News

Matt LeBlanc to Return to Top Gear

28 September 2016

By Joseph

Friends star Matt LeBlanc is set to return to BBC Two’s Top Gear next year, alongside granddad character Eddie Jordan, Sabine Schmitz and both Chris Harris and Rory Reid, who will be fronting BBC Three’s Extra Gear once again.

Without Chris Evans in the equation, Matt LeBlanc will surely be stepping up his presenting duties in the next series, unless the other presenters are given more prominent studio roles. Whilst Matt can be entertaining and engaging in film, he truly is dire in the studio, making the canned laughter all the more cringe-worthy.

Having started series 23 with 4.4 million viewers and ending it with just 1.9 million viewers, it was obvious that something about the new show was fundamentally unappealing to the Top Gear viewers of old – perhaps simply the fact that the presenters were not Clarkson, Hammond and May.

As far as I’m concerned, there are a few basic things that warrant changing in series 24 of Top Gear. Firstly, the team need to drop the ‘Star in a rallycross car’ section which the producers seem to have formulated in a moment of complete absent mindedness; it’s a desperate attempt to cover up for the new presenting team’s inability to engage with the show’s celebrity guests in the acerbic manner that Jeremy Clarkson managed. Secondly, where has the news section disappeared to? When watching old Top Gear my eyes used to light up whenever James May pulled a cheeky grin before announcing the latest Dacia Sandero or something insignificant like that.

Ahh, the good old days…

Like this article? Please share!