New look Top Gear

If anything I thought they went out of their way to assure viewers they were still watching the same show.

New Promo for the new series of Top gear has just been broadcast.

I won't be watching 2017's like I didn't watch 2016's. It should have remained Clarkson/May/Hammond, or been killed off.

Yes because it represents value for money to kill off one of the BBC's most profitable franchises (or maintain a contract with someone that thumped a producer).

Post Clarkson et al, will it remain "one of the BBC's most profitable franchises"? Or an embarrassment?

To be fair the 3 main presenters they have now settled on with Matt LeBlanc, Chris Harris & Rory Reid are very good and the latter 2 are motoring journalists like Hammond & May were before they joined, only Chris Evans was disappointing for the hosts they selected.

We'll see if it's given a fair crack of the whip this time round.

Last time, Chris Evans became the lightning rod for everyone who had an axe to grind with the BBC for getting rid of Clarkson. Some of the headlines, often sourced from a website called Heat Street, looked like they were trying to kill his entire career.

That's not to say the series was good, but the sheer lack of any forgiveness killed it stone dead. If it's left alone to develop this time it has a chance, otherwise it could be game over.

Or it could just carry on, and you can pretend it's dead. Doesn't really cause any detriment to you if it carries on existing, does it?

The BBC should have signed up Matt for more than two more years. if it better success he'll be asking for more money.

I really want to give it a chance this time. Part of me didn't want the Chris Evans show to succeed. At the time, I believed that was such a stupid decision that I convinced myself the beeb had done it deliberately because they knew whatever series came next after Clarkson would be ripped to shreds by the press, no matter how good it was. So they made the worst choice possible on purpose. Then when Evans was inevitably fired, anything after would seem like an improvement.

When you think about it, this series is more like a recreation of Top Gear in the way the 2002 series was. Rehire the previous series presenter who got the most praise (Le Blanc in this case) and pair him with two relative unknowns. It may work again!

I seem to recall Evans resigned, or are you suggesting that he quickly resigned seconds before being fired ?