As the 15th series of TV motoring entertainment show Top Gear gets under way, Keith Harrison and Mark Andrews give their opinions:

Love it, says Keith

Wherefore art thou Tiff Needell?

Stuck on the hard shoulder of Channel 5 while Clarkson and Co slam down the fast lane in a souped-up Quattro before ramming it into man-made mountain of Sinclair C5s and setting it on fire.

That’s Top Gear in a nutshell these days. Viewers all over the world love it – except in America, where post-modern, posh-boy petrol-head irony is yet to catch on. Strange, that.

After years of hankering for the days of Tony Mason’s rally reports and the begloved,  if not beloved,  Noel Edmonds’ road tests, I gave in to the new ‘blokey’ format a few years ago.

I would have got away with it, if it hadn’t been for my pesky, meddling kids.

They were the ones roaring with laughter as another Volvo 240 was crushed into metal thinner than a Kate Moss thigh. They were the ones who ‘got’ The Stig.

They even liked Richard Hammond, a man so annoyingly smug he makes Simon Cowell look humble.

And so I was driven to watch it too.

I don’t understand the poor old crowd standing around in a hangar studio though; how can the ones at the back see anything?

And what do they do when it’s an hour-long special from Guatemala? Just turn up, watch the video, applaud and then drive home? Not exactly a great night out.

Having said that, the cunning ploy of placing rather attractive young ladies in camera shot behind three ugly blokes is a smart move. Top leer, you could call it.

Toned down

Critics (them again) have suggested Top Gear is going to tone down its expensive stunts and get back to ‘proper road tests’ (yawn).

Mmm. Not if the first show of the new series is anything to go by; you had May driving up to the edge of that Icelandic volcano as lumps of lava rained down, Hammond crushing a reasonably-priced car under a chimney stack.

Unfortunately, he wasn’t in it.

And Clarkson seeing how many times he could overturn a Reliant Robin on the streets of Sheffield, while winding up ex-miners and stopping Phil Oakey of the Human League from walking his dog.

Sounds weird? Exactly. But it was laugh out loud family entertainment, sprinkled with brilliant, original thinking, great comic timing and Clarkson’s inimitable nod-and-a-wink presenting genius.

Yes, we could go back to Tiff and torque over z-list celebs and talk but after all this time, it would be a bit boring.

The BBC doesn’t get much right for its exorbitant licence fee so I’m all for carrying on the Carry On Driving theme for a while longer yet.

Fire up the Quattro, Jezza – literally.

Bored by it, says Mark

A PODGY middle-aged man drives a Reliant three wheeler through the streets of Sheffield, and thecar tips on its side. A few seconds later he does it again. And again. For the next 15 flippin’minutes.

It wasn’t particularly funny the first time. By the end, it just felt like I had wasted 15 minutes of my life.

Has it really come to this? Time was when Top Gear was one of the most innovative and amusing shows on television.

On Sunday it ended on the bombshell that three-wheel cars can tip over if you drive too fast around a corner.

Surprising that.

Then there was the ‘hilarious’ spoof Yorkshire accent, and the suggestion that Reliant drivers were all stubborn ex miners who never got round to updating their motorcycle licence, which was funny – when it featured in the Top Gear’s Cr*p Cars book. In 2004.

And that really is the problem.

It’s not the blokeyness – I suspect those who criticise it for that are simply venting the frustration of their own dull lives – it’s the fact they seem to have run out of ideas. The format seems to be coming to the end of the road.

The section on the Reliant was little more than a vox pop of Robin owners, the attempt at fitting stabilisers pretty feeble.

Even the stunts are getting dull. Last week the old Reasonably Priced Car was crushed beneath a chimney. A bit tame compared to the 2003 series, when a Toyota crashed from the roof of an exploding tower block. And still started first time.

Lost its edge

Perhaps the recession has affected the budget, perhaps health and safety is affecting the show more than they’re lettijng on. Maybe it just needs freshening up a bit. But the volcano episode aside, Top Gear seems to have lost its edge.

It’s just a bit too safe, a bit to predictable. Clarkson laughs at Hammond’s height, Hammond laughs at Clarkson’s age. Clarkson laughs at James May’s hair. And May talks about the fuel consumption of his Fiat Panda.

No one wants to go back to the dreary old days of Chris Goffey and Noel Edmonds, where the highlight of the show was an investigation in the rustproofing on the Fiat Mirafiori, but are celebrity interviews really what we want in a motoring programme?

I wonder how many fans view the Star in a Reasonably Priced Car a bit like half time in a football match, and nip out and put the kettle while The Singing Detective completes his low-speed crawl around the track.

If they really want to break new ground, why doesn’t Jezza invite his arch-enemy Piers Morgan, who he famously punched at the Press Awards, to be his studio guest?

That would add a bit of spice.

And if they dropped the chimney on Morgan, I’m fairly sure that would silence even the fiercest of critics.