I've just been rewatching parts of seasons 02-05, a period which, IMO, plainly shows the development of TG as a concept. With hindsight, you can even see more clearly in which direction TG was headed, even back then.
I think there's a fourth option missing from this poll, maybe "tweak the show back down to earth" or something like that..
In my humble opinion the team are clearly overdoing the cocking-about-stuff and the "look at us three little boys trapped in the bodies of middleaged presenters"-thing. I just don't buy it anymore. Just as I didn't buy some of the "spontaneous" stuff of seasons past, even back then (Hammond eating cue cards during TG-awards, Hammond and JC "fighting" over the Cool Wall, etc.).
So I guess what I'm saying is: They need a bit more down-to-earth stuff in the show, to make the outrageous stuff more rewarding and fun. If you're going to cock about/not take your subject-matter seriously for an entire show or season, it gets old very fast and your show will soon jump the shark.
Things I'd like to see more of:
- Reviews like Renault M?gane Sport/Astra VXR/Golf V GTI or V8 Vantage/BMW M6/Porsche 911S on the Isle of Man
- Features like "The M-cars" (S03x02) or "The first car with modern controls"
- Challenges like "Cheap Porsches", "Cheap Coup?s" or "Tuning the Renault Avantime"
- Funny, but still consumer-minded, reviews like "Finding a pearl from the Pacific Rim"
- The Cool Wall
- Future classics (VW Corrado, Mercedes 190 Cosworth)
Things I'd like to see less of:
- Using an interesting and new car in a stupid stunt instead of properly reviewing it. (Porsche 911 turbo Cabrio, Lambo Balboni in that *horrid* airship-film)
- Clarksons "proper" Roadtests (Explosions, destruction, "funny" captions.. yawn!)
- One-joke-episodes like the truly terrible "TG builds an electric car".
- Artificial "characterization" of the three presenters. (The noisy one, the quirky one, the absentminded professor in tweed). Mostly notable with James IMO who behaved rather differently (and IMO more naturally) in his first 5/6 seasons.
- Beating jokes to death (Pianos dropping on Marinas, Hammond crashing into James' car during cheap car challenges, etc.)
- Stupid, overlong pieces like the Lancia-film that only have a single point to make. See "The M-cars" for how that kind of film *should* be done.
Wow.. this is getting too long, so I'm stopping myself right here.
In a single sentence: From an "artistic" POV there's no need to axe the show. Just a few tweaks and the old girl could be like new.