Which maps pretty exactly to how each of them was in his or her own individual appearances on the old one.

(Evans is a drive-time radio DJ, FFS. His only qualifications for hosting Top Gear* are that he's very rich and owns a lot of expensive cars, and hell, the Sultan of Brunei has the same qualifications. I guess he was unavailable, which is too bad, since I hear he's more charismatic.)

--G.
* having had Billie Piper, while impressive for a man with that face, is not strictly speaking a qualification for hosting Top Gear, however much Clarkson visibly wished it was when she was on the show
-><-
Benjamin D. Hutchins, Co-Founder, Editor-in-Chief, & Forum Mod
Eyrie Productions, Unlimited http://www.eyrie-productions.com/
zgryphon at that email service Google has
Ceterum censeo Carthaginem esse delendam.

Captain America has really let himself go.

(Oh hush. You were all thinking of making this sort of joke. I just got here first.)

-Merc
Keep Rat

You so didn't, though. Simon made a joke based on that coincidence on a Yogs video from years ago. :)

(Paraphrased from memory: "That was Billie Piper sang that. Remember her, when she was a songstress? When she was 17 years old and dating Chris Evans. No, not THAT Chris Evans. The other one. The ginger one. What a decision.")

--G.
-><-
Benjamin D. Hutchins, Co-Founder, Editor-in-Chief, & Forum Mod
Eyrie Productions, Unlimited http://www.eyrie-productions.com/
zgryphon at that email service Google has
Ceterum censeo Carthaginem esse delendam.

Really? Zoner said something like he was trying way too hard. Like 'you're a yank in England, we get it' were his words, I believe.

Incidentally, I wish Netflix had further back than five series, I really wanna see the older stuff, like from the far off times of *2009*.

Top Gear Mk.1 is kinda dull if you're not a full-on gearhead. If you've seen Fifth Gear? That's what Top Gear Mk.1 was (in fact, Fifth Gear is a continuation of the original Top Gear).

Top Gear Mk.2 started over from scratch. It was still a motoring show but it also wanted to be an entertaining show. It took the show 2 or 3 series -- and replacing first series presenter Jason Dawe with James May -- to figure out how to make that happen and find their groove. And they did make it happen and they did find their groove. And they wore that groove into a rut. By series 20 the show had gotten stale and repetitive, but the chemistry between the presenters at least kept it entertaining.

Which brings me to Top Gear Mk.3. The first episode of Top Gear Mk.2 starts with some driving footage with a voice over by Clarkson informing viewers that the new show is definitively not the old one. The first episode of Top Gear Mk.3 starts with what Mk.2 series 23 might have been had it been Clarkson/Hammond/May (The Lads) but with a different cast, a cast lacking the chemistry that The Lads had built over a decade of making Top Gear Mk.2.

It didn't work. It tried too hard to be Top Gear Mk.2 and didn't try hard enough to be itself.

Except for the season when they tried to reinvent it as a direct competitor to Top Gear Mk II. That was so awful the show got canceled.

--G.
-><-
Benjamin D. Hutchins, Co-Founder, Editor-in-Chief, & Forum Mod
Eyrie Productions, Unlimited http://www.eyrie-productions.com/
zgryphon at that email service Google has
Ceterum censeo Carthaginem esse delendam.

Hulu's got most of the rest.
--
Geoff Depew - Darth Mephron
Haberdasher to Androids, Dark Lord of Sith Tech Support.
"And Remember! Google is your Friend!!"

EDIT: I realized that sounded rather ungrateful and aggressive, and I didn't mean it that way. Thanks, Meph, and I didn't mean to direct any of that ire at you, my hate is pointed square at Hulu.

As far as I've been able to tell from what little I've watched/listened to Evans, it's partially natural and partially affected, as if he is suffering from ADD or something related, and is also acting in a way is if to emphasize it.

This is the primary reason I have avoided watching/listening to Evans.

...!
Gott's Leetle Feesh in Trousers!

That would explain why his character feels a bit off to me. Skirting the shoulders of Uncanny Valley.

May and Clarkson were fairly vocal on the Stay side of things: http://www.autoblog.com/2016/06/21/jeremy-clarkson-james-may-brexit-video/

I can understand why they brought him on - name recognition, a journalistic background, etc. However, he just wasn't sufficiently entertaining as a lead presenter.

Matt LeBlanc brought a lot of charisma to the job, so hopefully he'll stay on. And he had decent chemistry with the older chap in the second-string presenter line up, Eddy, so that could work to hook things together. I think the show did well enough not to be cancelled and it can still find its feet.

I'm really quite loving Rory Reid as the voice of the Youth. He's got charisma, doesn't feel forced at any point when reading the lines, and unlike Mr Evans seems to actually be a petrolhead. (Listening to him talk about the mustang in last weeks ep was like watching an old TG segment)

--
-Pasha
"Don't change the subject"
"Too slow, already did."

Reid loves cars. He loves looking at them, he loves driving them, he loves talking about them.

By contrast, Evans loves collecting cars. It's not the same thing.

But yeah, Reid, LeBlanc and the others apparently are staying on for at least another series.

"That was Billie Piper sang that. Remember her? When she was a songstress? She was 19 years old and she dated Chris Evans. No, not that Chris Evans. The other one. The ginger one. What a decision."

- Simon Lane of the Yogscast, paraphrased from memory

--G.
-><-
Benjamin D. Hutchins, Co-Founder, Editor-in-Chief, & Forum Mod
Eyrie Productions, Unlimited http://www.eyrie-productions.com/
zgryphon at that email service Google has
Ceterum censeo Carthaginem esse delendam.