Erin Baker – A Week Is A Long Time In Top Gear Land

Did Chris Evans have to resign? Were things so bad for Top Gear? Yes, and probably, yes; viewing figures had dropped to 1.9m for the last episode, from 4.4m for the first episode. I watched the last episode of Series One with bemusement, and the occasionally quiet smile whenever Matt Le Blanc or Rory Reid, the only two decent presenters, spoke.

I wondered, above all else, why they had stuck so rigidly to a format that belonged to Clarkson’s team? The build-up in the studio to the Stig’s lap, the one that begins, “Some say he…” was just awful. It was a weak enough schtick when Clarkson/May/Hammond told it, but the new series kicks off, with everywhere to go, and runs into the same tired old tropes as the previous programme, which was already on its knees, as Andy Wilman, the show’s producer, had willingly said on many occasions.

Yes, the BBC had to keep the name, or watch BBC Worldwide, its commercial arm, practically go under, but everything else was surely up for grabs. So different was this premise – a team of at least six interacting, interchanging presenters with no rapport between them – that it’s so odd to see them stick to the same tired conventions and formats.

And Chris Evans, by wearing the same yellow T-shirt for every episode, seemed almost to have caved before he aired the first episode. As if he was straight back to the days of his marriage to Billy Piper, when they took some serious time out and generally caved for England.

The weirdest part was that Chris Evans on paper did look like the man for the job; being interviewed by the BBC immediately after Evans’s resignation, the first Stig, Perry McCarthy, said Evans “hasn’t got the automotive authority” for the job. Except he did. He could clearly handle a car on a circuit, he know about the heritage and significance of various marques, he understood the basic engine mechanics… Sure, you could have someone with more in-depth knowledge heading the show, but then it would be on BBC4 or the Discovery channel: if it’s BBC2’s biggest audience each week, you need first and foremost a presenter.

So what next? Hopefully Le Blanc stays, hopefully they take more risks and move away from any of the trickery left over from Wilman days and hopefully Top Gear recovers its mojo, because it’s a great institution reflecting a very British love of cars.