Critic Reviews

The show can feel disorienting--a mix of reality competition and infomercial targeted at millionaires--but hosts Jeremy Clarkson, James May, and Richard Hammond have an infectious geek-patrician enthusiasm.

Staffers, instead of a studio audience, provided the cheers, aided by punters applauding from their apartments. Also off the menu were celebrity guests and the Star in a Reasonably Priced Car time challenge. And yet, notwithstanding the lack of optional extras, this new Top Gear had an agreeably nonchalant quality. It was pipe-and-slippers entertainment that never got out of first gear and was all the richer for it.

The programme’s structural issues remain, namely that the format feels exhausted. It cannot decide whether it wants to be about the cars, about the lads on tour or about grand cinematic stunts. ... Putting these three pegs into those holes is awkward, although they are undoubtedly a better fit than their predecessors.

The presenters have gelled a bit, and the show is more original and above all, more intelligent. ... Most of the show is given over to the “boys” driving the cars their respective fathers once owned, which is surprisingly touching and satisfyingly nostalgic, but does go on for too long and had me nodding off like a dog on the parcel shelf.

Although these three have a gentle chemistry (much improved when McGuinness isn’t shouting), the mediocre banter does occasionally feel like they are trying too hard. ... In between races, the baggier bits of the episode dragged. But overall, this was an encouraging direction for Top Gear to take.

Yes, much of it is clearly scripted, but Flintoff, Harris and McGuinness seem genuinely to get on and find each other funny. When they repeatedly slapped each other's faces in a childish game of snap it felt spontaneous, a tiny bit fetishistic, and I did actually laugh.

There’s not much wrong with Top Gear, and still a lot that’s right – such as the sharp editing and routinely gorgeous cinematography – but it could do with a service and perhaps a model refresh.

Harris has become Top Gear’s purring engine and it’s perhaps no coincidence that as each series passes, his delivery and presentation style becomes a little more Clarkson. ... Harris’s enthusiasm for the track, for the cars, for the local racing drivers, was lovely to watch. But it was fleeting.

There’s little sense that [Freddie (né Andrew) Flintoff's] heart is in cars. At the other end of the track is Chris Harris who can achieve high speeds but is no performer. Completing the current trinity is Paddy McGuinness, essentially a foghorn with a driving licence. ... It’s as if Top Gear can’t help meta-critiquing itself. It’s genuinely awful, isn’t it? Alas there’s no way of enhancing what used to be a magazine show about cars.