There's a new trailer out for Top Gear's new season after a shakeup of hosts and format. It looks the part, but does it stand up to scrutiny?
In case you missed it, the BBC had release a teaser trailer – the first we’ve seen – of the new post-Clarkson-Hammon-May Top Gear to ramp up before the show premieres in May. And amazingly, it didn’t suck. In fact, it left us quietly optimistic about the new show, the hosts, and its format.
But that’s exactly what a well crafted trailer is meant to do: inspire confidence, quash the negativity. There’s been no shortage of blunders with the transition into this new show. From prominent producers and writers leaving, being forced to turn back from filming locations, breakdowns, scheduling issues – you name it.
Despite all that, the trailer shows that they’ve managed to pull together what could be a very entertaining show out from all the dramas that have been happening off camera. And we’re glad of it. With the old trio working on their new show for Amazon, a reinvigorated Top Gear will only add to our viewing pleasure.
Seen the trailer yet? How many times over? Either way, we have done so too. And some standouts would be the fact that we only see Chris Evans, Matt LeBlanc, Sabine Schmidtz, and The Stig.
What else? There’s a Mustang smoking its rear wheels, a Corvette with a roof-mounted gun, Jenson Button in a McLaren 650S with Evans riding shotgun, Evans losing his lunch after some time on track with Sabine at the wheel (in an Audi R8 V10?), an Ariel Nomad, a Dodge Viper ACR, an Aston Martin Vulcan, a Ferrari F12 TdF, and Matt LeBlanc having a not-so-great time in a star-spangled Reliant Robin (which has stopped running).
There are three other hosts that don’t have a single frame to their name in the minute-long trailer: Chris Harris, Eddie Jordan, and Rory Reid. Perhaps that’s just the way it worked out, but we’d have liked to see some of their antics as well.
As much as we miss the old boys and want Top Gear to had stayed the same, we have to make way for change, even if the transition was somewhat jarring.
As a refresher, in early 2015, Jeremy Clarkson was dismissed from the BBC after throwing a punch to one of the show’s producers at a hotel in Yorkshire, England (allegedly over a piece of steak) after a day of filming for the show’s coming season.
Richard Hammond and James May also left the show after the ongoing season had concluded, with the three of them now working on a new motoring show for Amazon Prime.
