I fear for Jeremy Clarkson’s life. He might laugh himself to death.
Even of Chris Evans wasn’t the guy quitting will leave a very bad taste. He said he wasn’t gonna do it, he did it and he failed.
Somewhere I read that Netflix looked at the viewership numbers for past seasons of the show and decided that the show wouldn’t make decent ratings. Netflix offers or offered most of the previous seasons on the streaming service, and they track everything about what people watch. (Supposedly they decided on the American adaptation of House of Cards after noting that people liked to stream David Fincher movies, those starring Kevin Spacey and liked to watch the original UK programme.)
I watched (the season finale?) last night, and I have to admit, LeBlanc grew on me. I still don’t like his studio wording, because he’s just reading the lines seemingly without any preparation or believability, but in the filmed segments, his passion for cars came through. I liked that.
I especially liked his review of the 911R. He appreciated the gear shift, rather than paddle, and knows what driving is about.
On the negative side, Patrick Dempsey seemed embarrassed to be there. And the talking segment with the stars went on way too long. They need more driving. Introduce the stars, then get to the cars.
And I’m glad Evans is gone. Everything about him began to annoy me, from the way he stood, to his pulling up his sleeves every 3 seconds, to his whiny over-enthusiastic voice.
The other hosts don’t bother me too much, because at least they talked about the cars. Rory in the Mustang seemed to appreciate what muscle cars are about. But a right hand drive Mustang? As an American, I’m missing something there. That just seems wrong to me.
I think the other problem with this incarnation is too many hosts. Is it 6 they have? I’d like to see the show broken up into 3 segments, with 3 hosts. Similar to the format of “60 Minutes”. Each segment runs 20 minutes (minus commercials), and one host handles each segment, with maybe bumpers in between segments tying it all together. Have some light hearted moments, but don’t imitate Clarkson, et al.'s humor, because that’s been done.
On the other hand, this version is like the cast of Saturday Night Live that immediately came after Belushi and the others. How the hell do you follow an act like that? After all, who remembers who came onstage after the Beatles on the Ed Sullivan Show?
This is one area where the early showings on BBC America had the advantage. When they were editing it to 52 minutes(or 48 or whatever their standard is) they cut most of the stupid knob-polishing out. When it got popular enough they started showing everything in the original show and I saw just how long that stupid crap went on, I started clicking away to something else when I could tell they were introducing the guest driver segment.
For the U.S. airings, they’re following 90 minutes of Top Gear with 30 minutes they’re calling Extra Gear; behind-the-scenes stuff, or extra bits that weren’t in the regular show. Last night, because it was the end of the series, it ended with the hosts (minus Evans and Jordan) sitting on the couch sharing their recollections of the series. And that started to work. Suddenly they were human beings again, with opinions, and knowledge, and a bit of good-natured teasing. If they can somehow bring out more of that in the next series, maybe the show has a chance.
Everybody who listens to This American Life: http://www.thisamericanlife.org/radio-archives/episode/281/my-big-break