Top Gear host Chris Evans insists the revamped show is a hit despite British bookmakers slashing the odds on his sacking.
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The show’s peak audience, meanwhile, was recorded with the final episode helmed by former hosts Jeremy Clarkson, Richard Hammond and James May last June, which drew 5.3 million viewers in overnight ratings, and a 5.8 million peak audience.
Fronted by Evans and Matt LeBlanc, the show was referred to as “Flop Gear” by some who were left unimpressed by the chemistry between the two on Sunday night’s show.
His tweet marks a change in tone from comments he made before the airing of the launch episode, as he told Britain’s The Guardian newspaper that he’d be “disappointed” if the show wasn’t watched by more than five million Britons.
The reboot of British cult favorite vehicle show “Top Gear” aired Sunday, and fans were quick to howl that the new version should have stayed in the garage.
Following the success – or otherwise, depending on your view – of last week’s show, there’ll be more celebrity interviews, more audience banter – and more challenges, of course.
The challenge then took the presenters to the Lake District where they had to use their off-road military vehicles to pull their Robin Reliances with LeBlanc being helped out by strongman Nick Best and Evans by triathlete Edward Brownlee. FACT. Won its slot. The new episode has not received the greatest reviews and the number of viewers were lower than what one of the hosts expected. “FACT. These are THE FACTS folks”, the television personality wrote Monday.
Despite Matt LeBlanc, Sabine Schmitz, Rory Reid, and Chris Harris generally coming off okay, Evans and his use of brown people as props have been nearly universally panned.
– Matt Biggs (@PawnSacrifice) May 29, 2016 Probably going to be crucified but I actually quite enjoyed the new @BBC_TopGear Matt’s Nomad film was very good.
However, the show started with just a taster of the action before heading to showcase a brand new segment.
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LeBlanc had teased the race in a recent appearance on “The Graham Norton Show”, saying, “They’ve cut the roofs off of this because it was gonna be raining so they figured, ‘Better to have no roof'”. However, it may be a little early to go around declaring that the Top Gear revamp “is a hit”.
