New Top Gear presenters announced

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Mon 22 Oct 2018 10:15
New Top Gear presenters announced - nellyjak

OMG...it gets worse.!.

I wasn't overly keen on the last lot...(particularly the ginger one who thankfully didn't last long)...and IMO they should have formatted the show to be completely different from the "original" and not try to do a copy.

Love them or loathe them, Clarkson, the Hamster and Captain Slow couldn't, for me, be beaten...and no doubt would still be running had Clarkson not been such a muppet.

I doubt that I shall now even think about watching Top Gear.

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Mon 22 Oct 2018 10:21
New Top Gear presenters announced - Andrew-T

Love them or loathe them, Clarkson, the Hamster and Captain Slow couldn't, for me, be beaten...and no doubt would still be running had Clarkson not been such a muppet.

Personally I could never stand Clarkson - a bit like Trump in the way he just didn't give a toss about the consequences of his actions. If he 'test-drove' a car, all you knew at the end was whether he liked it.

However, watched May's programme last night and was quite entertained.

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Mon 22 Oct 2018 13:20
New Top Gear presenters announced - Gibbo_Wirral

Top Gear has really lost its way.

It was suffering even when Clarkson, May and Hammond were at the helm. They'd raised the bar too high with their end of season challenges when they started to have one in every episode, and they just became so laboured and fake.

Considering The Grand Tour is only having one more series, perhaps its best to call time on all of this genre.

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Mon 22 Oct 2018 14:05
New Top Gear presenters announced - Miniman777

BBC are really scraping the barrel. Flintoff and McGuniiess. OMG. After Clarkson, May and Hammond left, they should have buried the series there and then. The replacement presenters did have the same charisma and interaction with audience and guests, Le Blanc was a waste space and Evans is past his sell by date, and all in all, it was hard work.

I see Radio 2 has called time on Mayo and Whiney too. Not before time. Mayo had exceeded his best before date, and adding the annoying Whiney to the mix made moved me to alternative radio stations due to their inane waffle, stupid out of date features and what came over as 'difficult conversation' between them.

Are we really that strapped for decent radio and TV presenters?

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Mon 22 Oct 2018 14:29
New Top Gear presenters announced - Ethan Edwards

Sooner or later the Beeb quota department will insist on a poc with a myriad of letters LGQBWXZYYUD etc and then you know it's over.

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Mon 22 Oct 2018 20:08
New Top Gear presenters announced - Engineer Andy

Indeed - a sign of a REALLY good TV show is one that leaves the scene for a few years to make viewers miss it and demand its return, so they have enough time to make it relevant to the modern world as required whilst staying faithful to its roots, and to ensure that the presenters, actors etc are top-notch.

Too much reboots (often politically correct) of tired formats (anything seemingly involving JJ Abrams and his friends these days, Doctor WHO), others hanging on WAY too long (Big Bang Theory, Strictly, Big Brother, Casualty, Flog It, Q of Sport, etc) and seriously below their best, plus, as you say, general political correctness and often ageism leading to beloved figures leaving after being sidelined or just pernsioned off/forced out in favour on the PC-brigade's flavour-of-the-month.

Top Gear should be left for at least 5 years, probably 10 and then, if the market wants it to return, perhaps...(once sanity in TV land has returned to some degree).

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Mon 22 Oct 2018 16:28
New Top Gear presenters announced - paul 1963

OMG...it gets worse.!.

I wasn't overly keen on the last lot...(particularly the ginger one who thankfully didn't last long)...and IMO they should have formatted the show to be completely different from the "original" and not try to do a copy.

Love them or loathe them, Clarkson, the Hamster and Captain Slow couldn't, for me, be beaten...and no doubt would still be running had Clarkson not been such a muppet.

I doubt that I shall now even think about watching Top Gear.

Totally agree, and I too found Mays program last night very entertaining

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Mon 22 Oct 2018 16:15
New Top Gear presenters announced - TheGentlemanThug

Like him or loathe him, Jeremy Clarkson was the *ahem* driving force behind Top Gear. Hammond and May knew it, which is why they left with him. None of that excuses what happened of course, and Clarkson got exactly what he deserved.

I thought LeBlanc, Reid and Harris were OK for the most part, and trimming the number of presenters down was certainly a good move. Personally, I wouldn't be surprised to learn that LeBlanc really left because he felt the series was stagnating.

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Mon 22 Oct 2018 17:48
New Top Gear presenters announced - badbusdriver

I was also a big fan of James May, particularly his attitude that the 'Ring has ruined cars with the totally uneccessary obsession of grip and handling at the expense of ride comfort.

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Mon 22 Oct 2018 20:14
New Top Gear presenters announced - carl233

Is the program about cars any longer? Last time I caught it the content seemed more about the presenters and what was currently cool and hip?

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Mon 22 Oct 2018 23:03
New Top Gear presenters announced - mss1tw

For all the criticism of Clarkson and his POWAAAAAH act, he has also given praise to the Mondeo, the Berlingo, and the Subaru Forester.

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Tue 23 Oct 2018 11:12
New Top Gear presenters announced - Leif

Who? I think I've heard of the cricketer, Lord knows who the other one is. I heard clips of them on the radio, and they sound like a pair of professional northerners (exaggerated macho accents, very laddish).

I loathed the ginger one. Loud, vacuous and egocentric. No surprise Leblanc hated him.

I thought Leblanc was doing a brilliant job, it was starting to come together as a motoring show with a gentle humour, and more of a focus on cars than previously. The presenters were starting to work together and show their personalities. Leblanc seemed to be a genuinely likeable chap, and down to earth.

Clarkson et al were hilarious when on form, but amateurish when not, which was not rare. The Grand Tour has for me been a bit of a damp squib, all too amateurish, too egotistical. Sadly.

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Tue 23 Oct 2018 17:54
New Top Gear presenters announced - S40 Man

I'm enjoying the new series of 5th great on Quest. Informative and entertaining, got the balance right for me. Not all supercars they have reviewed cars you might advisory buy.

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Tue 23 Oct 2018 20:09
New Top Gear presenters announced - badbusdriver

I'm enjoying the new series of 5th great on Quest. Informative and entertaining, got the balance right for me. Not all supercars they have reviewed cars you might advisory buy.

I'm not convinced. The 'team test' for example, is a waste of time unless the car in question is really fast and handles like a race car. Hardly surprising though with so many racing drivers on the team, but biased and irrelevant for most drivers.

Also, the last episode i watched had a test of 4 track day cars, two of which were 'knocked out' before they got to racing them on track?!?. Had all 4 went on track, i strongly suspect the Radical would have won, and i also suspect the Zenos would have done better than the Caterham, which seemed to be constantly struggling to get its power down. A few episodes ago there was a track test between two SUV's, one of which had quite a bit more power than the other, so no surprise which won.

I do like the bit with the guy uprating the cars though, very interesting.

Edited by badbusdriver on 23/10/2018 at 20:19

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Wed 24 Oct 2018 19:59
New Top Gear presenters announced - S40 Man

A few weeks ago they had a Volvo pulling a caravan! The cheap skate alternatives are always write informative and sensible for us mere mortals.

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Thu 25 Oct 2018 14:10
New Top Gear presenters announced - Leif

The cheap skate alternatives are always write informative and sensible for us mere mortals.

What does that mean?

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Thu 25 Oct 2018 14:31
New Top Gear presenters announced - Snakey

I think the problem is that TG became popular because of the presenters rather than the content or car reviews, they evolved from the early stages of the show into the trio that became TG in essence.

Now they've gone, they can't force the show to work - it almost become popular by accident really - it only really started to pick up once James arrived.

Personally I find fifth gear a bit boring, same old round and round a racetrack tedium to see which car will do a lap 0.001 seconds faster than another. At least TG and GT still have a sense of humour, and will put the presenters in less glamorous stuff occasionally.

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