Evans wasn't fired, but rather "stepped down" from Top Gear saying that he his best shot wasn't enough. Since Evans was first announced as the host, there was a lot of criticism he would never be able to replace Clarkson. Now that Evans is gone, let's look back at the top five reasons why everything went wrong for the presenter, and why ultimately Evans lost his job.
The first bad sign with the new show came when audience members reportedly walked out of the first taping. Evans was rumored to have been flubbing his lines repeatedly, and the filming went over the 4 pm end time by several hours. The first episode was a borderline disaster as the audience didn't seem to laugh at Evans' jokes, and even Matt LeBlanc couldn't get his lines right. Evans seemed to want creative control over everything, and this created a difficult work environment for some of his coworkers. These on-the-set issues seemed to only get worse.
When the first episode did finally air, fans were disappointed at the review done by Evans. Although his reviews did get a little better over time, they could best be summarized as a breakdown of price, 0-100 time and weight, followed by flooring the accelerator and screaming about it. Fans went straight to social media to complain about Evans' presenting style. Because of the complaints, the BBC did announce that Evans would have a smaller role on the show, but it seems that even that wasn't enough. While Chris Evans has an obvious affinity for cars, it didn't translate into particularly informative reviews.
Fans didn't seem content to just criticize Chris Evans, they actually decided to stop watching the show. Fans of Top Gear were extremely loyal, having been in love with the show for many years with the original trio. After just the first new episode of this season, Top Gear viewership went from 4.4 million to 2.8 million. The sixth and final episode of the season was only able to bring in 1.9 million viewers, the lowest that any episode of the show has ever achieved. Only having six episodes this season may have been a blessing in disguise. Clearly the BBC wasn't happy with one of its most valuable franchises being brought to such a low point.
One of the oddest pieces of news from the Top Gear set was the apparent feud between presenters Chris Evans and Matt LeBlanc. Sources reported that Matt LeBlanc was threatening to quit the show if Evans wasn't fired first. There were claims that these demands came about because of concerns of "Evan’s rudeness towards other members of the team, with some suggesting he [was] also frustrating to film with." LeBlanc's chemistry on screen was "iffy" at best, and it is clear that the former Friends star wasn't too close with Evans. LeBlanc has obviously gotten his way, which makes us wonder what the show will look like in the future.
The most important reason why Chris Evans had to quit, is that he wasn't right for the job. Ever since the first episode of Extra Gear aired, we have known that "Jr. Presenters" Chris Harris and Rory Reid were far better than Evans at doing car reviews. They both seem to know much more about the inner workings of a car, and can review them in a way that we are familiar with. Matt LeBlanc was better than Evans, but his back and forths with Chris Harris made it seem like he had no idea what he was talking about sometimes. In the future, we want to see the show go back to its old format with Chris Harris and Rorry Reid running the show, not having to throw it back to Evans or LeBlanc. Who should be the third presenter though? We aren't quite sure.
