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Top Gear Host Chris Evans Steps Down After Poor Ratings (theverge.com)
A number of readers have submitted news coming out of popular show Top Gear. Chris Evans has announced he is leaving his role as a presenter on BBC Two's Top Gear after one series. His resignation comes amid falling ratings for the show -- which hit a series low on Sunday night, with an average of 1.9 million viewers. The Verge reports:Evans was brought in alongside Matt LeBlanc and host of other new faces to fill the positions left by Clarkson, James May, and Richard Hammond. The first series of the show had poor ratings, with fewer than 2 million viewers tuning into its series finale this weekend -- lower than any episode helmed by Clarkson.
Clarkson,Wilson and Needell. But that was when it was about cars.
I mean the moment they announced the guy, almost everybody said he was a really bad choice. It is not only that he doesn't really know about cars, most important is the fact that nobody outside Britain finds him funny (we are talking about a show that is sold to many countries), and even the British are rather divided on this. Hiring Matt LeBlanc was a last-ditch effort, but I guess it was too little too late. Perhaps Rowan Atkinson might be persuaded to give it a go next year?
What the BBC forgot - Clarkson/May/Hammond Top Gear was basically Last of the Summer Wine with Cars & decent locations & slick production.
The got the cars/locations/production about right but got the chemistry wrong & went with Chris Evans purile humour. Matt LeBlanc seemed to get it, but was badly let down.
Jimmy Carr it is then.
I come here for the love
Because it's news for nerds. Oh, there are more nerds than you think they are. I think your definition of nerd is extremely narrow.
There are car nerds, computer nerds, aviation nerds, boat/ship nerds, literature nerds, and more.
So yes, an article about a controversial (and beloved) TV show that was about cars, politics and humor appeals to a broad spectrum of nerds and merits discussion on a board about news for nerds.
I rarely reply to ACs but this whole "DOES THIS BELONG HERE" faction is even screechier and irritating than SJWs.
GO away. If you don't like Slashdot, GTFO. Do I need to spell it out for you? OUT!
The "Civilized World" jumped the shark ca. 1973.
I agree, the lack of any real change was a big problem for them. Without a format shift it was Top Gear without Clarkson and Co and that just didn't work. Top Gear worked because of the chemistry the three presenters had; they obviously got on and were having fun, which drew you in as a viewer. There was no chemistry between Evans and LeBlanc so everything felt contrived. I think if the BBC want it to survive they should keep LeBlanc and just let him pick two other people who he really wants to work and go with that. If they fail a second time around the series is dead on the BBC.
soylentnews.org
Clarkson,Wilson and Needell. But that was when it was about cars.
Yep.
It's easy to forget now, but the "old" Top Gear was itself pretty successful in its 90s heyday. Not to the extent that people banged on and on and on and on about it to the tedious extent they do with the post-2003 version. But still a well-known touchstone of 1990s television that was responsible for making Clarkson popular in the first place and strongly associated with him.
It feels strange to say in hindsight (given that nowadays it's clear that Clarkson is the epitome of the boorish, tedious, right-wing, middle-aged, Middle English tosser), but I actually enjoyed him during his time on the original show, possibly because he was actually doing his ******* job of reviewing cars in an entertaining manner. In fact, he was a good presenter on the other stuff I saw him in (admittedly car-related shows he'd obviously got because of his Top Gear fame). I'd even say Top Gear lost something when he left. (Along with some other changes, I clearly remember enjoying it less in the year or two running up to its cancellation).
Problem was that by the time he'd come back for the 2003 relaunch, he'd gone from being a presenter who said non-PC things that were often pretty amusing- such as the infamous "good enough to snap knicker elastic at 50 paces" description of one car- to someone whose defining characteristic was Professional Non-PC Merchant. Not in the service of being amusing, but for its own sake. And Clarkson was famous enough by this point that it was now about him; you can't watch him as a presenter any more because he isn't.
This brings me to the most fundamental difference in the relaunched show (even more so than the format change). Old Top Gear was a factual magazine show about cars that was presented in an entertaining manner. (#) The new Top Gear was- and is- an entertainment show that happens to revolve around cars, quite happy to sideline or twist any secondary factual aspects if it gets in the way of some stuffed shirt getting vicarious thrills or amusement through The Clarkson and His Two Mates in Car Porn Hijinks Show before he returns to work in his Vauxhall Astra the following day.
A lot of people obviously enjoy this- good for them. I don't have any time for it personally.
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