Gear Change

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Whoo whoooo!!! Top Gear’s back.  Oh crap.  Chris Evans is in charge….but Joey…not bad…an oversized American Hamster.

Top Gear’s on the road again and it’s pretty much the same…technically…but it’s heart and soul have gone AWOL.  Production values and the elements that made up the original content are there…but the personality?  Where’s it gone?  At Top Gun school in the US, a German racing driver up against a Brit and Evans doesn’t even mention the Battle of Britain…come on!!!

The Old Top Gear was all about the three knobheads mucking about and how they pissed each other off in a matey way.  Evans just doesn’t fit the profile…he’s a schoolboy who made a million selling his internet app….all geek and way too unique…

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The BBC doesn’t understand what made Top Gear Top Gear…the three man team that bounced off each other…two teaming up against one, the insults, banter and knockabout. A two presenter team just doesn’t work like that and Evans and Joey are ill-matched anyway.  The BBC has gone for Stars and the same old Top Gear format which even under Clarkson and Co needed a refit.  The Reliant race to Blackpool?  What was that?  Anti-climactic to say the least…why didn’t Evans just abandon Joey at the roadside as is traditional?  Stars in a reasonably priced car was past its sell-by date long ago and the slightly re-jigged effort with a  ‘rally’ car and a stretch across a field doesn’t do anything to reinvent it….a more interesting car (the Ariel Nomad for instance) and an all rally track would have thrust a bit of nitro up its smoking backside.

Evans lacks the blokeiness or just the massive sized belly of Clarkson to carry it off….get rid of the glasses, grow a beard, man up Evans!

ginger

Oh….he’s had ago….

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Nah…he’ll have to go, he just doesn’t cut it.

Who does?  Back in the ghetto where the diverse BBC have sidelined the black guy (Rory Reid) and the asian guy (Chris Harris) on Top Gear: Extra Gear we get the real Top Gear, the Old Top Gear with a bit of genuinely funny interaction and grab your attention TV….add in Sabine Schmitz, or comedian Chris Ramsay, and you’ve got a programme that is natural and watchable….Joey and Evans?…not so much.

Reid’d grow into the Clarkson part as he matures and makes the programme his own…..The BBC seem to have tamed Reid a bit…he is capable of a more Clarksonesque approach as his promo video shows. Playing it safe on his first big break?  Harris is already there….James May but less floral…and Sabine Schmitz….strong, funny chararcter….almost too much character.

The BBC have got it wrong on the presenters…dump Evans and put these three in charge of the big show.

 

 

 

 

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26 Responses to Gear Change

  1. Deborah says:

    Mr D refused to watch the new Top Gear – even to the point that he wanted to watch the Battle of Jutland that followed and determinedly switched on late. I thought I would read on the Daily Mail website what people thought of it. At the time that I looked it up (early this morning) the top comment – over 7,000 green arrows said it was marvellous. However someone had added a comment to say that many thousands of the green arrows (‘like’ for those who don’t go there) seemed to have been added in 20 minutes between when the reader had looked once and looked again so someone was bowing to someone’s agenda. Zoe Ball on Radio 2 just before Pop Quiz said she had watched it and it was wonderful and full of praise for Chris and the other presenters – hmmm…..I think the BBC are pushing this one. I will be interested to read comments here.

       49 likes

    • Number 6 says:

      Absolute garbage…..Chris Evans trying even harder than usual to be funny and failing even more abysmally….just plain aggravating

      Zero chemistry between any of them,and a crude pastiche of the real thing

      Wont be wasting my time with another go

         60 likes

      • Dover Sentry says:

        You won’t be wasting your time Number 6, but you’ll be wasting your Licence money. Your money, our money and my money. And the BBC don’t even care.

           15 likes

    • Deborahanother says:

      This is happening a lot especially with the EU articles.Pro EU comment suddenly goes to the top with thousands of green arrows within half an hour.

      I can’t judge Top Gear because I’m not a car person and the whole programme is not my thing.However Thinking of the few times i have seen it ,I think it will be hard to duplicate the chemistry the original presenters had.

         35 likes

    • Cull the Badgers says:

      When I read Evans’ comment that they show was going to ‘positive, inclusive and cross-demographic’, I was nearly sick all over the newspaper. All the modern PC buzzwords, used by meeja people and the BBC of course; especially ‘inclusive’, which, catering for minorities, is designed to exclude and offend the majority. Don’t they just love ’em.

      Not for me, and Evans is a preening prat anyway.

         21 likes

    • Dave666 says:

      Saw the last couple of minutes as I turned over to watch “Jutland” both were crap.

         4 likes

  2. Fred Basset says:

    Yes I refused to watch it as well but the reviews in the papers are well worth a read, Car Crash TV, literally! Apparently Chris Evans said last week that he would be disappointed with anything below 5m viewers. Well he got an average of 4.4m with a high of 4.7m. It will be interesting to see what they get for the rest of series and also the viewing figures abroad.

       46 likes

  3. GCooper says:

    The manipulations of the DM’s ‘likes’, which Deborah alludes to, is very interesting.

    DM likes are regularly fraudulently hyped by the far Left. In this case, the implication is either that the BBC is doing it to the DM to boost its ratings (unlikely, I’d have said) or that the same far Left lunatics who manipulate the polls regularly are also manipulating this one as a gesture towards the BBC. Who else would or could do it?

    Which rather confirms the belief on this site that the BBC is regarded as the house organ for the Left, doesn’t it?

       56 likes

    • Pat..original says:

      I read the Mail comment sections quite often and you are right about the hyping. There is no doubt they are at times manipulated, lately four/five figure votes in favour of the ‘remainers’ have been appearing overnight. I believe there may be a technical way those in the know can continually vote. As our previous PC was getting near the end of its life we discovered by accident that it suddenly allowed us to multiple vote by constantly pressing the button. It did make me mistrust the system a bit after that. Our local paper seems to be going down this route as well. I once made some mild criticism of the BBC local output not being very local at times and got loads of red arrows.

         47 likes

    • But Labour Says says:

      The green arrow manipulation is always on pro Labour, pro EU and anything that is anti UKIP, comments. Seeing that “Isn’t New Top Gear great” comment get upwards of 16,000 green arrows in a couple of hours, it does indeed show the close link between the activists doing the fake arrows and the BBC.

      I wouldn’t be surprised if the faking was coming from this Daily Mail hating website http://www.mailwatch.co.uk/forum which, when reading their comments, it clearly contains professional media monitors, BBC staffers and Guardian type journalists in their membership. There’s even a page devoted to our host here – http://www.mailwatch.co.uk/forum/viewtopic.php?f=65&t=5901

      Good fun trolling them, but they’re a very sensitive lot who quickly shut down your account after about 2 posts that they disagree with.

      Also this blogger seems to have noticed the arrow manipulation – http://www.fakegreenarrows.com/ but can do bugger all to actually expose the fakers.

         4 likes

  4. 60022Mallard says:

    Not really a TG fan, but watched it last night as visiting a home that does watch it.

    I felt the concensus of the room was “underwhelming”.

    Was the original as heavily scripted at this?

    Morecambe and Wise had good scriptwriters, but delivery is a huge part of making a show.

    That the guests were scripted took away any spontaneity.

    Evans voice far too high pitched, and made worse when in the hangar.

    It would appear that the U.S. market is the target for overseas sales!

    From the words of the song, “You don’t know what you’ve got ’til its gone”.

       43 likes

  5. Fred Basset says:

    Have just been on the BBC News website and the most highly rated comment from ‘Weeny Issi’ made me smile.

    Top Gear is like the EU. No matter how wonderful the BBC tell us it is, the disaster is obvious for all to see’.

       84 likes

  6. The General says:

    How can anybody take to that stupid face of Chris Evans? Was not a Clarkeson fan, but very strongly suspect the BBC fired him as he was a Tory and that they pulled the trigger as soon as he gave them the opportunity.

       43 likes

  7. NCBBC says:

    The team looked uncomfortable with each other, and had the guilty look of people breaking in to someone’s house.
    Felt like calling the police to report a breakin.

    Both guests seemed to be in a bad mood.

       26 likes

    • Lock13 says:

      It was almost unwatchable. Joey from friends is wooden . Chris Evans appears to be dying his hair ginger now (think it’s gone grey). They had this piece about two American fast cars and filmed it at a USAF base for Top Guns. The two cars each had a Top Gun pilot in the passenger seat and after one car test bit, of accelerating and skidding down the runaway, we cut to the car stopped and the Top Gun pilot being sick by the side of the runway. So let me get this right this bloke fly’s F-16/18 that do about 2,000 mph whilst pulling in excess of 6g’s and he got car sick ?

         37 likes

      • RJ says:

        The funniest (unintentionally) piece was the towing race between the Landrover and the Jeep on Blackpool beach. From the format it should have taken about 5 minutes, but from the change in light levels between the start and the finish it took all afternoon.

        And there should have been a lot more of Sabine Schmitz; she can drive and knows what she’s talking about.

           22 likes

      • Rob in Cheshire says:

        Lock:

        US Navy, not the Air Force!

        For once, the BBC may not have faked the pilot getting car sick, I think it is to do with being a passenger rather than the driver. Have you ever known the driver to get car sick? Anyway, I don’t think you could pay a pilot enough money to fake that, it’s hardly macho is it?

           8 likes

        • Lock13 says:

          nah true – I’d had a few so couldn’t remember what service – cheers mate

             2 likes

        • Cull the Badgers says:

          In the olden days, when I was young I would take part in car rallies on public roads. I think they went by the name of treasure hunts. When I was the driver I was fine, when I was the navigator, looking down at notes, shouting instructions to the driver, and then up again at the road while the car lurched from side to side and up and down over the various surfaces it was, believe me, sometimes hard to keep hold of my breakfast! But I’m pleased to say I did.

          Ah! those were the days.

             4 likes

          • Cull the Badgers says:

            Thinking again, they were rallies. Treasure hunts were a different thing. Sorry I really am getting old!

               3 likes

      • Maria Brewin says:

        “and the Top Gun pilot being sick by the side of the runway.”

        Someone told him how much Evans was getting paid.

           29 likes

  8. phil says:

    I never watched the old Top Gear and I didn’t watch the new one.

    There is no good reason why the state needs to mass manufacture light entertainment and to force people to pay for it using the criminal law.

       26 likes

  9. Sluff says:

    Come on guys and gals.
    This Top Gear thing is very important.
    So much so they showed edited highlights on BBC breakfast news this morning. And then had two studio guests for an in depth review !

    I mean, what else is happening in the world? Or even in the English Channel?

       35 likes

    • Guest Who says:

      It has been raised a lot on Facebook by many other BBC programme threads.

      Could have gone better, looking at the comments.

      Still, money to burn and all that….

         13 likes

  10. Bagley says:

    Regarding Deborah’s comment about Zoe Ball trumpeting the new Top Gear and Chris Evans on BBC Radio 2, I heard Steve Wright and his sickeningly PC subordinates Tim Smith and Janey Lee Grace doing the exact same thing on his show today.

    It seems to be a standard propagandist technique of the BBC, in that if you repeat a lie often enough, people will believe it, and you will even come to believe it yourself. Thankfully, however, more and more people seem to be wising up to the BBC, as indicated by top comments on HYS and other news sites.

       14 likes