Top Gear 2016 Official TV show thread *contains spoilers*
Discussion
I am not surprised CE quit the show. There is only so much cr@p a man can take.
Something fishy going on with the media. The press had the knives out for the show long before the first episode had even aired.
Some people, somewhere, for reasons they know but we do not, wanted CE to fail from the very beginning.
Something fishy going on with the media. The press had the knives out for the show long before the first episode had even aired.
Some people, somewhere, for reasons they know but we do not, wanted CE to fail from the very beginning.
toppstuff said:
I am not surprised CE quit the show. There is only so much cr@p a man can take.
Something fishy going on with the media. The press had the knives out for the show long before the first episode had even aired.
Some people, somewhere, for reasons they know but we do not, wanted CE to fail from the very beginning.
My wife and I watched one episode of the new show and she wouldn't watch another due to Chris Evans.Something fishy going on with the media. The press had the knives out for the show long before the first episode had even aired.
Some people, somewhere, for reasons they know but we do not, wanted CE to fail from the very beginning.
She had no prior knowledge of him, just couldn't stand him, and millions had the same reaction.
Well, that rather changes what I was going to write about last night's programme, and the series as a whole.
Last night: Loved the NSX bit, Mustang bit was ok could have been much much more, 911R bit was pretty darn nifty (very good to see MLB finally off the leash - he shows promise), MGB bit - fine but not exactly series-ending-spectacular. £100K will buy a lot more interesting vehicles than that, as PH's £100K garage has proven.
TG did rather come across as a whining front man with a sort of "cloud" of other presenters. CE did have some really quite good segments, but most of the items he touched were pulled down by his presence. He clearly works better solo better than he does in a group, and TG is emphatically a group show. Maybe he will now have time to buy a new t-shirt and jeans without a crotch that slowly migrates down to his knees.
Much though I like Sabine, I don't think she brought much at all to the programme, which is a shame as I'd love to have seen more of her driving and thoughts about some of the higher performance vehicles they drove. Instead, they just gave her some weak comedy lines and made her look like a token female presenter.
Eddie Jordan was just a bad choice all round. I can see why they brought him in, as the comedy villain, but he is no actor and just gave things a bit of a bad smell.
Matt LeBlanc has definitely grown on me as the series progressed. I hadn't seen his other work (although I could hardly not have heard of him) and he started out on TG as another comedy character, the token Yank, someone to be beaten in challenges. Since then though, we have started to see his character come through. The crucial test - would I like to spend an hour or two with him in a pub? Yep, definitely.
Which brings me on to: C"M"H and RR.
I'll admit to being biased in favour of our very own Monkey. His lovely long YouTube videos are somehow made for my brain. Technical bits, extended fly-by sound clips, strained metaphors and downright love of cars of any sort. A man who can make equally compelling videos of a LaFerrari or a Citroen 2CV. I was worried that wouldn't carry over well to mainstream telly and their sound-bites and slapstick capers.
RR. Rory who? I don't think I had seen him more than a couple of times before TG. My initial view was that he was the token ethnic geezer who was there for da kidz an da Radio 1 audience. Which he kinda was at the start. That changed.
Extra Gear. For me, consistently more entertaining than the parent programme. I think CMH and RR were given more freedom with this, and the words they spoke seemed much more like they were coming from their brains rather than someone in a Portakabin 400 yards away. As the series progressed, they both seemed to find their feet in the feature items, and both presenters started to come across much better. These two actually have chemistry, they both know about the wider aspects of cars and their culture. Unlike CE and EJ. Even the guest slot kinda worked.
SIARPC, SIARXC or whatever it is called now. Not working. Slow sliding around spinning wheels in muddy track. Tarmac getting progressively muddier over the day, so later celebs get penalised. Having two of them was just twice the tedium and extending the customary fast-forward-past slot just reduced the watchable programme content. "Battling" one celebs first car versus the other was the low point.
So yes, CMH, RR and MLB as the core trio. These chaps actually seem to have chemistry together, and petrol powered heads. As they say, job jobbed. Room for Sabine as an occasional guest, 2 or 3 times a series (she was essentially that anyway) and even Mad Eddie, maybe once a series. But in a small spoof role. Which somehow seems appropriate. Having so many people in the "gang" just didn't work. No matter who they were.
At least they didn't just spend millions trashing perfectly decent cars this series, which seemed to be a pretty good diagnostic of how the previous incarnation of TG was degrading. I'm sure trashing an £8K commuter car is lolsome when you are on millions a year, but to me and many other people I know above the mental age of 7, that was just saddening.
Last night: Loved the NSX bit, Mustang bit was ok could have been much much more, 911R bit was pretty darn nifty (very good to see MLB finally off the leash - he shows promise), MGB bit - fine but not exactly series-ending-spectacular. £100K will buy a lot more interesting vehicles than that, as PH's £100K garage has proven.
TG did rather come across as a whining front man with a sort of "cloud" of other presenters. CE did have some really quite good segments, but most of the items he touched were pulled down by his presence. He clearly works better solo better than he does in a group, and TG is emphatically a group show. Maybe he will now have time to buy a new t-shirt and jeans without a crotch that slowly migrates down to his knees.
Much though I like Sabine, I don't think she brought much at all to the programme, which is a shame as I'd love to have seen more of her driving and thoughts about some of the higher performance vehicles they drove. Instead, they just gave her some weak comedy lines and made her look like a token female presenter.
Eddie Jordan was just a bad choice all round. I can see why they brought him in, as the comedy villain, but he is no actor and just gave things a bit of a bad smell.
Matt LeBlanc has definitely grown on me as the series progressed. I hadn't seen his other work (although I could hardly not have heard of him) and he started out on TG as another comedy character, the token Yank, someone to be beaten in challenges. Since then though, we have started to see his character come through. The crucial test - would I like to spend an hour or two with him in a pub? Yep, definitely.
Which brings me on to: C"M"H and RR.
I'll admit to being biased in favour of our very own Monkey. His lovely long YouTube videos are somehow made for my brain. Technical bits, extended fly-by sound clips, strained metaphors and downright love of cars of any sort. A man who can make equally compelling videos of a LaFerrari or a Citroen 2CV. I was worried that wouldn't carry over well to mainstream telly and their sound-bites and slapstick capers.
RR. Rory who? I don't think I had seen him more than a couple of times before TG. My initial view was that he was the token ethnic geezer who was there for da kidz an da Radio 1 audience. Which he kinda was at the start. That changed.
Extra Gear. For me, consistently more entertaining than the parent programme. I think CMH and RR were given more freedom with this, and the words they spoke seemed much more like they were coming from their brains rather than someone in a Portakabin 400 yards away. As the series progressed, they both seemed to find their feet in the feature items, and both presenters started to come across much better. These two actually have chemistry, they both know about the wider aspects of cars and their culture. Unlike CE and EJ. Even the guest slot kinda worked.
SIARPC, SIARXC or whatever it is called now. Not working. Slow sliding around spinning wheels in muddy track. Tarmac getting progressively muddier over the day, so later celebs get penalised. Having two of them was just twice the tedium and extending the customary fast-forward-past slot just reduced the watchable programme content. "Battling" one celebs first car versus the other was the low point.
So yes, CMH, RR and MLB as the core trio. These chaps actually seem to have chemistry together, and petrol powered heads. As they say, job jobbed. Room for Sabine as an occasional guest, 2 or 3 times a series (she was essentially that anyway) and even Mad Eddie, maybe once a series. But in a small spoof role. Which somehow seems appropriate. Having so many people in the "gang" just didn't work. No matter who they were.
At least they didn't just spend millions trashing perfectly decent cars this series, which seemed to be a pretty good diagnostic of how the previous incarnation of TG was degrading. I'm sure trashing an £8K commuter car is lolsome when you are on millions a year, but to me and many other people I know above the mental age of 7, that was just saddening.
Dick Dastardly said:
And on the same day that Nigel Farage quits? A coincidence? I think not. Farage is basically Clarkson in a suit. Welcome to Top Gear, Nige.
Eh? I thought Clarkson had been quite vociferous to stay in EU. He's certainly talked and written frequently of his fondness for France. I may be wrong on that.
CaptainSensib1e said:
Just to add ot my earleir comments, I really think the should have a look at refreshing the format. I think they could take it back more towards a proper car journalism show, reviewing cars that people are actually likely to buy, but do it in a more modern an interesting way.
For example:
The mini cab test - take a new XYZ saloon and one of the presenters spends the day being a mini can driver, with the aforementioned car. Could be done in a way that gives useful feedback on the car, the rear seats aren't very comfy, the boot is too small etc, but done in a way that adds some humour.
The school drop off test - take the latest Mummmymobile and use it to drop the kids off at school. How easy is it to clean spilled coke off the seats? How is the rear visibility when you're trying to park in an impossibly small space while you've got a school bus up your arse?
The mid-life crisis test - ask anyone from PH to drive around a cheap sportscar car for a day and film it...
You get the gist. Seriously though, they need to take the good bits form the current show, drop the rubbish bits (i.e. SIARPC) and add some new ideas for features to evolve the format forwards.
Yawwwwwwnnnnnnn. Give that to the 5th Gear team; it's right up their street. For example:
The mini cab test - take a new XYZ saloon and one of the presenters spends the day being a mini can driver, with the aforementioned car. Could be done in a way that gives useful feedback on the car, the rear seats aren't very comfy, the boot is too small etc, but done in a way that adds some humour.
The school drop off test - take the latest Mummmymobile and use it to drop the kids off at school. How easy is it to clean spilled coke off the seats? How is the rear visibility when you're trying to park in an impossibly small space while you've got a school bus up your arse?
The mid-life crisis test - ask anyone from PH to drive around a cheap sportscar car for a day and film it...
You get the gist. Seriously though, they need to take the good bits form the current show, drop the rubbish bits (i.e. SIARPC) and add some new ideas for features to evolve the format forwards.
Oh... wait.
Zad said:
At least they didn't just spend millions trashing perfectly decent cars this series, which seemed to be a pretty good diagnostic of how the previous incarnation of TG was degrading. I'm sure trashing an £8K commuter car is lolsome when you are on millions a year, but to me and many other people I know above the mental age of 7, that was just saddening.
I suspect most of the cars that were trashed on TG - like the ones used in car football, etc. - were pre-production or early production models what were headed for the crusher anyway.Might as well use them for something useful...
KTF said:
I suspect most of the cars that were trashed on TG - like the ones used in car football, etc. - were pre-production or early production models what were headed for the crusher anyway.
Might as well use them for something useful...
But the football thing wasn't useful it was crap!Might as well use them for something useful...
eldar said:
I'd be surprised if it was allowed to carry on. Poor audience figures, front man quits and TG USA dropped.
TG was near to death under its old team, and an injection of new faces hasn't achieved much positive.
It should be allowed to die quietly.
Sadly, I think you may be right.TG was near to death under its old team, and an injection of new faces hasn't achieved much positive.
It should be allowed to die quietly.
Zad said:
TG did rather come across as a whining front man with a sort of "cloud" of other presenters. CE did have some really quite good segments, but most of the items he touched were pulled down by his presence. He clearly works better solo better than he does in a group, and TG is emphatically a group show.
I can't agree here. Chris Evans pretty much invented the "zoo" format with his Radio 1 show back in the 90's - a front man surrounded by stooges and sycophants, where he gets to lord it over them and poke fun at them and the like. I seem to recall that TFI Friday was much the same, although less zoo-like as less people surrounding him but still some. He's always done this kind of format and Top Gear 3.0 wasn't a whole lot different really. So, far from being solo, he has always been one to be the top dog with a team of lessers around him. I wouldn't be at all surprised if that's what MLB's beef was.
ash73 said:
Tiff was just on BBC news talking a lot of sense, nothing that hasn't been said here before but he summed it up well.
I'd ditch Rory, EJ, Sabine and Stig, and replace them with Jenson and Guy Martin if possible, and give the format a major overhaul. Mind you I thought Chris would be a hit but I was wrong.
Guy Martin was offered the gig the first time round and turned it down. So I don't see that happening. And Jenson still has too much racing to do. I can see him either joining Mark Webber in endurance racing or else becoming a pundit on either C4 F1 or Sky F1. I agree that he's be awesome though. I'd ditch Rory, EJ, Sabine and Stig, and replace them with Jenson and Guy Martin if possible, and give the format a major overhaul. Mind you I thought Chris would be a hit but I was wrong.
HRL said:
Maybe a bit harsh to add CE to the Celebrity Deadpool 2017 but it's got to be worth a shot!
Absolutely can't stand him.
People have different opinions on people in the public eye, and god knows some on here have laboured tirelessly to let the internet know that they have yet again seen/heard Chris Evans and yet again not been enamoured, as well as pointing out that he is apparently unforgivably ginger.Absolutely can't stand him.
However, gleefully trying to be the first to suggest that he won't survive the next twelve months is f
king odious behaviour.
I heard an interesting contribution on Sky this afternoon. The interviewee suggested that the reason that the format was not changed is that many people around the world see the show subtitled or dubbed and so the "subtleties" of the humour that was inherent in the Clarkson Hammond and May era didn't always translate. Or need to do so.
BBC played it safe by keeping the format as of old. Foreign markets would be happier & the BBC wouldn't run such a risk of alienating (sic) those valuable markets.
BBC played it safe by keeping the format as of old. Foreign markets would be happier & the BBC wouldn't run such a risk of alienating (sic) those valuable markets.
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