Last night was a sad night. Top Gear - the much loved, ever-green, gas guzzling and downright daft beast - is dead.
Episode 1 of what will hopefully be the final series ever, was dismal. It was the tame racing driver - emphasis on the word 'tame' - meets Stig of the dump - emphasis on the, well, you get what I'm saying.
The features were laboured and the script was lazy. It reminded me a bit of watching the first episode of the Friends spin-off, 'Joey'. Matt LeBlanc does not have a good track record. Goes to show that the funny people on Friends were the writers, and not necessarily the actors. Has anyone seen Matthew Perry recently?
Then there is Evans. Before last night I had some hope that this re-boot was not going to be all about him. I was naive. No sooner had we been introduced to another of his 'co-presenting' pawns, was the self-appointed King Evans back in our faces jibing at the three people who created his job. Bit rude if you ask me.
Okay, so Clarkson was rude too, and May and Hammond were rarely spotted with the sun coming out of their exhausts. But it was their right to be like that. From their carefully crafted (and often loud) car reviews, to their ludicrous (and often dangerous) road trips, the product just kept delivering - effortlessly. Their back-catalogue of weekly greatest hits even formed the basis for a television channel, seemingly named after one of the production team.
And it might have been better had Clarkson clobbered Dave, rather than that other dude. At least then we could have watched it again later on Dave ja vu, me with my Pun Appreciation Society t-shirt on.
Sorry, kids it's wrong to hit people, even if they don't give you a hot meal. But still.
Back to the show, and the centrepiece of last night's 'effort' was a pathetic race to Blackpool in three-wheelers between Evans and Joey. A few questions on that: (1) why?, (2) who thought that would make for good television?, and (3) why? It wasn't funny or insightful, and I was ridiculously grateful to hear the muffled ripple of applause from the studio when it was all over.
LeBlanc's car was useless, but we're used to that on Top Gear. What we aren't used to is the need for a flat-bed truck to get us to the finish line. In better days, Hammond would have popped his little legs through the floor of the car and run to Blackpool, while May would have rammed a fourth wheel on the thing and got it there no bother.
Then there was the hill - why were they towing their cars up a hill? These are the kind of questions we wouldn't have asked before, but now they seem pertinent. I had pretty much given up by the time the second Brownlie brother appeared, with my ironing being almost interesting by comparison.
When the first details of the new set-up came out I was hopeful that they wouldn't ruin it, and was quietly optimistic about new presenters having a go. But as LeBlanc tried to drop a not-so-funny bombshell at the end, I felt completely let-down. Somehow I dislike Evans even more than I did before and, although it almost pains me to say it, I now dislike the idea of Top Gear - or at least this second-hand version of it.
I'll watch it again next week - fingers crossed for the lead-based amphibious car challenge - but just to fuel my anger. I'm just pleased that I've got an Amazon Prime account, and not only because DVDs arrive quickly.
