BBC’s ‘Top Gear’ roars back with Matt LeBlanc
‘Voice’ crowns Season 10 winner
LONDON, May 25, (Agencies): “Top Gear” doesn’t do understatement.
If it were a car, the BBC’s hit auto show would be a flashy, precisiontooled racer. Co-host Chris Evans calls it “a car-show nuclear bomb” — and it returns to the screen facing the fallout of former host Jeremy Clarkson’s explosive exit.
The show’s fusion of blokey banter, consumer advice and adrenaline-fueled automotive stunts in far-flung locations made it a huge hit, watched — according to the BBC — by 350 million people around the world.
The “Top Gear “formula, finetuned over many years under the brash Clarkson, has brought both success and controversy. Clarkson and his fellow presenters left last year after an off-set dustup in which Clarkson punched a producer (he later apologized and paid damages). Now the show is back, fronted by Evans and actor Matt LeBlanc, zooming away from his bestknown incarnation as Joey Tribbiani in long-running sitcom “Friends.”
“When I was first starting out, I always wanted my career to take me to exotic places,” LeBlanc said during an interview in London. “And I ended up in a building in Burbank for 12 years with no windows.”
He’s making up for it now. Filming for the six-episode season of “Top Gear” has taken the crew to Morocco, South Africa, Italy, Kazakhstan, the US and the gaudy English seaside resort of Blackpool. LeBlanc has driven an Ariel Nomad dune buggy in the Moroccan desert and raced Evans up South Africa’s treacherous Sani Pass — one of several hair-raising experiences.
“Some of the things we do, it was like, ‘Really? This is all insured? Huh. Because that’s a big cliff right there,’” LeBlanc said.
“You’re constantly fighting (between) ‘I want to win’ and ‘it’s just a TV show,’” he said. “You want to make it entertaining, but you also want to make it.”
In the new-look “Top Gear” — premiering Sunday in Britain and Monday on BBC America — main presenters LeBlanc and Evans are joined by German driver Sabine Schmitz, former motorsport boss Eddie Jordan, automotive journalists Chris Harris and Rory Reid and anonymous, helmeted driver The Stig.
Evans, a veteran British TV and radio host, says the format has been tweaked, but the essence of the program remains. He say fans — he counts himself among them — “don’t want us to reinvent the wheel.”
Clarkson and his co-hosts James May and Richard Hammond have decamped to Amazon’s TV service for a rival show, “The Grand Tour,” debuting later this year.
Evans says he is relaxed about the competition, and pays credit to Clarkson and his colleagues for fusing car journalism with the wild spirit of rock ‘n’ roll.
“They took the component parts of a car show, and they said, ‘OK, we could build this, or we could build a nuclear bomb,’” he said. “They assembled a carshow nuclear bomb. And they were just about to detonate it, but they’re not there anymore so now we’ve got to do it.”
Clarkson, a self-styled enemy of political correctness, regularly generated headlines with his dismissive views on cyclists, environmentalists and vegetarians, and insensitive statements about a host of nationalities.
LOS ANGELES:
Also:
NBC’s “The Voice” unveiled its Season 10 winner on Tuesday night, crowning Alisan Porter the latest champion of the popular singing competition. Porter’s win also marked another milestone: She’s the first contestant to win with a female coach, with Christina Aguilera helping steer her to victory. Blake Shelton has previously coached four winners, Adam Levine has won with three, and Pharrell Williams and Usher have both coached one winning contestant each. Coaches Shakira, Gwen Stefani and CeeLo Green have yet to win with any of their contestants. In Season 11, Levine and Shelton will be joined by two new coaches, Miley Cyrus and Alicia Keys.
Country singer Adam Wakefield was runner up, with Hannah Huston coming in third and Laith Al-Saadi rounding out the final four.
“Dancing With the Stars” unveiled its Season 22 winner on May 24, and it was “America’s Next Top Model” alum Nyle DiMarco who took home the coveted Mirror Ball trophy for 2016. The contestant, who is deaf, was a fan-favorite for much of the show. He and partner Peta Murgatroyd faced off against “Good Morning America” weather anchor Ginger Zee and her partner Val Chmerkovskiy, and UFC figher Paige VanZant and her partner Mark Ballas.
Zee ended up in third place for her Argentine Tango/Foxtrot fusion with Chmerkovskiy, having suffered a pelvic injury during last week’s rehearsals. The duo earned a score of 27/30. VanZant and Ballas earned a 30/30 score for their Jive/Salsa fusion, and seemed like the frontrunners going into the finale having earned the top scores of the night on Monday.
But DiMarco and Murgatroyd ultimately pulled off the win with their Cha Cha/Tango fusion, which earned them another perfect 30/30.