Did YouTube kill the car show? Part 3
Last week I wrote about how private equity dimwits have caused a dramatic upheaval in large, well-known automotive YouTube channels. This week, it's the third part of the puzzle.
In the first instalment, we got to the bit where Top Gear was handed over to Chris Evans for reasons that are totally unfathomable.
And then...
After a solitary and mostly awful season, Evans was gone and he was functionally replaced by a surprisingly disciplined Chris Harris. Harris's YouTube videos on his own channel and The Drive were long and occasionally self-indulgent, the opposite of the tight seven-minute review segments of Top Gear.
But right from the off with this brilliant Ferrari f12 tdf review, it was obvious he was going to take over as a full-time host. Harris had demonstrated a very good understanding of the assignment and it was only a matter of time.
The broader cast was whittled away to leave him alongside LeBlanc and Reid to take the show closer to its original format. Evans, to his credit, bowed out gracefully (publicly anyway) but really shouldn't have taken it on in the first place. He was not authentic and seemingly aped Clarkson's mannerisms too often.
But the reality is, he is not a real car guy. I don't know the man, but watching his version of TG was like watching Chris Chibnall's Doctor Who. They both thought they knew what it should look like but produced something absolutely not great.
This is a way of making my point: I desperately want to see a Jodie Whittaker episode written by someone who knows how to write Doctor Who. I loved her Doctor, I couldn't stand Chibnall's Doctor Who, I couldn't stand Evans' Top Gear.
Between the remaining three, there wasn't really the required chemistry. It seems like they got on perfectly well but LeBlanc's flat on-screen persona never really lifted and Rory always struck me as the odd one out and was almost made to feel that way. Given the other two were already world-famous in their fields.
He also got stiffed by the BBC who took away his Extra Gear hosting duties by axing it. He took the hint and found himself in pastures less toxic. He's just joined the Fifth Gear cast replacing the ancient Tiff Needell and I wish him all the best because he's a genuine talent and he actually likes cars.
LeBlanc left reluctantly at the end of his second season as well, the two departing hosts replaced with ex-cricketer Freddie Flintoff and comedian Paddy McGuinness.
Once I got over the fact that it was at Reid's expense, this line-up was actually good. Flintoff was the unexpected star and was obviously up for anything and McGuinness was a great foil to the bravado and bravura of his other two hosts. While being extremely funny doing it.
Sadly Flintoff was – I think – exploited by producers who got him doing things he really isn't built for. He was nearly killed in an unbroadcast accident in a Morgan Super 3 at the Dunsfold track.
I don't have any proof of the exploitation, obviously, but I reckon I'm on the money because the BBC settled with Flintoff to the (alleged) tune of £9 million or over A$18 million.
Watching Flintoff, he was game for anything and a proper team player the way elite team sports people are. So when they said, "Go fast in a three-wheeled Morgan without any protection," he trusted them and said yes. That's how it plays out in my head, anyway.
Chris Harris claimed in his already-infamous appearance on Joe Rogan's podcast that he had warned the BBC that someone was going to be killed before the accident. He was very nearly right – he also claimed Flintoff had not been wearing a helmet whereas the BBC initially said he was. I mean, seriously. As if that wasn't going to come out.
I wasn't originally going to post a link to anything Rogan does but this is genuinely compelling viewing. Rogan hardly says anything for the first two-thirds which is good because the less he says the better.
Watching Harris grapple with what happened to Flintoff is eye-opening. I had written the previous paragraphs about what I thought had gone down and Harris confirms my thinking.
TV people nearly killed at Top Gear host. That is utterly terrifying. The interview is definitely worth watching.
Why did this happen? TV people pushing someone manifestly under-qualified to be doing something that can be quite dangerous. Flintoff is not a car guy the way Harris, Clarkson, Hammond and even May are.
And you never saw May doing anything remotely risky because Wilman never asked him to. His only major injuries in 22 years were a concussion in a Top Gear special in 2010 followed by two on The Grand Tour - a broken arm and a lucky escape after a hard crash in a Lancer Evo in 2022 that was pretty much May's fault.
After Hammond's mammoth dragster accident, Top Gear/TGT tightened up and became an even more professional production outfit. Instead of being inevitabilities, incidents were rare.
So it comes down to TV people being bad at their jobs. Entertainment is full of lazy failsons rising to the top, with the odd genuinely talented person making their way through the muck. You might think I'm being hard here, but just look at the state of free-to-air television. It's absolute swill.
Someone pointed out the other day that the BBC passed on Game of Thrones and Succession but is still churning out Mrs Brown's Boys. Australian TV with a few notable exceptions is pretty awful too. Again, don't get me started on Doctor Who.
TV people try to create things that aren't there, don't understand the audience and think stunt-casting is a good idea. Which in a motoring program, puts people in danger. It's one thing to manufacture peril – something old Top Gear did well most of the time. It's another to put a host in genuine danger – something old Top Gear only did once or twice.
The difference between Hammond crashing a dragster is that he was very, very experienced but even then, shouldn't have been doing what he was doing. Just because Flintoff's first car was a Boxster doesn't mean he knows what he's doing.
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The Grand Tour
After the exit of the Top Gear trio, Amazon threw caution and a rumoured over $150m to the wind, signing up Clarkson and Wilman's production company to create an automotive program for its then still-fledgling Amazon Prime streaming service.
Amazon didn't seem to mind the reasons for Clarkson's exit and were just keen to get the three of them on Prime. I braced for impact, wondering what would happen with the worst kind of people getting involved – Silicon Valley douchebags.
The Grand Tour changed the format but at the same time kept the fundamentals – three blokes having a laugh, brought together by their shared love of cars. Three blokes that enjoyed each other's company and made sure everyone was having fun.
Except for the occasional production assistant, obviously. And, let's be frank here, anyone not British and white in some cases, something fandom likes to brush off as political correctness gone mad. But things were said in both programs that would get you fired in a normal day job. Not at the BBC and not at Amazon Prime.
The ageing stars bowed out mostly gracefully in the final TGT September 2024, taking pot-shots and saying the things that gets you and me fired from normal jobs.
So what happens now?
No idea. I think I know what should happen, but even that could be quite wrong.
Top Gear actually stumbled into being good again with Harris, Flintoff and McGuinness but nearly killed one of them because TV has to be big, bold and explosioney - or even genuinely very dangerous. The Grand Tour did a bit of that and quickly realised it was tired and boring after doing it a lot.
Car shows had to change in the wake of the rise of automotive YouTube and its more successful proponents, who turned around stuff far faster than TV could ever hope. And did it on budgets of two-tenths of bugger-all and with inexpensive equipment like GoPros and their phones.
But TV people didn't change the car show. Top Gear (2002-2015) and The Grand Tour are the only notable exceptions because the focus was the people watching it.
And now YouTubers have taken back what Top Gear was best at and are doing a great job. The Grand Tour is set to continue on Amazon, but how do you make that happen? With three unknowns? Amazon cannot and will not do that.
They'll find three celebrities and send them out into the firing line, either in front of disgruntled fans or, worse, put untrained, inexperienced folks into real danger. Maybe with one actual car person in the mix.
Or worse they'll mine the YouTube archives for as many odious folks as they can, stunt-casting their way to column inches with the usual divorced-dad-climate-denier guys Americans seem to adore.
TV people were not responsible for the idea of the globally successful Top Gear. When the original show was cancelled – a cosy, very British consumer affairs show – Clarkson and Wilman put their heads together and successfully pitched a reboot. Yes Wilman is a TV producer but has good instincts and knows how to listen and learn.
Getting this right is hard. But getting it wrong is so simple, so TV people keep doing that. They're happy to take risks with actual people but not with the money that gets things made.
Whether we see another episode of Top Gear remains to be seen and I hope we do, but I hope it goes back to BBC2, starts small and creates a new wave of fun automotive television.
But if it doesn't, that's pretty much it for the car show until someone, somewhere, pulls off something unheard of and puts a bunch of fresh faces into a TV program that understand who and what it is for. As long as shareholder value or big ratings by the third ep aren't the goal, we could see it happen.
But don't hold your breath.
