Minister for transport, hopefully.

Jeremy Clarkson Verified account
‏@JeremyClarkson

Oh for ****'s sake. May and Hammond? Really? We will end up thick and lost.

11:21 am - 13 Jul 2016



chris harris ‏@harrismonkey 12h

@JeremyClarkson I'm on a plane watching some film in which London gets bombed. The PM is called Clarkson. It's all becoming a bit worrying.

I like that Chris Harris tweeting Clarkson. Probably looking for a job when TG fails

The UK motoring journalist community isn't all that big and you'd assume they run into each other fairly often at trade shows and launches and etc. Very likely they knew each other before 'New TG' even started.

Does anyone else feel strangely relaxed & relieved that TG has finished?
There was this massive build-up to it and then it got massively panned and lost viewers left right & centre. During this time I was watching it hoping that it would be good, hoping that it would suddenly find it's place, hoping that Evens would realise it wasn't TFI/DFYTB/Big Breakfast and calm the **** down. Watching it out of obligation to series that I'd watched for so long but doing so almost through my fingers covering my eyes for fear that it was just getting worse.
Without it being on Sundays nights are suddenly less stressful, I haven't got this thing on the planner that I can't leave alone or delete but have to watch.

KInd of.... but I feel that it never really stood much chance. I'm not going to argue that Evans was the right man for the job - he wasn't - but large numbers of CHM fans and equally large numbers of CE haters were never going to accept the change whatever happened irrespective of the quality of what was broadcast.

With the relentless tirade of negativity across social media, the press and the fact that people were expecting it to hit the ground running, get everything right straightaway (which was never going to happen) and then moan because it wasn't polished or perfect, one has to feel for the production team and the people behind the scenes. Most of the films on their own were very good, well produced, brilliantly photographed etc and that's all got lost as all the focus has been on the presenters and the writing.

I also feel a bit short-changed in that the promised eight episodes were cut back to six. Even eight wasn't a lot compared to the 16 or so per year (plus Xmas specials) that we'd become used to.

Hopefully the producers can now take the positives, sort out the problems and come back with something stronger, more coherent and better written. People have to accept that TG can not be what is was and appreciate it for what it is now and if it's not for them any more, then too bad - perhaps a little more open-mindedness is called for?

I suspect, though, that TG is getting a lot of the flack not just because of CE being there and CHM not being there but because CHM's future offering will be behind a paywall and not FTA. That's the nub.

I'd agree with pretty much all of that, other than the very last sentence.

The 'nub', it seems to me, comes in three parts:

The fan base loved Clarkson and his whole anti-PC stance - the flip-side being an aggressive loathing for everything the North London luvvy BBC stands for.
The kind of people who loved Clarkson were precisely the kind of people who were always going to hate Chris Evans, whatever he did. Not being Clarkson was bad enough; but being Chris Evans was the final straw.
Your earlier point about the script. I've heard it said that Clarkson used to edit and edit and edit and hone and polish and hone and polish and hone and polish the script till it was right. It takes a rare talent to be able to do that - and a lot of hard work. Without him, the scripts just weren't good enough.

..& possibly one more: they turned it into a car show, and most people, even TG fans, just aren't actually all that interested in cars.

Yes, how on earth the BBC thought that appointing Evans would keep Clarkson fans on board has to be one of the greatest mysteries of all time.

I think (with hindsight) that this series had to be more of a car show. I doubt that's what the BBC really wanted and I expect it'll change going forward but the simple truth is that without the fabled 'chemistry' (and it always takes time to develop, whoever the individuals are), the challenges were not going to be anything like up to scratch. They would have taken an inordinate amount of time and effort to get there and may still not have worked even then. I suspect doing one in every episode was seen as far too much of a big ask. It's probably fortunate that they didn't try. No doubt plenty of lessons were learned for the next series, as the challenges were widely seen as one aspect that didn't quite work and something that absolutely has to be put right in order for the show to appeal to a wider audience and move from 'car show' back to 'general entertainment'.

I do still stand by my final sentence, though. Do you really think that there would have been quite so much hatred and negativity if The Grand Tour was airing on (say) ITV? I don't believe so. Not for one minute.

Absolutely. It take a rare talent to come up with such catchphrases as "Some say he's...", or "Who would like to see..." or even "On that bombshell..." And then repeat ad infinitum.

I do, as it happens. We'll just have to agree to disagree on that one.


You try it. Good catchphrases are not easy, and they're worth their weight in gold. (Try 'Probably the best...', which has sustained unquestionably among the worst lagers in the world for something like forty years.) And as you well know, the catchphrases were only a small part of the mix.

Top Gears never been FTA

In fact it was just about the only thing I watched regularly on the BBC besides maybe the 6 Nations so it costs me a hell of a lot more to watch it than Amazon Prime does.

Oh please not this tired lazy argument again: Clarkson lovers and CE haters wouldn't give it a chance.

The CE Top Gear series was objectively a pile of rubbish. No decent scripts, aimless races and pointless challenges. CE's shoutiness didn't help, but it wasn't the only reason it was poor. I didn't dislike it because CHM weren't fronting it. If they had done the same show with the same script it would have been just as bad. It wasn't social media outpourings that made the ratings drop so far. People get their anger out on social media but if the show had been worth watching they would have watched it anyway.


Why would Top Gear be getting a load of flak (no c in flak) for what CHM decided to do with their new series? The Grand Tour has nothing to do with CE, the BBC or Top Gear in general and it's illogical to suggest that the hate (if it is just blind hate) is because of TGT being on Amazon. People don't complain about Game of Thrones being on a subscription platform, do they? Amazon and Netflix are accepted platforms.


That's delusional. Grand Tour hasn't even been shown yet, and might also be rubbish. The criticism against CE Top Gear is unrelated to the platform Grand Tour is shown on.

I don't quite get this. What has appointing Evans got to do with keeping Clarkson fans?
Clarkson was gone.
They needed a new host so they got a competent presenter who is passionate about cars.

It didn't work out.

Were they supposed to get a Clarkson clone to step into the role?



I'd say they should have waited until the autumn to screen the series, giving the presenters and crew a lot more time to bed in.

Thanks for the spelling lessons but IMO it's naive in the extreme to think that the BBC and TG hasn't taken much of the backlash from people being angry that Clarkson's contract wasn't renewed and that Hammond, May and Wilman then chose to leave. There's been pages and pages of it on here just for starters. The fact that their new show is behind a paywall just adds to some people's annoyance and frustration at the whole saga. Both Clarkson and Evans are highly divisive people, and replacing one with the other has managed to antagonise two large groups of people who may not have much of an overlap on the appropriate Venn Diagram.

You've highlighted the main problems with CE TG and I don't dispute them. I've been saying the same thing for weeks myself, although there are some positives too but I notice you ignore those. TGT may turn out to be rubbish too, who knows, but the platform it's on is entirely relevant if people associate that show as being 'real Top Gear' which was previously freely available on BBC2 but is now, thanks to the BBC's perceived intransigence, now no longer freely available but only viewable on payment of a fee.


As per my reply above, they chose to replace one controversial and divisive presenter with another equally controversial and divisive one. They must have known doing that was a huge gamble, however knowledgeable and passionate about cars Evans is.

No, they weren't supposed to get a Clarkson clone but they might have been able to find someone who was more inclusive with a more suitable (less shouty) presenting style.

TGT was already announced for autumn 2016 before the BBC said anything about when it wanted to air TG. No way were they (a) going to have the shows clash, or (b) not get TG in first whilst it still had a following and momentum. It didn't work out as we all know only too well.

Sorry for giving you "flak" over your spelling. I didn't say the BBC hadn't had flak though. They just didn't get flack or, worse, Caroline Flack.

I've not seen the BIB mentioned anywhere except by you. I see now you've downgraded this to "adding to the annoyance", rather than being a primary cause of the criticism. It's an interesting theory but it implies that Clarkson fans (if such a cohesive group exists) are so stupid and demanding that they criticise the BBC for every consequence of his own actions, including things the BBC had no control over.

Clarkson's BBC contract ended over a year ago. Since then there has been a lot of speculation in this thread about who would host the show instead. So people were well used to the idea someone else would be doing the show, and also that CHM would continue together on Amazon. The new show was criticised in the main because of it's poor quality, not because CHM weren't fronting it, nor because they've contracted with Amazon. TV critics certainly didn't pan the show because they were Clarkson fans or Evans haters. No doubt some people were so angry the BBC didn't renew Clarkson's contract that they would criticise anything that replaced him, but it's rather tired to keep dragging this up as the main reason for the criticism of the show.

Can we please put the "haters" arguments away now and have a grown up discussion instead?

I'm not going to carry-on going round in circles. I've been having a 'grown-up discussion' here for several months. I've stated my position several times and my views haven't changed. We'll have to agree to disagree but if you think the CE TG series struggled for ratings purely because it was below par then I believe you're mistaken and IMO there are a lot of other factors involved. You only have to have read this board when the first show went out or when CE resigned to see the depth of feeling. Or look at Twitter. Or read the numerous comments on all the newspaper articles. Or just talk to people.

There *are* people who do not think the BBC should have let Clarkson go irrespective of his actions in the fracas. Plenty of people have said they wouldn't watch because without CHM it wasn't Top Gear. Plenty of others said they wouldn't watch if CE was doing it. No doubt some people in these groups did tune in at the beginning of the series out of curiosity but, of course, the shows were never going to keep those people, they simply weren't good enough. Hence ratings continued to fall.

Personally I've never been in any of the 'haters' camps. My emphasis has been on wanting TG to survive, whoever is presenting it. Check my previous posts. Anyway, I shall probably leave it there now until the next series, assuming there will be one.

Why does series one never get repeated on Dave?

I had an epiphany the other day - I was listening to "Test Match Special" and realised that this was the "old" CHM Top Gear format.

Load of opinionated older guys talking about anything and everything, while there happens to be something else going on - in this case a cricket match.

I don't know but at the time Clarkson and Willman owned the rights and maybe they only sold the right to Dave starting with S2 CHM version.

I think they pretend it does not exist

Hmmm.......

Probably the best car show in the world

Reaches the gears other car shows cannot reach

Millions of car fans every week,
Turn on the TV and watch his cheek,
Carz Meanz Clarkz(on)

Even 7th gear?

https://www.theguardian.com/media/20...er-bbc-ratings

No wonder Evans stopped talking about catchup .....

Matt LeBlanc is saying he's not sure if he'll return to the show, saying he's not heard anything from the BBC

http://deadline.com/2016/08/matt-leb...ry-1201801438/

But he also says he’d like to return to Top Gear.
I suspect his return hugely depends on the success of his new CBS sitcom (which, having seen the pilot, doesn’t look too good) and of course the BBC asking him back.

We’ve still got a final series of Episodes to come too (currently in post production).