After presenter Andrew Flintoff’s life-changing injuries Top gear will be “equipped for the near future.” As a euphemism, BBC sounds like a pet shop owner. Monty PythonSketch of a Dead Parrot. Does the car magazine (to paraphrase disgruntled customer John Cleese) actually no longer exist, expired and on its way to the manufacturer?
If so, then his demise is long overdue. The 46-year-old TV show failed the TÜV years ago, in 2015 to be exact, when Jeremy Clarkson was finally sacked and fellow presenters James May and Richard Hammond followed him out the door.
The triumvirate of Clarkson, May and Hammond restored what had previously been left untouched. Top gear to his daring image. Thus, they became synonymous with the show when they moved to Prime Videos. Grand Tourthey took Top gearThe spirit s here is a lock, a shaft and two smoking exhaust pipes.
The BBC’s subsequent attempts to follow in their giant footsteps always felt like a tribute – a half-decent tribute in the case of Flintoff and Paddy McGuinness, who replaced Chris Evans and Matt LeBlanc, who got it wrong.
The franchise is, of course, hugely profitable for the BBC’s commercial subsidiary, BBC Studios, with worldwide distribution rights, concert tours, books, a popular magazine and other merchandising. But that’s how powerful it is Top gear are discovering that profitability no longer depends on the existence of the TV show itself.
And the glory days, when eight million viewers could be persuaded to watch Clarkson blow up a trailer and insult foreigners or Hammond crash a drag racer and nearly commit suicide, can simply be seen in a more politically sensitive, health-and-safety-conscious environment. impossible to revive. consciously present. And they shouldn’t be. Trying to stick to an outdated macho formula doomed the program to a slow death.
Love him or hate him, Clarkson is an entertaining television personality (see: Clarkson Farm for additional evidence). And in Hammond and May he had the perfect backing band – an apt analogy given the trio’s resemblance to aging rock stars of the 1970s. Their boyish and sometimes culturally insensitive banter often overshadowed the fact that they were knowledgeable on the basic topic of cars. Clarkson, in particular, turned motorcycle journalism into an art form.
When I last bought a car about twelve years ago, I (full disclosure) consulted a copy of the data compiled by Clarkson. Sunday Times Driving reports. I ended up driving around in a 15-year-old Ford Mondeo – not glamorous, but, he suggested, a great, underrated car.
Either way, a change is as good as a break, and James May responded to the cancellation by telling the BBC. Today podcast about how “there has to be another way to do a show about cars.”
Maybe Top gear should return to what it was before Clarkson’s takeover in 2002. Originally presented by Recent magazine in 1977. Strict extended by Angela Rippon with clear car reviews, road safety and consumer advice.
Not sexy, but things that every driver can identify with, unlike Range Rovers, Challenger tanks or driving a Mini Cooper on a ramp. Ultimately, driving is changing, with electric and self-driving cars making the old nickname “gasoline head” obsolete.
And now Prime Video is parting ways with Clarkson (allegedly due to his derogatory comments about the Duchess of Sussex) and Grand Tour The streaming giant, which was due to cease operations in 2024, demonstrated the ruthlessness that the BBC lacked in 2015.
It didn’t take a serious accident to distinguish a vintage car from an old car that was no longer roadworthy.
Source: I News
I’m Jeffery Bryant, and I’m an experienced author specializing in automobile news. For the past several years, I have been working as a writer in a well-known news website. During this time, I’ve written hundreds of articles covering automotive trends and developments both nationally and internationally.