Joneill44

Yumcha

I still enjoyed TG the most when Tiff was a host...he still makes cameos on occasion...but, he was a riot. He's good on Fifth Gear too.

neuronbob

If I want a serious car review, I'll watch Tiff and Fifth Gear.

if I want hilarity and stupidity, I'll watch the (now newly deceased) Top Gear.

TacoBello

I see Clarkson decided to take the Charlie Sheen approach and burn every bridge possible on his way out

Winning?

The Dougler

iTrader: (1)

I used to be a big supporter of Fifth Gear, but this new season I tried to watch the first episode and immediately feel asleep, I don't know what it is but it's a bit of a bore. I do think Tiff is great though.

Joneill44

Just when we thought we were going to see the ultimate supercar race

Yumcha

Fifth Gear is not as slapstick and sarcastic. The tone is much more serious in general...more professional, per se.

I like it.

asianspec

iTrader: (1)

I'm hearing it's a possibility that Clarkson is going to Netflix

ttribe

Has A. Wilman made any comments about all of this? It was my understanding he and Clarkson were longtime friends.

TacoBello

Im sad the show is now over, but Clarkson was/is a pompous ass. It's only a matter of time before acting like a dick catches up with someone.

BBC really didnt have much of a choice but to shit can him- if they put up with his behaviour, they have to put up with others acting in the same manner. These people forget that they are employed by BBC and not the other way around. BBC will rebound and rebuild with something else to fill Top gear's time slot.

Clarkson likely won't learn anything and is probably sitting in a private jet heading over to Netflix headquarters as we speak, lol. Good for him, but there's nothing wrong with showing a bit of humility once in awhile. People eventually get tired of the God-like behavior and look for someone a bit more human and down to earth.

It'll be interesting to see what the future holds for Clarkson, Hammond and May. Here's to hoping they keep doing what they do best- make me laugh my ass off.

AZuser

Acura messed up again. If the NSX wasn't delayed for so long, Clarkson could have already tested one around the TG track and set a top lap time. Another missed opportunity by Acura.

charliemike

Sadly, this was coming for a while. He seems to have been trying to get out of the obligation to do this for a while.

I don't think his comments about Mexico, etc were worth firing but his combative attitude toward the BBC really seemed to be about him wanting a way out without quitting.

lifetimeofwar

Thought I would see these guys retire out of age and do a 'seriers finale' lol.. what an awesome show, will truly be missed

Edit: hoping this is an April fools joke

CocheseUGA

Black Tire

Oh well...all good things come to an end. It was good while it lasted.

charliemike

Someone on Reddit made a great suggestion for the final episode:

Just May and Hammond hosting with Clarkson as the Star in a Reasonably Priced Car.

te3point5

Just took a peek at the official Power Laps board, I guess the series ends with these as the top five laps (in "production, street legal vehicles"):

01:13.8 Pagani Huayra
01:14.3 BAC Mono
01:15.1 Ariel Atom V8 500 (moist)
01:15.8 Lamborghini Huracán
01:16.2 McLaren MP4-12C

e30cabrio

iTrader: (6)

That would be great!

The Dougler

iTrader: (1)

That would be so awesome.

Yumcha

So...RLY...Clarkson leaving Top Gear is Honda/Acura's fault...?












I LOVE IT.

Joneill44

Honda forced him to go crazy by making him waiting so long, driving him to through his steak at the producer

Yumcha

Yeah, I think that's what happened.

Clarkson was a happy-go-rucky guy when he saw the new NSX prototype recently...and was like us, eagerly waiting for stats...

Honda/Acura says, SUCK IT. NO STATS FOR YOU!!!! :smitler:

Clarkson goes postal...slugs the person standing closest to him...and in this case, it was his poor Producer.




BBC is being VERY insensitive about this firing.

CocheseUGA

It's always Honda's fault.

Yumcha

Remember, Honda hates you.



And hates Clarkson.

TylerT

iTrader: (1)

Don't forget, Honda hates Honda too.

Joneill44

Glad my iPhone thinks through and throw are the same word

Black Tire

That one show where Clarskon was talking about the new NSX. He really wanted to drive it. Sucks we'll never see it on Top Gear

AZuser

Of course. Everything's Honda's fault. For instance, right now it's 92° F


If Honda had started making plug-in's, EV's, and low emission vehicles decades sooner then we wouldn't have this global warming problem. But they dropped the ball and didn't foresee this. It's all Honda's fault.

charliemike

Remember when breaking 1:20 on the track was a huge deal? Amazing.

lifetimeofwar

And not a single Ferrari in the top ten http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_Top_Gear_test_track_Power_Lap_Times

e30cabrio

iTrader: (6)

Well said.

Top Gear Shouldn’t Go on Without Jeremy Clarkson

Top Gear Shouldn't Go on Without Jeremy Clarkson | WIRED

After 22 seasons at the helm of Top Gear, the BBC has decided not to renew Jeremy Clarkson’s contract. Effectively fired because of a “fracas” between himself and a producer—he screamed at a member of his staff for half an hour and then punched him because there was no hot food available—Clarkson’s departure leaves a void at the top of one of the world’s most watched television programs.

The BBC is looking for a replacement and to renew the show for 2016, which won’t be easy. “This will be a big challenge and there is no point in pretending otherwise,” BBC Director-General Tony Hall said in a statement. It’s not clear if Clarkson’s co-hosts Richard Hammond and James May, who weren’t involved in the melee, will be back next season.

This is the part where we’d usually suggest replacements for Clarkson. Folks like Sabine Schmitz, racer and television presenter for the German version of Top Gear, or BBC presenter Chris Evans, a huge car nut and experienced television personality. Or even Clarkson frenemy Piers Morgan, the former tabloid editor turned failed CNN host.

Instead, here’s our suggestion for the BBC: let Top Gear end.

Yes, it generates millions of dollars in revenue and is one of the prize programs on the Beeb. But Jeremy Clarkson is—or rather, was—Top Gear. In 1988, he joined the original show (which debuted in 1977). He oversaw its relaunch in 2002 with his childhood friend Andy Wilman as executive producer. He didn’t create the idea of a car show called Top Gear, but everything it is and has been for the last decade is directly attributable to him. His talent made the whole Top Gear world revolve around him. His irreverent wit, obnoxiousness, politically incorrect boarding school humor, and conservative viewpoints gained him a massive and adoring audience—plus an army of haters.

Top Gear without Clarkson, as talented as his two co-presenters are, is a bit like Van Halen without David Lee Roth. Or Roger Waters calling himself Pink Floyd. It’s just not the same, and to pretend it is is an insult to the fans.

Richard Hammond and James May, the other two Top Gear presenters, are wonderful entertainers. But, like all great ensemble casts, the three of them are immeasurably better together. Take any one of them away and the whole will be worse. May is the mature and pedantic car expert. Hammond is the excitable little brother, eager to impress. Clarkson is crotchety smart-aleck who delights in pushing others’ buttons. He is the one who drives the plot of the show, and the glue that held it all together.

Any one of the three could host their own show (and frequently do), but together they are a once-in-a-lifetime entertainment masterpiece. They seem to agree: In an interview with SkyNews, May said “the three of us as a package works for very complicated reasons that a lot of people don’t fully understand.” Hammond tweeted: “Gutted at such a sad end to an era. We’re all three of us idiots in our different ways but it’s been an incredible ride together.”

I am a massive Top Gear fan. I’ve seen every episode, and am now much more interested in whatever Clarkson (and, I suspect, Hammond and May) do next than in some relaunched Top Gear with new presenters. Make no mistake: The BBC did the right thing in letting Clarkson go. He physically attacked a producer, and being kicked off his television home for nearly three-decades, is a just punishment. Especially since this is a last straw situation: Clarkson’s come close to being sacked before, thanks to a long list of questionable moves, ranging from on air racial slurs to last year’s did-they-or-didn’t-they instigation of Argentine veterans of the Falklands war.

Nonetheless, the man is a massive talent with a huge following, and he will find a home somewhere. Perhaps it’ll be on BBC-competitor ITV or—and my gut tells me this is the best option for all involved—he might end up with a huge deal on Netflix. Either way, the biggest loser in all of this isn’t Clarkson or the BBC or even the Top Gear brand.

It’s the fans. And that’s always the way these things go, isn’t it?

AZuser

If Ferrari let them test the La Ferrari around the track, it probably would have gotten top 10. Stupid Ferrari. And stupid Porsche. And stupid McLaren. Now we won't find out who's fastest.

PortlandRL

I watched the final episode tonight and it was one of the more bittersweet moments I've had in recent memory. I felt like I was saying goodbye to that punk kid in school who cussed, smoked, drank, threw wild parties and generally created mayhem but yet somehow, almost everybody liked him because he was great at sports and could make you laugh just by being stupid. You could sense he was always on the verge of getting expelled but somehow never quite crossed that line because he knew where the line was and how to stop just before crossing it.

I used to worry about TG UK coming to a sudden and unexpected end but I never thought it would happen this way. Clarkson could drop the N-word, give the camera the finger, make fun of the Germans and the French, piss off truck drivers, Mexicans and even the entire country of Argentina but in the end, it was a profanity-laden tirade and a single punch to one man out of anger and frustration that brought the whole thing crashing down. I remember just a month or two ago it looked like Clarkson, Hammond and May were going to ink new three-year contracts with the BBC and I breathed a sigh of relief...at least three more years of goofy, car-related hijinks to look forward to. Even as the current series started and Clarkson announced there would be ten episodes, I felt like I'd won the lottery. Alas, it was not to be.

Everything must come to an end eventually but somehow, swallowing the pill that is the end of Top Gear is just somehow more bitter than usual. Every now and again, a show emerges that defies definition, pushes the boundaries and becomes a genre in its own right. Once Clarkson was suspended, it became clear to me that the future of the show was in jeopardy and without realizing it, I began to look at it in a new light and saw the talent and the passion that went into it beyond the on-screen hosts. The editing was stupendous, the special effects unrivaled in any other automotive programming and even in some Hollywood films. From little things like capturing an M5 in a power slide from a flock of still cameras and panning rapidly across the still shots to make it look like the camera was moving around a car frozen in time to the final episode where Jeremy steps out of a cloud of his own tyre smoke that he is still creating in a Jaguar F-Type V8. Top Gear redefined what a car show looked like, felt like, and how it made us feel.

In every generation there is a once-in-a-lifetime show that comes into the world and as it matures, leaves its mark on more and more viewers who slowly but surely begin to realize, 'This is something special.' Once that happens, no substitute will do. What Clarkson and Wilman created in reviving Top Gear from its withering roots in 2002 was one of those moments that will never be repeated in our lifetime. It was a big bang moment, a spark of magic, the conception of something that never was before and never will be again. It is a rare thing for a television show to last as long as Top Gear did without becoming stale or falling victim to its own success but somehow, rather than wilting with age, it got tauter, fitter and better like the Benjamin Button of car shows. The chemistry of the show between the three hosts sealed the deal and made the recipe even more unique. It couldn't even be repeated outside Great Britain with numerous local spin-offs failing as viewers returned to the UK version. They wanted the original. They wanted the best. And we should count ourselves lucky that for thirteen wonderful years, we got it...one episode at a time.

neuronbob

I can see the BBC handling this like a Dr. Who transition. The Dr. Who brand is bigger than the actor portraying the eponymous character. We watch Dr. Who knowing that whoever plays the character will eventually leave after a couple of years. The person replacing the previous Doctor always has a different personality we must become accustomed to. Eventually we learn their quirks and accept him.

The biggest risks the BBC took were with the relaunch in 2005 (that was the best recent season IMHO) and with the change to a character with a darker personality last year (Peter Capaldi). These transitions were handled quite well and I am currently tingling with anticipation for the next Dr. Who series coming this summer. Capaldi has worked out quite well, along with the decent writing. "I'm just an idiot....with a box and a screwdriver....passing through.....helping....learning." That line really warms me up.

My point is that the BBC may have lost a unique part of Top Gear, but they have experience at handling such transitions. Top Gear is such a huge BBC property that they are not going to give it up easily. I expect there will be more Top Gear and new presenters will be announced after a long search. It won't be the same as with Jezza, the Hamster, and Captain Slow. With the same writers and videographers, though (they won't leave en masse), the show will survive and we will become used to it, even if it sucks (in which case we won't watch it). This will happen even with our boys finding employ elsewhere.

AZuser

If they have to look for new presenters, maybe Chris Harris? I always enjoy his videos. And he can drive too.

ttribe

I don't know, Bob. I see the replacement of a fictional character (who's been replaced 12 times) as something quite different than what Top Gear had.

CocheseUGA

That, and Who keeps going because of the story, the universe, the monsters. Top Gear UK wasn't successful because of the cars, it was because of the presenters. It's why TGUS isn't as good, and why the first two years of the reboot weren't as good. It's the interaction, the humor, the production. I'm sure the next hosts (because I sincerely doubt Hammond and May come back) will benefit from a production team and writers who are seasoned and will find their strengths, but it won't be Top Gear.

neuronbob

True. I'm just trying to bring positivity to the gloom. Can you blame a brotha for trying?

ttribe

Agreed.

Can't blame you at all.

Yumcha

Whoa...the tags were a nutbar mix. Cleaned it up...don't mind me. Carry on.