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It was one of the toughest televisual gigs for years: make a great series of Top Gear without Jeremy Clarkson or his sidekicks James May and Richard Hammond.
Going by episode 1, did they manage it?
By now you will have made your own mind up about that. But if the press reviews are anything to go by, it wasn’t the five-star outing we'd hoped for.
4.4m viewers tuned in to see the revamped show – a good million fewer than the last episode with Jezza and company.
Clearly, those one million people had better things to do than watch Chris Evans scream for about an hour. But the main host's shouting did nothing to avert viewers’ attention from the fact that there was little chemistry between the Radio 2 Breakfast Show host and Matt LeBlanc.
It also didn’t stop us from noticing that the producers hadn’t really changed the show's format that much.
Given all the money that they threw at the reborn Top Gear, it seems the production team were lacking imagination somewhat.
"It’s not a disaster. It’s polished, the stunts (so many of them!) are fun, the tweaks are improvements. But it is a shame there wasn’t more in the way of refreshing the show itself. It’s just new people doing same old same old."
"The format was already in need a major revamp and this relaunch was much too cautious and unimaginative."
"It is all pointless, hackneyed and tired. Yes, I realise that is like Top Gear always has been, but what spark of originality there once was is now missing. They don't seem to be having as much fun playing with cars, this new lot.
As many people have pointed out, it was just the first episode. It will take time for the presenters to get comfy in their roles and for that all-important chemistry to begin working.
And so, we keep our fingers crossed for episode two.
Let's just hope we don’t discover that the best bits were filmed in the last episodes – and that the BBC decided to show us the "most entertaining" stuff first. If so, the TG team are in big trouble.
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