is also good. I thought he sounded a bit stilted at times but he was good value and his solo segment was good fun.

Edit: and yeah, at the end I was thinking 'Where are the rest of the crew?'.
 

Daffy Duck

Member
Matt was funny enough but the rest was cringeworthy.

Feature was dull too, you would've thought they'd have picked something amazing to kick off with.

Evans is awful, so many times of forced excitement and the awkwardness was off the charts. The new track is awful, no explanation of thre new layout or anything, and him to trying to do Clarkson was painful.
 
Meh. It's gonna take several re-castings and formula changes before OG Top Gear can confidently stand on it's own again.

Rowan Atkinson, Steve Coogan and Rob Brydon would be my 'dream team' pick.
 
LeBlanc was actually really rather good; the piece he did on his own would pretty much stand up to any standalone piece in the Clarkson-era show.

Evans is an insufferable human being and I have no idea why anybody likes him. Fuckin' awful.

I do think the show will improve, as even this showed promise, but it apes the old formula too much. It should've strode out of the shadow confidently by presenting a more different formula.

The damage is probably done, anyway. Social response has been tepid at best and vitriolic at worst, the papers are going to rip it a new one - it's a story it's in their anti-BBC interests to give a lot of column inches to - and ratings will probably crash. Top Gear probably won't be the 'biggest car show in the world' for much longer, ey.
 

Beefy

Member
Chris Evans: Likes to shout all the time and gets too excited.

Blanc: Is good but has a montone voice which is a little annoying.

The camera work seems the same but the production seems cheaper.

Matt's solo segment was the best part of the show.
 
Surprised to see so much hate here, it really wasn't that bad. Plus, we still have the old top gear in the form of their Amazon show so this being an extra top gear type show that I get to watch is pretty fine with me.
 

besada

Banned
I haven't seen it yet, but I'm hardly going to judge the show on a single episode, as that would be ridiculous, particularly given the show's history, which includes quite a lot of bad episodes before they got it right and, frankly, quite a lot of bad episodes after they got it right.

Looking forward to watching it develop into its own show. It was sort of a given that the first steps were going to be awkward, but we'll see what they can do after they get comfortable in the seats and make any changes they think they need to make.
 

2700

Unconfirmed Member
No matter how good tonight's episode was, there was always going to be vitriolic attacks from people who have this strange unquestionable loyalty to the old presenters.

There was enough tonight to suggest the show isn't dead. If Evans dials it down it and they start to feel confident enough to diverge from the old formula then new Top Gear could really develop into a great show.
 

JonCha

Member
LeBlanc was actually really rather good; the piece he did on his own would pretty much stand up to any standalone piece in the Clarkson-era show.

Evans is an insufferable human being and I have no idea why anybody likes him. Fuckin' awful.

I do think the show will improve, as even this showed promise, but it apes the old formula too much. It should've strode out of the shadow confidently by presenting a more different formula.

The damage is probably done, anyway. Social response has been tepid at best and vitriolic at worst, the papers are going to rip it a new one - it's a story it's in their anti-BBC interests to give a lot of column inches to - and ratings will probably crash. Top Gear probably won't be the 'biggest car show in the world' for much longer, ey.

On this bit specifically, Evans said in a BBC interview that he felt the formula didn't need to change that much given the success of the 'old' show, for better or worse. It'll be interesting to see how the viewer numbers go over the season.
 

Beefy

Member
I haven't seen it yet, but I'm hardly going to judge the show on a single episode, as that would be ridiculous, particularly given the show's history, which includes quite a lot of bad episodes before they got it right and, frankly, quite a lot of bad episodes after they got it right.

Looking forward to watching it develop into its own show. It was sort of a given that the first steps were going to be awkward, but we'll see what they can do after they get comfortable in the seats and make any changes they think they need to make.

You can't judge the show. But you can judge the presenters on it. Evans is Evans and will always shout and screech. Unless some how he is told to shut up and actually listens for once.
 

MilkyJoe

Member
I'm watching on delay, just finished star in the car. Seriously, Chris is doing a shit Clarkson impression. It's lame as fuck so far.
 
Watching the thing online BBC3, they should probably get the other two into the main show, they seem pretty talented.
Think they're supposed to be - guess it's smart to gradually introduced as a wider team rather than all in one go.

Can't watch Extra Gear yet so would be interested to know if it's any good or worth sticking on. I will anyway because I'm a media nerd but there we go.
 

Beefy

Member
Think they're supposed to be - guess it's smart to gradually introduced as a wider team rather than all in one go.

Can't watch Extra Gear yet so would be interested to know if it's any good or worth sticking on. I will anyway because I'm a media nerd but there we go.

Well hopefully they rotate the presenters. But hope they get more then the 5 mins Sabine got.
 
Right.

The films were pretty good, all told. The Dodge Viper stuff wasn't too great, but probably wasn't any worse than any given gimmicky car test from Clarkson's era, and the Blackpool trip, although the first stuff they filmed, was actually pretty fun- I particularly enjoyed the trip up to Blackpool, and LeBlanc being laconic on the back of his lorry.

LeBlanc's Ariel test was a gem- the host genuinely laid back and having fun, the gimmicky stuff handled with a proper lightness of touch, arresting visuals. It's the sort of film I don't think Clarkson's Top Gear ever did all that well- you can easily imagine Hammond absolutely mangling something like that, for example- and LeBlanc's handling of it was exactly right. If I'm right, and this was filmed later in the schedule than the Blackpool and Dodge films, that speaks good things about future films they're doing.

The studio stuff is very odd. Evans is plainly incredibly nervous throughout, and he's far too shouty, far too often. LeBlanc didn't seem to know what he was doing, Ramsey and Eisenburg seemed all at sea, the opening was stilted, the audience layout needs a top-to-bottom rethink... All a bit of a mess, all told- not unsalvageable (the new guest format could actually be really good, given the right guests and a revised way of handling it), but certainly in need of significant improvement, which, fortunately for them, the schedule allows for at this point.

It's a little bizarre, honestly, that they emphasised the similarity to Old New Top Gear so much- I can understand that they were trying to be accommodating to the people who were hostile to it in the first place, but that was only going to emphasise the deficiencies. Get all six of them out there right from the off, and introduce the wider roster of presenters- apart from Sabine's credit as host at the end of the episode, absolutely nothing about this would have told you that there were any hosts apart from Evans and LeBlanc, and that is a baffling choice.

I can well see this show looking very different indeed by the end of the series, in ways that are only going to benefit it. All the bits that are best are locked in- all else can be altered.
This show will be cancelled.
I honestly don't think it will- there's a lot of room between what the old show was getting and cancellation levels for BBC Two, and the brand is still big enough worldwide that I can see the BBC giving them some room to manoeuvre and improve even if the ratings are calamitous- the BBC shouldn't be chasing ratings, after all.
 

Beefy

Member
I still think the biggest thing wrong with the episode is it felt cheap. It felt like some dodgy remake that is a straight to dvd show. The guest segment was just shit. Ramsey was just looking around thinking what the fuck is going on
 

DrForester

Kills Photobucket
If they wanted this to succeed, they should have come up with a new format for the show. Just copying the old format makes the deficiencies even more glaring.

There's zero chemistry between Chris and Matt. Everything comes off as just really forced. Reminds me of Top Gear Australia.
 
If they wanted this to succeed, they should have come up with a new format for the show. Just copying the old format makes the deficiencies even more glaring.

There's zero chemistry between Chris and Matt. Everything comes off as just really forced. Reminds me of Top Gear Australia.
But they have! They have a whole new team of presenters, none of whom got a look-in this week.

Rory Reid's saying on Twitter that he's not on the main show until episode 3 onwards.
 

LoveCake

Member
I honestly don't think it will- there's a lot of room between what the old show was getting and cancellation levels for BBC Two, and the brand is still big enough worldwide that I can see the BBC giving them some room to manoeuvre and improve even if the ratings are calamitous- the BBC shouldn't be chasing ratings, after all.

That is true to a point, there is no point in funding content that nobody it watching, going slightly off topic here
the BBC shouldn't be making, game-shows, cooking-shows, talent-shows or soaps
.

They should have completely changed the format and left it a couple of years, at least a year, Evans said that Jezza, May and Hammond couldn't be replaced and this is exactly what they have done.
 
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