Top Gear Classic back... on BBCA

"Jayvincent" (jayvincent)
07/28/2019 at 13:32 • Filed to: Topgear, BBC America

Top Gear Classic

Evidently the BBC has swallowed their pride, because they have started rerunning classic Top Gear episodes as lead-in adverts for the new season of TG with McGuiness, Flintoff and Harris.

Check your local listings, but it’s 6am East Coast Time for BBCA on Dish.

Full disclosure - if not for the classic TG lead-in, I probably wouldn’t have DVR’d the new season, so I guess it’s working. The new guys have plenty of enthusiasm and camaraderie, but they lack presence, the ability to enunciate and to not step all over each other in the rush to get to the punchline. If they stick it out, they should be Clarkson-May-Hammond class in a couple of seasons.

DISCUSSION (7)

Svend > Jayvincent
07/28/2019 at 14:13

Of the current series of TopGear, I’ve watched maybe a full episode and two five minute bits before turning it off.

It’s shite.

ADabOfOppo; Gone Plaid (Instructables Can Be Confusable) > Svend
07/28/2019 at 14:49

Harris is amazingly talented. He’s great on camera, knows how to present well, and fuck can he drive. It is a shame that he hasn’t been given co-hosts with any talent this series.

I liked the previous trio. Rory was infectiously enthusiastic, and I appreciated that he had a different take on most things. And LeBlanc was genuinely funny in series 25.

But series 26 felt stale. You could tell Matt was ready to be done.

I just don’t get why they can’t let Harris just be himself. His old solo videos on YouTube are phenomenal. I don’t see anything wrong with Top Gear actually being a car show rather than the tangentially car- related entertainment show it has become.

I am sure someone has metrics and graphs and projections that tell me I'm wrong.

Svend > ADabOfOppo; Gone Plaid (Instructables Can Be Confusable)
07/28/2019 at 14:56

I don’t like Harris, it’s his presenting. It doesn’t seem natural.

The two northern monkey’s (what we in the north of England sometimes call ourselves), just aren’t all that funny, they have presenting skills but not together and just seem to be taking the piss out of each other in a much needless way than the hamster, jezzer and captain low used to be.

Shift24 > Jayvincent
07/28/2019 at 15:00

Good. T he new season is ok, but the car challenges are more like they let frat boys toss around in cars.

And you can tell the other 2 are not car people. They have had cars or follow motorsports but until this year actually care about them.

Thats where the main 3 have such a r eputation in the car industry as they have car history prior to TG. yes they goof off but its about the car. Not whether you can understand what the hell that comedian is saying.

ADabOfOppo; Gone Plaid (Instructables Can Be Confusable) > Svend
07/28/2019 at 15:07

Harris on Top Gear is different from Harris when he made content for The /Drive and later on his own on YouTube. He is a car nerd. They have him trying to be something different and it indeed does show when it isn’t working.

Harris is at his best when he’s geeking out over something inane and a bit obscure. Sadly that doesn’t seem to make for good telly.

M.T. Blake > Jayvincent
07/29/2019 at 10:43

The series should have died with the Three Amigos.

sm70- why not Duesenberg? > Jayvincent
07/29/2019 at 10:57

I guess the full collection is gonna be on MotorTrend OnDemand soon.