Top Gear

Top Gear no longer needs Clarkson, Hammond and May

Top Gear Series 24 returned to BBC2 on Sunday after having a week off, with another solid episode which shows that Matt LeBlanc, Chris Harris and Rory Reid have listened to their critics and further refined the new show’s formula.

Matt LeBlanc once again confirmed his ability to perform a slick supercar power test, while also getting in a few pre-watershed swear words. “You never know,” he said, “when it’s going to bite you in the arse”.  He later referred to the new AMG’s unorthodox engine set-up as “a bunch of crap”. Hardly swearing it up big time, but it is interesting to see LeBlanc leaning somewhat into a bad-boy on-screen persona.

There was great news for Rory Reid, too, as the producers finally let him out of the studio for what felt like only the second or third time this series, as he joined Chris Harris for a roadtrip across Cuba for a look at their unique classic car culture. Reid was visibly enjoying himself (before being savagely attacked by a cock) which is understandable considering he’d passed the previous month and a half watching his co-presenters clock up all the air miles while he was stuck on the Top Gear couch.

The ‘Matt LeBlanc in heavy machinery’ segment also returned, with LeBlanc swearing it up once again as he went up against Ross Noble as they attempted to find out who could smash the most sheds using their Optimus Prime-sized diggers.

While it won’t go down in history as one of Top Gear’s best or most memorable episodes, it was great to see that LeBlanc, Harris and Reid were looking much more relaxed throughout, with none of the jittery energy that was evident in earlier episodes. Most importantly, this new version of Top Gear is actually quite entertaining – for those who are willing to open their minds and get over the fact that Jeremy Clarkson, Richard Hammond and James May are no longer on it.

And speaking of the original ‘holy trinity’, there was a time where most people believed it would be impossible for Top Gear to survive without them – but thankfully those days are now behind us.

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13 comments

gandalf THE WHITE May 13, 2017 at 9:01 pm

Title of this article is funny…
Top Gear with out C H M will never be real Top Gear as a such…
Redheaded clown last year nearly killed it as a car show, agree this `new` trio clearly better than with him, but still soooo … LACK OF CHARISMA…
But fanboys will be happy anyway… even falling sleep during sundays eve…

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adarsh April 19, 2017 at 1:27 pm

I too had doubts whether TG would survive without the “Holy trinity & Stig”…….I have to say, this new Matt Leblanc hosted series is way better than “Chris Evans” series… 🙂

Guys are keeping the show SIMPLE…..no nonsense show….
They still have to improve the chemistry btw the hosts…….

And the Supercar reviews are not up to JESSA’s standards……

The AstonMartin BOND & Mercedes HULK reviews were better as it had a concept and Leblanc was good….But they are sticking with their TEST TRACK in these reviews…..They have to try outside LOCATIONS as it will make the review BETTER…

Yeah…we all miss Jezza, May, Hammond….But we have got 2 good CAR SHOWS now…..: )

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Antonio April 21, 2017 at 12:49 am

Jezza, Hammond and May also did complete car reviews only at the test track, what they did very well and Le Blanc did one road test with the Fiat 124 Spyder and with his japanese brother, the Mazda MX5 at the road (kind off). They need some improvements, it’s true, but they already have done an better season than the last one presented by Evans and they will become better and better, like Clarkson and friends did when they were starting with the actual Top Gear format and how you said, now we have two car shows instead of only one so, instead of complain about Clarkson’s retirement from BBC and etc, we can enjoy both the shows and give to both of the trios our support and the time to become better and better.

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adarsh April 21, 2017 at 5:02 pm

?

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Mario April 19, 2017 at 5:55 am

viewing figures are history low for Top Gear so this is time to put once great show of it’s misery , I think that if they make completely new car show with new name and concept they would have more viewers ,
nobody likes recycled things (expect of treehugers but they are not watching cars shows 🙂 )

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Craig April 20, 2017 at 9:49 am

Viewing figures at a historical low? You clearly have no idea how TG was for 25 years before 2002 when the newer style was launched. Top Gear was around long before Clarkson/May/Hammond and will be around long after. They were great hosts but I wasn’t THEIR show and it will continue without them.

It isn’t 1995 anymore where you have to pick one show to watch in a particular time slot. Now you can watch one, both or neither.

Hosts change, actors change, athletes change, the world changes. Get over it.

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Mario April 20, 2017 at 4:28 pm

“Following many well known presenters’ departures during 1999 to 2000, the Top Gear audience fell from a peak of six million to under three million.”

World change – so should name of the show 🙂 fresh start with new format…

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Andrzej April 19, 2017 at 3:09 am

What I don’t like in this series, that besides first episode (which was the best so far) there wasn’t outside segment with all 3 of them, most of the time is chris with matt.
Still, much better with previous one, much worse than old top gear, but I think it’s not that much behind grand tour.

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Antonio April 19, 2017 at 6:57 am

Well, that also happened with the old Top Gear, there were a lot of segments that had only two of them instead of the whole trio, but that trio were in the front of that show for 22 seasons, almost all of them with the classic trio (remember of Jason Dawe?), so they had much more time together than the actual trio to do the segments and they had already done one segment with the trio outside when they went to Kazakhstan with three high-mileage cars…

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SCOOBY252 April 18, 2017 at 8:32 am

Deja vu in this episode with the car that Rory had , hhmmm a camaro RS+ so it’s the same one that Clarkson had on the old US trip , even the talk about the same conversation when Harris says ”how do they get such small power from a Big v8” also not to mention the other car which is basically the same as the car that was in the grand tour France trip

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Antonio April 18, 2017 at 10:28 am

Seriously??
Are you tryingg to take out the reason of the post saying that the cars that are on Top Gear on this season were already on The Grand Tour or on the old Top Gear?
They also tested the Fiat 124 Spyder and the Mazda later, so?
And what about the Aston Martin Vulcan? It appeared first in Top Gear.

Knows what all of that means?
Nothing.

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Scooby252 April 18, 2017 at 10:42 pm

It was just an observation and at times yes now and again they will end up showing the same car in some way or another but my point was when even the conversation was the same it was all abit errie

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Antonio April 19, 2017 at 6:38 am

Well, that’s nothing abnormal, look to the last car magazines. Car Magazine, Top Gear, Car and Driver etc… there ase some car that will be in more than one, this is just an coincidence or simply happened by the fact that that car are one of the actual automotive industry highlight and are having an good space in the specialised media…

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