magnumpi

http://www.telegraph.co.uk/motoring/top-gear/11494549/Jeremy-Clarkson-sacked-BBC-Director-General-statement-on-Top-Gears-future.html

Clarkson fired, Hamster and May to leave too !!

Oh my !

I say step in Alan Partridge Ah Har !!

bats

Yes, Alan Partridge is about the right level.

mikelincs

WGAF

Paul_Shepherd

Im afraid its the end of the road for Top Gear now, questionable wihtout Clarkson, dead in the water without Hammond and May too, the magic about that show was the banter between the three hosts.

Shame as it was a superbly funny show, with a great team and great formula, but no more.

RIP Top Gear.

itsasmallworld

Of course he had to go. He is so full of himself; a complete *%&^%$#^*.

BUT I will miss them. They epitomize a certain type of Britishness - albeit empty headed, rude, arrogant ... My teenage boys will be upset. There are so few programs that we all find funny.

Paul_Shepherd

I hear Chris Evans is being considered as a replacement..... Seriously??? not going to work.

The fact that Hammond and May dont want to continue without Clarskson speaks volumes, they know the show finished.

Without Messrs Clarskson, Hammond and May its game over.

ChrisBan

End of the road for the show. The success of the show is down to the three of them and without the 3 of them, it will shed a large percentage of the viewers I just can't forsee the BBC being able to reinvent the show. He overstepped the mark and unfortunately had to go. Quote from James May a couple hours ago is that he agrees Clarkson is a knob but actually enjoyed working with him.

I hope another network signs them up though, rumours around Netflix may make an offer.

itsasmallworld

They can put Chris Evans on but we will not be watching. Chris Evans, and Ant and Dec were the reasons we left the UK .

I think Clarkson and May will head off to another channel. I think Hammond might take the opportunity to try his luck in the USA (which he seems to like so much).

Paul_Shepherd

Exaclty.

As outspoken and controversial as Clarkson was, he was funny, and the three of them bounced off each other with perfection.

Clarskson was politcially incorrect, thats what made him amusing and fun to watch.

magnumpi

Hammond does the "science of stupid" show, not very good on his own I don't think.

I bet Clarksons phone ain't stopped ringing all day :@)

Pizzawheel

If you ever caught Fifth Gear with Tiff Needell and a lovely young thing with a double-barreled surname you'll know what to expect with TG post-Clarkson.

Oakvillian

Hammond's done a huge amount of presenting and narrating outside of Top Gear. He seems to specialise in the sort of popular pseudo-science stuff like the Science of Stupid; he did a few series of Brainiacs a while back, and has presented various factual programmes on the history of engineering. He'll be OK. James May has done his fair share of other stuff too - in the same sort of blokeish, somewhat science-y way that he presents TG.
Vicki Butler-Henderson, if that's who you mean, is hardly a "young thing" in TV presenter terms any more. Sure, she's a year or two younger than Hammond and has a decade on May, but they've been doing Top Gear for 15 years.

I've heard a lot of names bandied around for possible Top Gear replacement teams. VBH has certainly been mentioned, as have Sabine Schmitz and Jodie Kidd. They all have the necessary driving credentials, and VBH is a proper journalist too. Chris Evans seems to be a bookies' favourite, but has more or less ruled himself out; other possibilities might include bringing back Tiff or Quentin Willson. I'm not sure any of those except Butler-Henderson would work. The presenting team need to be passionate about cars, obviously, have a background in proper journalism of some sort, and have the personality to keep an audience engaged.

Clarkson may have been a bellend, but he was a bit of a Marmite-flavoured bellend (if you'll excuse the mental imagery that conjures up): people were opinionated enough to care about him and his antics one way or another, so Top Gear got lots of free publicity and continued to pull in the audiences.

Edited to add: just noticed on her Wikipedia entry that VBH is married to Phil Churchward, the series director of Top Gear. Could he put in a good word for her?

magnumpi

I dont think any of the above will have me watching Top Gear In The future. We already have 5th gear on some Rogers TV channel here and I don't watch, I did try once but compared to Counting Cars or Gas Monkey garage it's just stale.

itsasmallworld

The thing is these three made it work. I have zero interest in cars. Less than zero. I would never watch a car programme, but I was happy to watch these three and their antics; then even the passionate/hilarious way they talked about cars was endearing.

christmasoompa

Totally agree. My husband is a car fanatic and I'd rather have watched paint dry than sat through 2 minutes of Fifth Gear or any other motor related program, but Top Gear I was more than happy to watch because it made me laugh and I liked the presenting team.