Just watched the first episode of the new BBC Top Gear (Spoiler Alert)

Given all the rumours that it was going to be a total E36 M3 show (no pun intended), it was...not bad.

Some things I liked

-Star in a Reasonably Priced Car now has less talking and more rallycross!

-Matt LeBlanc is great.

-The Ariel Nomad clip was well shot and you could tell Matt was enjoying himself.

-LaFerrari Spider Confirmed

-Stig is back, and they kept all the old lap times

Things I didn't like

-Chris Evans constantly shouting

-Sabine's dialogue through the ACR/Z06 film was horribly contrived and tacky

-The first part of the Reliant challenge was a waste of time, and the whole tone of the challenge was miserable, with none of the charm of Clarkson and Co.

-Sped up footage of the Celebrity lap times

-Poor chemistry between Chris and Matt

Overall, I feel it has great potential, they just need to refine it some more. I'm interested to see how this pans out, as it's already better than a lot of the crap on TV, but still not as good as say, Mighty Car Mods, B is for Build, or any of the Motor Trend shows. The cinematography is great and the cars are incredible, but even Haggard Garage has better chemistry and you can tell that they're enjoying themselves. I give it a solid 6/10. Not that good, but better than most of the mainstream TV stuff (Gas Monkey Garage, Counting Cars) out there.

The first episode airs in the US on BBC America tomorrow (Monday night) at 8pm central daylight time.

In reply to stuart in mn:

Or you can obtain it through other means, depending on how broke/moral you are, and whether or not you have cable.

I can wait 24 hours.

I knew the new series was starting soon but didn't realize it was tomorrow, so I mainly posted that as a reminder for others.

that is the complete opposite of what I expected. I expect Chris and Sabine to be great and LeBlanc to tank.

In reply to Flight Service:

Chris Evans tanked harder than the Exxon Valdez. His performance was more forced and cringeworthy than running 30 PSI on a DSM with stock internals.

It's something to watch until The Grand Tour comes out in the Fall

Watched this and Extra Gear on iPlayer. I'm in pretty much the same place, except I didn't mind Sabine's lines during the ACR/Z06 film - someone had to make the Top Gun joke, and I thought she got that right.

The wife and I thought Extra Gear was the part that we wanted to see on the main show. Give me more Rory, and Sabine, and Harris, and much less of Chris Evans.

In reply to G_Body_Man:

ouchhhhhh, which is a shame because every time he was on the show he did very well.

Hope it was better than his first star role.

Seems like they are running with the gimmicky challenges, which I was hoping they would pull away from.

I thought Sabine did fine, it has always seemed that she kinda has to force her English out. She made that pilot sick, so that's something.

Chris is a shouty little thing. Not sure about him.

Matt was pretty good.

I'd like to see them get back to more actual car content and let some of that gimmicky crap go.

I always felt Jeremy Clarkson was kinda gimmicky in general.

So not having seen this, I can't comment on the new TG, but I can say that most new shows need a few episodes for the operation to gel.

I will use as a relevant example US Top Gear. The first few episodes were unwatchable. More recent episodes aren't half bad, if they were produced under some other name brand than TG I think they would get wider acceptance.

szeis4cookie wrote: Watched this and Extra Gear on iPlayer. I'm in pretty much the same place, except I didn't mind Sabine's lines during the ACR/Z06 film - someone had to make the Top Gun joke, and I thought she got that right. The wife and I thought Extra Gear was the part that we wanted to see on the main show. Give me more Rory, and Sabine, and Harris, and much less of Chris Evans.

Rory is good, better than Evans at this point.

Consensus amongst my friends in the UK seems to be that there's some collective underwhelmment going on.

I haven't watched it yet but so far the most poignant description was that it was like watching a tribute band, and the jury's still out if it's a good tribute band.

G_Body_Man wrote: In reply to Flight Service: Chris Evans tanked harder than the Exxon Valdez. His performance was more forced and cringeworthy than running 30 PSI on a DSM with stock internals.

In reply to NOHOME:

That's exactly the meme I was referring to.

BoxheadTim wrote: I haven't watched it yet but so far the most poignant description was that it was like watching a tribute band, and the jury's still out if it's a good tribute band.

While watching it I felt like they just stuck some new characters on the same set and told them to recreate an older episode.

Some of it was ok, overall it is going to take some time and hopefully they make it their own.

Chris Evans is dreadful, did he really admit to struggling to being able to find 3rd gear? It's almost criminal that such production value was wasted on this.

Unimpressive.

Watching now. Fingers crossed that it is at least better than the drivel called Top Gear US.

In reply to irish44j:

So far I'd say...push. That being said Rutledge in place of Evans would make for a solid show.

Watching it now, can Evans not hear himself? The Reliant piece was pure suck. I guess they were trying to recreate the chemistry on the old challenges but that was just forced and fake. I'll save the rest of my .02 for after the show.

So tired of hearing chris yell. He never, ever stops. He even yells during the interview. for the love, stop!!!

Leblanc is just cool.

Edit: the more I watch, the more I dislike Chris. A 3 year contract with him, disappoints me.

Also currently watching. Trying so hard to give it time and let things develop but I'd like some other than Chris Evans.

Anyone but Chris Evans.

And I like Matt but he's a bit too laconic so far. Wake up Matt, it's ok to be enthusiastic about something.