Just about to watch the first episode *fingers crossed*

 

I haven't watched it yet (recording)
But it's getting slated at the moment

 

It looks like they tried to keep pretty much the same old Top Gear formula - from the Allman Bros lead-in, a featured car & chase, the Stig, a contrived race, star in a reasonably priced car. Same mix of prepared film, framed with "live" presentation with an audience in the hanger.

Featured car was the new Viper. Same course and lap time board for the Stig (Viper finished 3rd). Updated car/course for the stars bit. The chemistry between the hosts isn't there (at least yet).

 

We don't get it in the US until tomorrow night. I miss the guys but will be watching Amazon prime. My only hope is that Top Gear and Chris' show after it are at least decent. Then I'll have the best of both worlds throughout the year.

 

No Spoilers!! (That was a Car show related joke) anyway....

Apart from Chris Evens doing what he does best, SHOUT all the time, I thought it was really good!! I think Matt nailed it, very funny in parts.

 

Can barely stand Evens. I'm a Chris Harris fan.

 

Both Chris's suck if you ask me. Harris doesn't do anything but drift like a child, and he'll sell his opinion to any car maker that offers him a nice test drive.

 

I'm officially in mourning until the boys come out on Amazon Prime. This remaked TG was just awful. The jokes are lame, the reliant segment had no purpose, Evans is shrill and annoying. I keep waiting for "Tribiani" to ask the car "how you doin".

I love my country but no American should host this show. It's losing its British soul. Sabine needs to be on more. I really hope it gets better as the chemistry improves otherwise the BBC has got a falling star on their hands. Now I know taste is subjective and comparing it to the old show is not entirely fair but they have tied themselves so closely to the old format without the right hosts. Sad

Let the debate rage. 😜😈

 

I just saw the episode. I groaned a bit. I understand why they were calling Chris Evans "shouty" - It shouting got annoying after the first 3 minutes. The lame jokes about the old hosts were in bad taste.

I will try watching it a total of 3 times before I make my mind up but thus far it is not looking good.

 

The Extra Gear segment was a little better.

 

Sad to say the new TG is dire

1. Matt Tribiani (spelling?) shows about as much personality as cardboard, hes boring, and droll.
2. Chris Evans, I dont think ive ever seen a tv personality that irritates me as much, and that includes Kate Hopkins and Katie Price.
3. They have stuck to the old format which is a mistake as it immediately makes everyone compare it to the Jeremy, Richard and James era. It lacks the character and humour.
4. There is no spark between the hosts, the jokes are contrived and forced and not remotely funny.


Sad as I was hoping it would work well, but it seems to have completely flopped, wont be watching again. of course, this is all my opinion and will differ to others, but Im not forcing anyone else to watch or not!

 

Yep - your spelling is incorrect

It's le blanc lol

 

Chris Evans is an aquired taste. He is very shouty, but eventually your brain accepts this and shifts your tolerance levels such that you can actually listen to what he says without noticing it. Matt LeBlanc strikes me as a similar sort of personality where once you get used to him he appears a good choice for the second slot. The others all blended in to the background noise but there are some good motoring presenters in there.

If you were expecting 2015 Top Gear then you would always be disapointed. That has ended, and you need to approach it as an entirely new show. The 1-2 positions are similarly cast and once they (and us) settle in I bet they will play off much better than the first show.

The content/format was surprisingly similar, but I would not be surprised if the producers had a strong instruction to keep it the same from the comissioners/BBC. I have long had the feeling that the BBC didn't get why the second Clarkson Top Gear "worked", and treated it as a content program rather than basically a trip to the pub with your mates at the weekend. I expect they want to justify that by showing that they can replace the bit they didn't like (Clarkson) with something they do (Evans) with an almost perfectly PC support cast and still remain successful.

Which it will be. Phenomenally. Moreso than the Amazon offering which is only focused on short term subscriptions as they try and gain as much ground as possible in the inevitable total shift to on-demand broadcasting. If you go into that one expecting 2015 TG you will also be disapointed. That TG had it's time and was going to end, one way or another, because it stagnated and stopped being good a couple of years ago. I would have been surprised if it lasted into 2016/17 anyway. It became a lot like Family Guy - you could take random segments from the earlier series and slot them together into a new episode and no one would notice.

 

More like Le Plank!

Maybe, but hes already put me off enough, as he has a lot of other fans. The stats for Sundays show were 4.3m viewers, considering the show averaged 5.6m and this was the first of a new series with LOTS of hype, thats pretty poor. Country file had 5.something mil viewers that night.

I wasnt expecting 2015 TG, but saying it has ended and this is entirely new isnt valid. IF they had changed the format and come up with a new script then yes id agree, but they didnt. Its exactly the same script and mechanics with different hosts so it is 2015 TG and not something new.

Time will tell how successful it was, it was down on viewing figures as ive already discussed and has had a very rough time in the press and social media, so no i wouldnt call it a success!

The problem is[/QUOTE] Again i disagree, not sure if GT (amazon offering) will be better or not, but this Top Gear for me and a lot of others has failed spectacularly.

 

Top Gear's success is not in live viewing figures, it is in the $$$ it brings in from being rebroadcast on over two dozen other channels worldwide, the three named spin-offs and the other shows, and the associated YouTube/DVDs/magazine.

That said, 23% of the live audience is not a flop. The previous series did not achieve that, which suggests the ongoing numbers will likely fall as the "curious to see what they've done" viewers go back to ITV. Viewing figures after six episodes will be a better estimate of how many they have gained/held/lost, and by then reviews (and inevitable comparisons) will be fairer as the cast will have settled in.

The end of the Clarkson TG was on the cards for a while, and IMO it should have ended 5 years ago when the producers wanted it to. The staged controversy after staged controversy to keep the interest going was wearing very thin. It became a "let's see what Jeremy does this week" show. That's why I'm a little surprised that the producers did not use the opportunity to refresh the format again, but as I said I would not rule out BBC politics having a hand in that.

 

Sabine was the only one that had anything entertaining to say (Corvette insults). Evans shouts everything and it's unbearable. Nothing at all clever, subtle or ironic to say. Horrible. I like LeBlanc, but not for this show. Way too American. Too bad they relegated Rory to Extra Gear. He should replace Evans, add a good third, and then maybe they'd have something. Not Harris, he should go back to making You Tube drifting videos, and sucking Ferrari's C***, as he's good at that stuff. At least it wasn't quite as awful as American TG.

 

I turned it off after 10 minutes. Went deaf. No chemistry between the presenters and with CE in the driving seat there never will be. The BBC have tried to emulate the three stooges and have failed miserably. They will have different presenters each week apart form CE an ML so the camaraderie will not be there.
Really bad reviews over here. I for one wont watch it again.

Roger

 

I'll probably give it a couple of more tries because I want to like it, even though I don't.

 

I wasn't impressed either. There was no chemistry between the hosts, but I recognize that can take time to achieve. I enjoyed the previous cast TG a lot, so I'm going to give this one a couple more episodes to see if it gets better. Unfortunately it's opposite Angie Tribeca starting next week which IMHO is an incredibly funny cop show spoof.

I tried watching Extra Gear, but only got through maybe 10 minutes - just couldn't take it.

 

What a catastrophic failure of strategy to keep the same exact format. It was already going to draw comparisons that it couldn't live up to...they just made it painfully easy.