Twitter tears Chris Evans' Top Gear a new one...mostly with lots of love for Matt LeBlanc
And so the new dawn for the BBC's most successful show, Top Gear has broken and the response on social media was predictably negative, although the first episode was actually a moderate success.
The combination of Chris Evans and Matt LeBlanc was not a disaster and the BBC was wise to stick to the same format - it wasn't broken so why change everything? This Stig's return was never in doubt.
In the end it came across as a mix of TFI in its energy, allowing Evans to clearly steer the direction of the show, but the production, writing and directing all felt as it was before the hiatus.
However the Twitter audience (according to Kantar most of the U.K. messages were about the show soon after it began) was not convinced as evidenced below by the likes of high profile users... Including Carol Vorderman.
At the time of writing (9.45pm) on the evening of its broadcast, #TopGear was the top trending topic on Twitter with 80,500 tweets send about the first episode.
Check some out below.
The Twitterverse is commenting on how @Matt_LeBlanc is doing..
New #TopGear is the talk of Twitter with 86% of all TV Tweets.
— Kantar Social TV UK (@KMUKSocialTV) May 29, 2016
Sad that Twitter is far more exciting than the actual show #TopGear
Sorry #TopGear ... switching off ... looking forward to the proper boys on @amazonprimenow soon ... night all xxx
— Carol Vorderman MBE (@carolvorders) May 29, 2016
Matt Le Blanc is really good at the driving with jokes thing. The Nomad film the best thing in the episode #TopGear
— Greg Jenner (@greg_jenner) May 29, 2016
Even if this eventually settles around 3.5m I bet BBC Worldwide will be over the moon. The Golden Goose seems to be in safe hands #TopGear
— Richard Osman (@richardosman) May 29, 2016
First time I’ve watched! This is a good show! Good job team #topgear
— Danny Wallace (@dannywallace) May 29, 2016
Always too early to call in the first episode of a completely new start. Already a big fan of @Matt_LeBlanc on this though. #topgear
— Scott Reid ⚡️ (@scottreid1980) May 29, 2016
I'm beginning to think people who can't see anything good about the new #TopGear might just be using it as an excuse to berate the BBC
— Felicity Morse (@FelicityMorse) May 29, 2016
— Jeremy ☁️ (@jeremywaite) May 29, 2016
Reading Twitter react to #TopGear is quite extraordinary. Utterly scathing. A little love for Matt Le Blanc. That's it.
— Dan Wootton (@danwootton) May 29, 2016