BBC Top Gear new series

[AndyPandy]

I didn't watch any of the previous series as I don't rate Chris Evans. I didn't follow the three amigos to Amazon Prime, probably because I don't have Amazon Prime.

Watched the first of a new series tonight with Matt, Chris and Rory and it was really enjoyable. Pretty much the old Clarkson/May/Hammond format, most of the banter worked - they seem to gel - although some of the scripting is noticeably forced.

It's going to be difficult to find anything completely new, but there again we all soaked up the same old formula for years, just different cars and different locations, so can't be too harsh.

The road trip worked and finishing with a genuine rocket launch (as opposed to a home made TG version) was good. It's a 'yes' from me, Simon. Anyone else see it?

[staffordian]

A big improvement on the last series, I thought.

There did seem to be some genuine rapport between them, and the tweaked star in a fast car wasn't bad.

For me, it's a toss up as to whether TGT or TG is better as I thought some of Clarkson and co's stunts were rather too contrived to be enjoyable.

[Biggles]

I didn't watch any of the previous series as I don't rate Chris Evans.

I haven't watched Top Gear since it stopped being about cars and became a comic strip - I probably last watched it 20 years ago.

In my mind it was then presented by Raymond Baxter, but Wiki tells me I made that up so maybe I am confusing Top Gear with an early Grand Prix race.

[AndyPandy]

I didn't watch any of the previous series as I don't rate Chris Evans.

I haven't watched Top Gear since it stopped being about cars and became a comic strip - I probably last watched it 20 years ago.

In my mind it was then presented by Raymond Baxter, but Wiki tells me I made that up so maybe I am confusing Top Gear with an early Grand Prix race.

Or perhaps confusing him with William Woollard who presented it and Tomorrows World. Raymond Baxter presented TW.

All from a similar mould. Apart from Angela Rippon, of course, who also fronted TG for a while.

[bungeejumper]

I missed the first 15 minutes, but it soon became apparent that TG was back in familiar old territory. Some actor (or something) with a beard who I'd never heard of, driving a noddified car fast but badly. (A performance car, but only the electronics were keeping him from colliding with the aircraft parked beside the runway.) Then "Where do you think you've come?....You did it in......(interminable pause)...". Actually I didn't care, so I didn't notice what they said.

Then onward to a truly original piece about the three chaps buying three high-mileage wrecks and destroying them bit by bit over the pockmarked roads of some developing country. I really don't know where they think of all these brilliant ideas. I laughed once, when the driverless taxi fell off its blocks and careered off across the desert on its own. (Like that would really happen - it would have stalled as soon as its wheels hit the ground, since it was supposedly in a high gear.)

Call me picky, but I don't think the cameras or the production crew were anywhere near old TG's standards. The camera and post-editing graphics work were always one of the really classy points about the old set-up. What we got was a car programme without Top Gear's chemistry or Fifth Gear's car nerdiness. It was an awkward gap for a programme to fall into. Four out of ten.

BJ

[UncleIan]

A big improvement on the last series, I thought.

Agreed. It was like the last series was "throw everything at the wall and see what sticks", as long as it's different to old top gear. Now they've had a hard look at what didn't work last series, and ditched it. Though I didn't mind Sabine Schmitt, it was Eddie Jordan and Chris Evans that really didn't work in it, so it's good those two have gone.

It's good that they're back on the normal track, the rallycross thing just didn't work, as rallying only looks really spectacular when it's fast, and the celebs and the car just didn't cut it. Also they seemed to make the guest more part of the programme, not the old format of "bring them on, car questions, plug product, lap, goodbye". I quite liked the training scenes too.

I mean, really, it is just old top gear with different presenters, but these presenters seem to get on well, I'll definitely be watching the rest of the series.

[bungeejumper]

......when the driverless taxi fell off its blocks and careered off across the desert on its own

The London taxi won the mileage 'race'......so how did that happen? Do London taxis have their odometers connected to the rear wheels?

AFAIK, back in the days of W registered London taxis there was a little cog that came off the final drive on the gearbox and drove a flexible shaft to the speedo, so it was pretty much the same thing. But these days an electronic sensor is the thing. Damn fine idea, especially when you want to knock a few noughts off the odometer.

BJ

[bungeejumper]

AFAIK, back in the days of W registered London taxis there was a little cog that came off the final drive on the gearbox and drove a flexible shaft to the speedo, so it was pretty much the same thing. But these days an electronic sensor is the thing.

Have just re-read my post, and I'm apologising. I was completely out of order, talking about such technical nerdities as a a speedometer cable. Because plainly, no such considerations are of any relevance to modern motorists.

I may also have accidentally calumnified the impeccable accuracy of a speedometer reading, which as we all know is a matter of extraordinary precision. So when Reid took his taxi (maximum technical spec speed 81 mph) up to 84.5 mph on the clock, we were expected to gawp at the car's self-evident mechanical virtues. Amazing! 488,000 miles and it was running better than new! You'd have to be Donald Trump to fall for a line like that.

BJ

[Clitheroekid]

Anyone else see it?

Yes, I watched it, and I agree that it was a considerable improvement on the last series. But then simply ditching Chris Evans and Eddie Jordan guaranteed a considerable improvement anyway.

Having said it was better I'm afraid I just don't like the new presenters as individuals. I don't understand why the lead presenter is American at all, unless it's a cack-handed attempt to appeal to an international audience. If so the BBC have totally missed the point. TG was a quintessentially English show, and that's why it was so popular abroad - to a large extent it reinforced foreign stereotypes of Englishmen, and there are few things more enjoyable than having one’s stereotypes comfortably reinforced.

But even if we had to have a US presenter why LeBlanc? Having never watched whatever TV series he was in he was a complete unknown to me when he joined last season, and he just comes across as an impossibly wooden (LePlank?) muscle-bound nonentity. He just isn't a natural presenter. Furthermore, the dialogue between the three is cringingly forced and unnatural, and I can't stand the manic laughing at the feeblest of jokes – like canned laughter in individual packages.

You could tell a lot from the audience reaction. In the old TG the audience generally looked to be engaged and enjoying themselves, but there seemed to be a lot of glum, bored looking people on last night’s show.

I also find LeBlanc's worship of stupidity irritating rather than amusing. That line "I thought Kazakhstan was a fictional place, like Timbuktu or Guernsey" was one of the clunkiest ever uttered on TG, and just not funny. And his delivery of `funny' lines was generally excruciatingly bad. So he’s neither a presenter nor a comic, which begs the question why is he there at all?

Of the three Harris is the most professional, but he comes across as a rather aggressive nerd. When he was shouting at the actor in the practice for the reasonably priced car I was really hoping the actor would have just told him to f*** off! But he's evidently a good driver and at least seems to know something about cars, which puts him a step ahead of LeBlanc, so I can live with him without finding him an attractive personality.

Rory Reid just seems to be both a lightweight and a makeweight. He comes across as a nice bloke, but instantly forgettable, the sort of presenter I wouldn't be surprised to find on a children's TV programme. He also seems to be over-acting a lot of the time, and I generally found him rather wearing.

But the actual content was a lot better than the last series. Thank God we were spared the interminably tedious interviews with the `star’, though I don't understand the idea of substituting a rather gutless `sports' car for the totally crap car. I actually think it was more entertaining seeing the crap car driven hard than the Toyota, but I appreciate that's a purely personal view.

The sequence on the Ferrari was good, and the Kazakhstan trip was at least watchable - pretty much on a par with similar trips on TGT.

I suppose I'll get used to the presenters, even if I don't grow to actually like them.I'll also keep watching for the content, which seems to be pretty good, but I really can't see these three ever creating the affection amongst TG fans that existed for the old lot.

[PrincessB]

The first 10 minutes of TGT are worth watching, for those who have Amazon Prime episode 13 was the one where Clarkson and team relaxed and managed that unforced humour that made the old one so good.

While not being a Star Wars fan, Rouge One turned out to be far better than I expected and the first 15 minutes of Episode Three (Revenge of the Sith) are amazing.

I will now attempt to veer all over the place with other references that relate to the Top Gear TV program in different ways.

I like old Bond Films as they show places you didn't get to go to when you were a kid. While the plots got worse, the scenery got better and you could ask if you were watching a travel show or a film. TG are in direct competition with TGT and that means some decent TV rather than a rehash of a tired format.

For those of us with computers, AMD have put a rocket up the bottom of Intel with the launch of their new Ryzen processors. Intel are so spooked by this the price of their previously expensive stuff has suddenly dropped by 50%. We can also look forwards to an arms race between Intel and AMD which might keep a few computer journalists in jobs for a while.

it is ironic that TG is a British program with an American presenter while TGT is an American program with British presenters - What made me smile was the seeing of places I'm unlikely to visit with superb production and lots of drone shots.

I'm a very happy bunny and will watch both and if they get into an arms race involving amazing locations, so much the better.

B.

[staffordian]

God this is awful.

I'm not sure we are watching the same programmes

I'd say it's not as good as TG used to be, but if I'm honest, the last few series of TG with Clarkson et al were something of a curates egg, and I think there is a tendency to view it through rose tinted spectacles. It wasn't all brilliant, though the production value may well have been a notch higher.

All in all, I think this series is far better than the Chris Evans incarnation, and not that far off the quality of TGT. Both TG and TGThave some good bits, some OK bits and some awful bits.

The presentation of TG is better now the German woman and Eddie Jordan have been given the boot, even if the current trio lack something of the chemistry of Jezza, Captain Slow and The Hamster but they have had many series to build the rapport; the currrent TG trio have had a couple of shows.

I think everyone agrees that the last TG series was pretty dire; I think the BBC have picked up on what worked, and more crucially what didn't and have made a pretty good fist of putting an enjoyable series together this time round.

Staffordian

[bungeejumper]

Oh dear, oh dear. I switched TG on last night, and 20 minutes later I switched it off again. Two guys trying to slide a new Alfa Romeo sideways into a piece of stage scenery (and hitting it three times out of four). Then David Tennant getting the shouted-at treatment - did he ever do a timed lap, by the way? I didn't hang around to find out.

Next up was (yawn...) yet another desert haul across America in a pair of fast convertibles. If I have ever said in the past that Matt LeBlanc was getting less tiresome during the first series, may I please apologise now and get it over with? Pretty dire. I may be gone some time.

BJ

[Clitheroekid]

I think I'm somewhere between staffordian on the one hand and snorvey and bungeejumper on the other.

I thought the actual content of last night's show was reasonably good, in particular the feature about the Alfa, which is quite a beast, though there's way too much emphasis on the teenage fantasy aspects of driving. I'm becoming very bored with scenes of smoke pouring from tyres and the shrill commentary that accompanies them, and that sequence with Harris trying to drift the Alfa through the hole was just manure (as our censors would put it) .

But by far the biggest problem for me remains the presenters - I just don't like them.

There's something about LeBlanc that I find intensely irritating. For some reason he reminds me of Sylvester Stallone, with muscles substituting for brains. He looks like a prize fighter, and I instinctively distrust men who look like they're on steroids.

But more importantly he's just not a natural presenter. His delivery is stilted, as though he's reading an autocue, and he rarely has anything interesting to say at all. Neither he nor the other two seem to have the easy interaction with the audience that the last lot did, and many people in the audience look bored and/or bemused.

Harris seems more knowledgeable, and he's clearly a competent driver, but again there's something cold and almost menacing about him. I really don't like his aggressive approach to the `stars' he's teaching to drive, and when he's driving he's quite manic at times, and not in a `I'm having fun' way, more like a teenager who's just lethally maimed a dozen opponents in Call of Duty (or whatever the current video slaughter game is).

I hadn't realised he was a short pink marshmallows, but as he mentioned it himself perhaps he suffers from the small man syndrome.

And poor Rory Reid seems nothing more than an amiable buffoon, whose main role seems to be to laugh uproariously at the singularly unfunny antics of the other two. I actually felt sorry for him last night, as he was hardly involved at all.

I know everyone says it took ages for the old TG team to gel and build the chemistry, which may be true - I really can't remember - but for me they were each appealing as individuals, which is simply not the case here. It's a shame, as I would really like TG to work, but I really can't see it doing so with this trio.

Having said all that, I realise that I'm no longer the target demographic, so I don't suppose the BBC will lose any sleep over the views of people like me!

[bungeejumper]

Harris seems more knowledgeable, and he's clearly a competent driver, but again there's something cold and almost menacing about him. I really don't like his aggressive approach to the `stars' he's teaching to drive, and when he's driving he's quite manic at times, and not in a `I'm having fun' way, more like a teenager who's just lethally maimed a dozen opponents in Call of Duty (or whatever the current video slaughter game is).

Trying to see the positive side of it, I could understand it if TG was deliberately building up a 'Mister Angry' persona for Harris, particularly in the star guest slot. It would be something genuinely new after all that sycophantic backslapping that usually goes on. But, as the newspapers also noted, Tennant's response was genuinely tense and tetchy and defensive, suggesting that this wasn't a game.

And another thing: When Matt LeBlanc told Tennant that he wanted Doctor Who to be a bit more Tom Baker and a bit less Peter Davison, Tennant's angry response ("Don't diss the Davison") may not have been unconnected to the fact that he's married to Peter Davison's daughter. So was LeBlanc being clumsy, badly-researched, or just a little bit nasty?

Elsewhere, I'm still saying that there are few of the amazing production qualities that used to make TG stand out. You could have watched the Clarkson series with the sound turned down and still had a good time, the camerawork was so excellent. Haven't noticed it in this series, or the last. All in all, there just aren't enough reasons for me to consider this programme a must-see any more. Wake me up when it improves a bit, or preferably a lot.

BJ

[UncleIan]

You could have watched the Clarkson series with the sound turned down and still had a good time

Some would say an even better time than with the sound on.

[Hallucigenia]

Then onward to a truly original piece about the three chaps buying three high-mileage wrecks and destroying them bit by bit over the pockmarked roads of some developing country. I really don't know where they think of all these brilliant ideas.

You could say something similar about Clarkson Top Gear in its later years. They probably reached their high-water mark with the Botswana trip in 2007, certainly by the back-to-back series of 2009 they were quite obviously recycling ideas. The budgets got bigger but it started getting more obviously contrived in order to deliver bigger wows on screen (like the snowmobile episode), it was never quite the same.

I'd agree on the quality of the production - but that was world class, so it's no disgrace to be "still pretty good".

I think Sabine and Eddie Jordan are still officially part of it. I can see the idea with the celebrity training - people messing up whilst learning a new skill is quite entertaining, so it was a bit of a waste not being able to show it because of the Stig. Don't like having a proper car for the slebs though, even if it is rear-wheel drive.

But even if we had to have a US presenter why LeBlanc? Having never watched whatever TV series he was in he was a complete unknown to me when he joined last season, and he just comes across as an impossibly wooden (LePlank?) muscle-bound nonentity.

Given that he was in one of the biggest TV shows of all time, and a number of primetime shows since, I'd suggest there's more of a problem here with viewer ignorance rather than his lack of name recognition. There's plenty of interchange of presenters these days - James Corden hosts one of the biggest US shows, Adam Hills does the Last Leg and so on. And it's definitely a skill that can be learnt - Gary Lineker was terrible to start with, way worse than LeBlanc but he's not bad now. Top Gear are overcompensating with scripted jokes, but they'll work it out.

LeBlanc's OK - not great, but OK. It was always a poisoned chalice, like taking over from David Tennant as Dr Who. They seem to be getting there though - and it does take time for these things to come together, qv series 1 of Blackadder. People forget that James May wasn't even in the first series of Top Gear Mk II - Jason Dawe will forever be no more than a pub-quiz answer.

Rory Reid just seems to be both a lightweight and a makeweight. He comes across as a nice bloke, but instantly forgettable, the sort of presenter I wouldn't be surprised to find on a children's TV programme. He also seems to be over-acting a lot of the time, and I generally found him rather wearing.

Sounds like the ideal replacement for Richard Hammond then.

When Matt LeBlanc told Tennant that he wanted Doctor Who to be a bit more Tom Baker and a bit less Peter Davison, Tennant's angry response ("Don't diss the Davison") may not have been unconnected to the fact that he's married to Peter Davison's daughter. So was LeBlanc being clumsy, badly-researched, or just a little bit nasty?

I've not seen that one yet but - ooh. On the surface, I'd assume crass USian putting his foot in it, he'd be forgiven for not following the ins and outs of the British TV scene. But given that it's Top Gear it's just as likely to be an inside joke done with a wink.

[DrFfybes]

I finally got around to watching the first one last night.

Not as good as it could be, but infinitely better than Series , and actually better than most of the last 4 or 5 years of the old TG crew.

They have reverted towards the "3 mismatched blokes cocking about on Sunday night TV" format already though.

FWIW I thought using a GT86 was a good idea. They also played up how much the electronics helped in the wet, I think shoving them in an MX5 or similar with no electronic aids would actually show people how hard it is to drive a sporty car properly.

Dr"why is the MR2 facing the wrong way down this wet road?"F