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Top Gear

Posted: Mon Oct 22, 2018 8:37 am
by DjchunKfunK
The BBC have announced that Paddy McGuinness and Andrew Flintoff will replace Matt LeBlanc as the presenters of Top Gear. They will be joined by Chris Harris, Rory Reed is being dropped and will host Extra Gear alongside Sabine Schmitz.

This is a terrible decision in my opinion as the best things about the new version of Top Gear were Reed and Harris as they knew what they were talking about. Trying to force in another couple of 'celebrities' is the wrong direction to take, especially two who are very 'lad-ish' in their behaviour. They needed to allow the show to continue to grow with actual car people in charge.

Think the final season with LeBlanc might well be my last.

Re: Top Gear

Posted: Mon Oct 22, 2018 1:27 pm
by Achtung Englander
er...who are they ?. I could do a Google search but I cannot be bothered. One is a cricketer isn't he ?

Re: Top Gear

Posted: Mon Oct 22, 2018 1:33 pm
by Maturin
Can't really comment much about this, I only watched the very first episode of the reboot with Chris Evans and gave up halfway through to save my sanity. I hear it improved after he left, but by then I'd completely moved on.

Paddy McGuiness would get on my nerves though...

Re: Top Gear

Posted: Mon Oct 22, 2018 3:10 pm
by DjchunKfunK
Flintoff is an ex-cricketer, McGuiness started out on Peter Kay stuff then progressed to hosting awful/offensive dating shows on ITV.

Re: Top Gear

Posted: Mon Oct 22, 2018 3:22 pm
by Sly Boots
They seem like quite bizarre choices on the face of it.

Not that it bothers me overmuch, like Maturin I haven't watched it since the Evans debut.

Same for The Grand Tour, actually.

Re: Top Gear

Posted: Mon Oct 22, 2018 3:41 pm
by DjchunKfunK
Not exactly the best people to have for a show that is supposed to have worldwide appeal as both have quite strong regional accents.

Re: Top Gear

Posted: Mon Oct 22, 2018 4:35 pm
by Raid
That's assuming the show still has world-wide appeal.

Re: Top Gear

Posted: Tue Oct 23, 2018 12:39 pm
by Alan
I really like Paddy, he seems like a genuinely lovely bloke. Apparently I’m alone in that! I might give it another shot.

Re: Top Gear

Posted: Tue Oct 23, 2018 2:29 pm
by Wrathbone
Just kill the damn show already. Or, if they insist on dragging its mangled, twitching near-corpse into the future, change the format so that the star in a reasonably priced car is the guest host for the episode, a bit like Have I Got News For You.

Or, as the cynic in me thinks could be the case, they'll drag this on for a year or two more until The Grand Tour is axed, then they'll pretend to kiss and make up with Clarkson and co and bring them back.

Re: Top Gear

Posted: Tue Oct 23, 2018 3:29 pm
by Raid
You do raise a good point. I don't think The Grand Tour has been anywhere near as popular as Amazon were probably hoping; I haven't seen anyone talking about it since the first series (and there have been two). I did try watching it, but the lack of BBC oversight just meant that the worst parts of the formula were given more airtime. There're only so many deliberate, scripted arguments and childish insults that I can stand, and TGT stepped way beyond that limit. Added to some dreadful choices ("The American" was crap, so was the test track that I think they replaced for the second series, the repeated jokes about the celebrity guest getting killed and so on), I had absolutely no enthusiasm for it.

Re: Top Gear

Posted: Tue Oct 23, 2018 3:47 pm
by DjchunKfunK
I would have been happy for it to build on the last series and grow the audience once again. Instead they seem to want to capture a similar audience to the one that watched the show when it was in it's prime ignoring the fact that the audience had built up over time.

The "failure" of the Grand Tour is partly down to the trio being let off the leash, but I would also argue that the form of comedy they have relied on a lot more, even towards the end of their time on Top Gear, just doesn't work anymore. The world has moved on.

Re: Top Gear

Posted: Tue Oct 23, 2018 4:11 pm
by Raid
I can't speak for everyone, but that's the case for me. I used to really enjoy Top Gear, but that was back when a) there was some semblance of it not being entirely scripted and b) when they didn't seem to be concentrating fully on being offensive for no good reason other than that being 'the act'. The first time they did the amphibious cars (which admittedly was over a decade ago) was one of the funniest pieces of television I can remember.

Re: Top Gear

Posted: Tue Oct 23, 2018 5:20 pm
by Snowy
The second season of TGT was a lot better than the first, but that isn't saying much, the first was execrable shite.

Amazing but even with a budget the likes of which the Beeb would never match, they haven't managed to recreate anything special. I expected them to do whole series of specials and 'producer challenges', seems they missed a trick there.

Re: Top Gear

Posted: Tue Oct 23, 2018 5:33 pm
by Alan
TGT just felt like a circle jerk. It didn’t even feel like a bunch of mates spending all the BBCs money having a great time and more like contractually obligated friendship and board sanctioned hijinx. I don’t even like cars and the lack of car news felt wrong.

Re: Top Gear

Posted: Tue Oct 23, 2018 9:13 pm
by Jez
Haven't watched any form of Top Gear/TGT since they canned the BBC original.