Exhaust Fumes

I'm going to say some things in this that are deeply unpopular and unbelievably controversial. To some zealots...

The last series of Top Gear wasn't as bad as some people make out.

The second incarnation of the second incarnation of Top Gear saw wholesale changes to the personnel both in front of, and behind, the camera. Jeremy Clarkson and former schoolchum Andy Wilman were for 178 episodes the driving force behind the concept, and both bailed out in what could be considered by a cynic to be a contrived stunt to leave the BBC with a hugely popular cake recipe but no ingredients to bake it with.

Clarkson and Wilman also took the other two Beatles with them, Hammond and May, and went off to the exceptional financial clout of Amazon for The Grand Tour. The 'new' Top Gear selected Chris Evans as host, with Matt LeBlanc alongside plus a selection of existing BBC contributors to bolster the ranks. Instead of three, we had six in total.

Evans was, quite frankly, a good idea on paper but crap in reality. His brash gameshow like hosting, the shouty persona he has developed on the various programmes his production company has made, was just plain wrong. Shouting as things go wrong on a 'challenge' is welcome. Shouting as you reach an exiting bit of a conversation in the studio is not.

LeBlanc was a surprise choice for many, and easily the surprise package also. It was no surprise that he was kept on and, indeed, will be the central face of the forthcoming series. His two new sidekicks, Rory Reid and Chris Harris, were bit part players in the reincarnation series but earned their spurs admirably with solid work and good chemistry with LeBlanc as the series wore on and stories of Evans' imminent departure surfaced.

The new Top Gear series starts on March 5th, a month after the first series of The Grand Tour ended. The new Clarkson. Hammond, May vehicle had one thing for definite - a fucking huge budget.

The opening scene, a sprawling desert landscape with the trio driving to the stage and touring tent along with dozens of rat rods and custom bikes, the Hothouse Flowers playing on the stage constructed in the middle of nowhere, and a myriad of helicopters, drones, and effects on display, probably wiped out a BBC episode budget in 90 seconds.

The problem is that, after watching all the episodes as they arrived on Amazon Prime, I don't have one stand out moment from the series beyond that opening shot. The two-parter in Namibia probably came closest, and I'd watch it again on Dave, but I've not once replayed any episode to relive the magnificence.

That opening shot was clearly a "Fuck You" to the BBC. It went above and beyond in laying out the sheer riches now at the hands of the creators of the show, and it laid out a gold plated marker for the series. The old Top Gear would struggle through with Heath Robinson solutions to problems that arose from buying clapped out cars and racing them around fields as part of a ridiculously British challenge. The new Grand Tour just threw money at it.

Machinery appeared on set to alleviate numerous problems that would have previously been cleverly worked around. A hand paint job on a car and a home made spoiler on a banger on Top Gear were replaced with several thousand pounds worth of mods and turbochargers on The Grand Tour.

It was almost like the script writer had given up trying now he had a house made of gold bricks.

The new Top Gear has to try. It has a damaged reputation to salvage, and a baying band of Clarkson worshippers that will only see the worst in the new entity.

I first tuned in to the relaunched and reformatted Top Gear back in 2002 as there wasn't much else to do on a Sunday night. It became, over time, the only TV programme I made time to watch at the time of broadcast, rather than wait for a catchup service.

On March 5th I'll tune in again. I hope I am not disappointed.