(credit: BBC)
On Sunday, one of the BBC's most successful shows returned with a new cast—and very few fresh ideas. Ratings in the UK were not what host Chris Evans hoped for—missing the 5 million mark he set as a measure for success, and the best parts were relegated to the Web-only Extra Gear, starring Rory Reid and Chris Harris. The debut could prove troublesome for a BBC that needs strong foreign sales of the show to fill its coffers in times of ever-decreasing government support.
Sunday's show, which premiered Monday night on BBC America, is the third iteration of Top Gear since 1977. The original format wasn't particularly good, but it did well because the UK only had a handful of TV channels to watch back then. In 2002, there was the Andy Wilman-produced reboot, starring Jeremy Clarkson, James May, and Richard Hammond. Under their tenure, the show didn't just succeed with UK audiences—it built up a global cult following with fans either watching it on local broadcasters or more commonly via Internet piracy.
But last year, Top Gear's machinery ground to a halt after the show's frontman berated and then attacked a producer during a toddler-like hunger tantrum (if toddlers punched people and called them c*nts). The latest of an increasingly long list of Clarksonian scandals was too much for the state-funded BBC to endure, and the grand oaf of television was fired. With the frontman gone, Wilman, May, and Hammond threw in the towel as well, but things ended well for the gang. They landed a multimillion dollar contract with Amazon to make a new series called The Grand Tour, which debuts later this year.
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